The Greatest Lover in All England Read online

  Behind him, Ludovic growled.

  Ludovic’s ferocity seemed to recall Sir Danny to himself, and he said, “It’s a mistake, Ludovic. Don’t make trouble.” Taking a breath, he rubbed his chest like a man calming a fractious horse. “Rosie, you startled me. For a moment, I thought you had actually seen his man-root, when actually you just observed his canions.”

  “Tony took me swimming.”

  Sir Danny’s cheeks turned maroon, his whole figure inflated like a puffball after a rain, and his shout swamped Ludovic’s reaction. “I have never strapped you before, but I will now unless you tell me true—you went swimming with Sir Anthony?”

  “It was Tony a few moments ago,” she observed.

  “You removed your clothing?”

  “I didn’t.”

  He sighed in relief.

  “He did.”

  His eyes narrowed. “All of it?”

  “All of it.”

  Sir Danny slammed his fist into the thin wall. Outside, she heard a litany of foreign curses, and one mighty thump as Ludovic imitated Sir Danny.

  She watched with a simmering excitement as Sir Danny paced along the tiny aisle. It wasn’t acting that whirled him around the wagon, it was fury, and his honest recoil gave her hope.

  Tony’s presumption infuriated Sir Danny, but Sir Danny’s indecision had infuriated her. Adding fuel to the flame, she said, “On the morrow, Tony says, he’ll take me to Tiny Mary’s.”

  Shaking his injured hand, Sir Danny said, “Tiny Mary’s? The madam’s? For what?”

  “In sooth, for my first experience with a woman.”

  “With a woman? He’s taking you to swive a woman?”

  “That is his intention.”

  With a scream of fury, Sir Danny launched another attack on the wall, battering it with both his fists before slamming the door in Ludovic’s face. Diving for the trunk under his bed, Sir Danny dragged it out. Rosie poked a few more beans in the bag and watched curiously as he tossed aside his shedding fur cloak, his scepter covered with bits of broken glass, and wrapped in kersey, his gilt crown. His most precious possessions, these—the props that turned him from a vagabond actor to a king.

  But he ignored them as if they were tawdry in his eyes and dug to the bottom.

  “What do you seek?” she asked.

  “This.” He lifted a yellowed paper from the lining of the trunk.

  “And what will you do with it?”

  “This.” He grabbed her hand and jerked her toward the door.

  The bag spilled beans in a great cascade over the floor, and she cried, “Wait! I’m not ready to perform.”

  Stuffing the paper into the gap of his doublet, he inquired, “Do you really think Sir Anthony is going to be looking for your man-root?”

  So they were going to see Tony. “Well, actually, aye.” Sir Danny jerked open the door and dragged her down the step. “He never seems to look at anything else.”

  “Like he’s looking for something?” Sir Danny turned to face her so abruptly she bumped into him. “Or nothing?”

  She met his fury with a fury of her own. “I don’t understand why you’re so angry. You told me to behave like a cocky youth, and I’ve done as you instructed. Tony so strongly believed me to be a cocky youth that he bathed in front of me.”

  The cords in Sir Danny’s neck stood out, and the skin over them stretched taut. “I’ll kill him.”

  “Nay.” Ludovic’s voice sounded thick as porridge. “I’ll kill him.”

  They had forgotten he stood there, but he looked like some foreign hardwood tree, feet rooted in the soil, soul sucking strength from his anger.

  Sir Danny laid claim. “It’s my task.”

  Ludovic scoffed. “A little man like you against that Tony lecher? Leave him to me.”

  Rosie could have groaned at the challenge to Sir Danny’s virility.

  Taking Ludovic’s tunic in his fist, Sir Danny said, “Mayhap you’ve never heard the old English saying, Ludovic, but let me enlighten you now.” Sir Danny stood on tiptoe and glared into Ludovic’s face. “If you stick your man-root where it’s not wanted, you’ll likely have it shortened. Now”—he gestured widely—“get back to work.”

  Ludovic steamed like a kettle on the boil. “I will work as I please.”

  Cocky as a miniature rooster, Sir Danny said, “You will work as you please when I am dead.”

  Looming over him, Ludovic replied, “That can be arranged.”

  Rosie stepped between them and cried, “Blast you both! Stop fighting. You!” She pointed a finger at Ludovic. “Start the troupe packing. One way or the other, we’re leaving this place.”

  Ludovic hesitated, and she gestured again. With a bow, he went.

  “And you!” She pointed at Sir Danny. “Come with me. We have blackmail to perform.”

  “Have you been managing me, Rosie?” She didn’t answer, and Sir Danny grinned. “Why, I didn’t think you had it in you. ’Tis the season for revelations, it seems.” Grabbing her by the wrist, he pulled her across the lawn at a great rate. They almost ran up the steps and into the house. “We must beard Sir Anthony Rycliffe in his den.” He beckoned a servant. “My good man! Can you tell me where we may find Sir Anthony?”

  The servant bowed, a little uncertain. “He’s in the study. If you would wait here, I’ll get someone to show you.”

  He walked toward the end of the long gallery, but Sir Danny sniffed contemptuously. “He’ll go guard the silver. Well, I’ll not wait for permission to visit my vengeance on that yeaforsooth knave. Come, my dearest.” He tucked Rosie’s hand into his arm. “Let us find Sir Anthony ourselves.”

  He started toward the opposite end of the gallery, but she stopped him. “The serving lad said the study. The study is here.” She pointed at a tall door set in the paneled wall facing the outside door.

  “Nay,” Sir Danny said. “Why would the master put his study where he’s bound to get a draft?”

  “He likes to know who comes and goes,” she answered, flinging the door wide.

  A sarcastic “Enter,” proved they’d found Tony.

  She cast one triumphant glance at Sir Danny, then thought, Just get it over with. There was nothing here that could harm her, and they couldn’t leave until they’d done this, so just get it over with.

  “Enter!” Tony called again.

  She sailed in—and stopped.

  Hiding in the dark desk kneehole, hugging herself and listening while they all searched. “Where’s Rosie?”

  “I don’t know. Mayhap she went to London to see the queen.”

  “Where’s Rosie?”

  “I don’t know. Mayhap a fairy kidnapped her and she’s dancing under the moon.”

  “Where’s Rosie?”

  Popping out into the candlelight. “Here I am!”

  Strong hands lifting her high, a beloved face smiling, a deep voice crying, “Here she is. Here’s my girl.”

  “Come on, my girl.” Sir Danny grabbed her arm again as he swept into the room, dragging her forward. Tony sat, pen in hand, behind a desk piled high with correspondence. “Sirrah, we have business to discuss.”

  Plain speaking with a vengeance. Sir Danny must be truly angry to so ignore the forms of elegant phrasing, but it wouldn’t last. He’d been imagining this scene for months, Rosie knew, writing and rewriting his mental script, trying to assure he had an answer for every possible variation.

  He trusted her to do no more than remain silent, and that she willingly did.

  Tony leaned back in his carved wood chair and studied them. His clean white shirt and black doublet gave him a Puritan-like appearance, the look of a man wise in the ways of business and wise to the ways of sin.

  Sin. Sin such as acting, blackmailing…why did that carving resting on the massive desk look so familiar?

  “Do we?” Tony asked.

  “Aye, that we do.”

  “Do ye wish t’ speak t’ these folk, Sir Anthony?”

  Rosie recognized
the rasping voice and turned to see the man with the close-cropped gray hair standing in the doorway. The steward. The man who’d held her down while Tony set her arm, and then sneaked into her nightmares.

  “I’ll speak to them,” Tony replied. “Shut the door behind you.”

  Hal bowed with every appearance of respect, but Rosie shivered. There was something about Hal, something not quite right. His gray hair, his wrinkles, his expression portrayed an old man bludgeoned by life. But how old was he, really?

  Sir Danny joggled her elbow, bringing her attention back to the scene that they must play. “It has come to my attention, sir, that this estate is a grant from Queen Elizabeth.”

  Tony nodded in austere agreement. “Queen Elizabeth did indeed grant me this estate.”

  The carving beckoned Rosie, begged for attention. She could almost imagine its weight, the wood smoothed to the grain…although it faced Tony, she knew it to be a simple depiction of the Madonna and child, old beyond imagining.

  “And all belongings of the Bellot family?” Sir Danny insisted.

  “Aye, all belongings of the extinct Bellot family.”

  At that moment, the drama swept Sir Danny up. His hand dropped away from Rosie’s arm, his voice gained depth and expression, and he gestured grandly. “The family is not extinct.”

  “So I’ve been hearing.” Tony rose slowly, his chair scraping the floor as he pushed it back. “Do I have you to thank for those scurrilous rumors?”

  “Not rumors, sirrah, but the truth.”

  Without volition, Rosie’s hand crept across the desk and picked up the knickknack. It wasn’t as heavy as she expected, and she used such force to swing it up all eyes focused on her.

  Tony observed Rosie. She jumped when she turned the faces to her—the faces of the Madonna and child. He asked, “Do you like it? It was one of Edward Lord Sadler’s prized possessions, I am told. Saved from the destruction of an abbey on these lands, and created even before the Normans won this fair isle.”

  Sir Danny placed a steadying hand on her shoulder, but spoke the words of the script. “Young Rosencrantz probably remembers it from his childhood.”

  “Ah, now we get to it.” Tony’s sharp gaze never left Rosie as she placed the statue on the edge of the desk, then skimmed the surface with the fingertips of her good hand, reading it with the concentration of a blind woman. “What are you saying, Sir Danny?”

  Tony, too, seemed to have read the script.

  With a dramatic flourish, Sir Danny replied, “I’m saying that—”

  Rosie cleared a place at the opposite end of the desk and replaced the carving there. That seemed the right place for it.

  “—Rosencrantz is the missing heir.”

  “Nay!” In exaggerated dismay, Tony caught his throat with both hands. “Then I will have to leave Odyssey Manor at once so young Rosencrantz can assume his heritage.”

  Rosie moved the inkwell, then the sharpened quills. She rearranged a pile of papers and found an old ink-blot. She touched it and looked at her fingers, but no ink stained them. At least, not this time. She adjusted the sealing wax, and looked for the seal which should be in the niche beside it. It wasn’t there, and she glanced around. Not on the desk. Kneeling, she searched the floor. Not on the floor.

  Where was—

  I didn’t take it, Dada.

  Dada won’t be angry, but you must tell me where it is.

  I didn’t take it for keeps.

  Dada needs it. Tell me. Tell me, Rosie.

  “Rosie?” Tony crouched beside her. “Are you ill?”

  His face was the wrong face, his time was the wrong time. Was she ill? “Nay.” Maybe. “Nay, I’m well.”

  Sir Danny lifted her with his hand under her armpit and brushed the hair back from her forehead. Compassion put a rein on his histrionics; he seemed to have forgotten his lines.

  Rosie glanced at Tony, who stood brushing his knees, then at Sir Danny. The eerie sensation of familiarity stifled her, and she wanted out now. Hurriedly, she offered, “We will accept recompense.”

  Tony’s cynicism returned in a hurry. How well she played the part of bewildered child to soften him for the monetary demands! Perching one hip on his desk, he folded his arms across his chest. “Generous of you, considering you have no proof.”

  “You require proof?” Sir Danny gestured at Rosie. “As you can see, Rosencrantz is the right age to be the heir.”

  “And his hair is brown, too. Lord Sadler’s hair was brown,” Tony marveled. “What a resemblance. Why didn’t I see it sooner?”

  They stood too close together: Sir Danny, Rosie, and Tony. She felt hemmed in, overpowered by the men, a pawn in a chess game they played.

  “There’s only one problem.” Tony grinned into her face. “The heir—”

  She braced herself for some unknown shock.

  “—was a girl.”

  She hadn’t braced herself enough. “What?” She stepped back, knocking Sir Danny aside.

  “A daughter,” Tony clarified, watching her for signs of betrayal. “Lord Sadler’s only child was a girl. You’re not a girl. Are you?”

  With her hair pulled back from her forehead and no cosmetics to camouflage her complexion, all of Rosie’s face lay pitifully bare. Horror, shock, and a sense of betrayal left it as white as well-milled flour. “A mistake.” Rosie caught Sir Danny’s arm with her free hand. “There’s been a mistake. We’ll go now.”

  “Why hurry?” Tony straightened, towering over Rosie and Sir Danny. “Stay.”

  “We have to go. Sir Danny.” She tugged again at him. “Let’s go.”

  She fluttered frantically, like a pheasant facing the hunter’s arrow. Either she truly hadn’t known the heir was a female, or she was a magnificent actress, and she’d already proved that to be false.

  But what game was Sir Danny playing? Why wasn’t he backing toward the door? Why was he smiling at Rosie in the manner of a father giving his frightened daughter into the hands of a loving husband?

  “Danny, I beg you, Danny…”

  She whispered hoarsely, clearly choked with some kind of emotion, but Sir Danny took both her cheeks in his hands and kissed her mouth, kissed her as if he bade her farewell. “Trust me,” he murmured, and pulled a paper from inside his vest. Handing it to Tony, he said, “If you would read this, sir, you would see the truth of the matter, and this news might be better received if you are sitting firm in a chair.”

  Taking heed, Tony seated himself. He pressed his back firmly against the cushions to soften the blow, for Rosie’s obvious anxiety, Sir Danny’s burgeoning air of elation, warned Tony of the truth even before his gaze skimmed the document.

  Written in a shaking hand, it consigned the child Lady Rosalyn Elizabeth Ann Katherine Bellot to the care of the actor Danny Plympton. It instructed the reader of this letter to allow and assist said Danny Plympton to place the child Rosalyn in Her Royal Majesty Queen Elizabeth’s care. It reminded the reader that the child Rosalyn was heir to a fortune and an estate, and the queen herself would pay most dearly for the return of said child so she could be brought up according to the circumstances of her birth. Finally, it called down the curses of heaven on anyone who dared interfere with Danny Plympton’s holy mission or the proper placement of the child Rosalyn.

  Tony wanted to shout his skepticism to the skies. This was a forgery. This was part of the plan to dispossess him. This was treachery at its deadliest. This could not be the truth.

  So he would play out the scene, stripping Rosie of her disguise and Sir Danny of his falsehoods.

  “An interesting document.” Tony tossed it contemptuously on the desk. “But to whom does it pertain?”

  “Aye.” Rosie placed one fist on her hip and arched back like a cocky youth. “What is this document, Sir Danny, and to whom does it pertain?”

  “It is the will of a dying man.” Sir Danny looked right at her. “And it pertains to you. Dear girl—”

  “Girl?” Tony mocked.


  “Girl?” Rosie drew an audible breath.

  Sir Danny’s smile mellowed. “Sir Tony ridicules us. No man ever laid hands on a woman’s chest and failed to realize what he held.”

  Her fist slipped off her hip as if it had been greased.

  He wouldn’t have believed it possible, but Tony was amused. “Is that what you told her? That I didn’t realize I held a woman’s breast in my hand?”

  With profound significance, Sir Danny explained, “She is an innocent.”

  Her bare face, previously so pale, flushed ruddy with color. Hugging her injured arm, she turned her back to them and swept to the window where she gazed out onto the lands.

  Her lands? His lands? What had Sir Danny wrought? And why? Most crucially—

  “Why?” Tony demanded aloud. “Why, Sir Danny?”

  Sir Danny combed his flowing mustache with his fingertips. “There are many whys in this situation, sir. You’ll have to specify—”

  “If this document is the truth, and not some wretched forgery, then why did you not do as Lord Sadler instructed and take the child Rosalyn to the queen?”

  Clearly uncomfortable, Sir Danny confessed, “I…do not read, and the gentleman…was dying, most horribly. He could speak only a little, and that none too clear, for the fever carried him off repeatedly.”

  “It was the plague?”

  Everyone knew the appearance of the black death; it had made itself a familiar visitor to England, and Tony never doubted Sir Danny when he said, “Most definitely. The gentleman had purple buboes on his neck, and his armpits and groin were swollen.”

  “And you stayed?” Tony invested his voice with scorn.

  Sir Danny stood as tall as his height would allow and looked Tony in the face. “Lord Sadler suffered the agonies of the damned, so worried was he about his daughter. Do you think I would abandon him? Do you think I could leave that child to die?”

  “Black death was almost certainly her fate, and hence yours, also. Yet you stayed?”

  From the still figure at the window came a soft utterance. “Sir Danny Plympton has always done all that is in his power to be kind, and he will always do what is righteous.”

  Tony glanced at the figure silhouetted against the sun. Her cheek rested against the diamond-cut panes of glass, and she stared fixedly at something: the sill, the stone wall, the bit of outdoors she could see. Her hunched shoulders, her pinched expression bespoke pain past bearing, but she defended Sir Danny. Not surprisingly, she believed Sir Danny’s compassion to be greater than his fear. Tony himself believed it.