The Greatest Lover in All England Read online

  She wasn’t listening. She turned at his direction, let him remove what he would, but she stared straight ahead as if stunned by events too dreadful to absorb.

  He opened the door to the antechamber, a massive room that contained his favorite volumes, a small desk, chests, and tall standing wardrobes filled with clothing, shoes, and anything else he might need. “Come in here and help me find you something to wear.” Seeing that she followed him, he moved inside, opened a chest, and rummaged through the contents. “After you’ve made your choice, I’ll call a serving maid to help you.”

  She made an ugly, broken noise, and he stiffened. Had he erred? “I thought you wouldn’t want me to help you, but gladly I will do so, if that pleases you.” He glanced at her, then openly stared at the spectacle of Rosie, groping along a table that didn’t exist.

  She fondled an invisible post and caressed the air with a knowing touch. In a high, childish tone, she said, “Dada, where’s your bed? Have you moved it? That is not your desk. What happened to the carpet? I liked to sink my toes into it.” Then, in a tearful voice, she added, “I didn’t take it, Dada. I only touched it. I didn’t lose it. Please don’t be angry. Please please please.”

  Standing, Tony moved slowly toward her. He recognized the dazed expression on her face. He’d seen it many times after the fighting on the Continent. When a soldier had had a leg ripped off by a cannonball, or his best friend had been sliced open before his face, he frequently looked and spoke like Rosie. But what had Rosie done? She’d been upset in the other room, but she’d still been Rosie. Now he didn’t know where or who she was. Sliding an arm around her shoulder, lifting her face to his, Tony looked into her eyes. “Rosie?”

  “I didn’t hide it, Dada.”

  Scared, questioning her sanity, he shook her a little. “Rosie?”

  Rosie—the essence, the being—snapped back into place. She touched her forehead with her hand as if checking the truth of her existence, then stared at him before mouthing, “Tony.”

  She tried to flee, but he held her and she fought him. When he wouldn’t let her go, she buried her head in his chest as if she could hide in his arms, and he gladly gave her shelter.

  “He’s not here.” Her muffled words sounded as if she were trying to convince herself. “He’s not here.”

  “Who’s not here?” he demanded.

  She peeked out and started, and her fear and pain vibrated through him. He glanced around, half expecting to see the shade of Lord Sadler, but nothing stirred the tapestries, no sound disturbed the silence except the rain tapping on the window. “What do you see?” he asked.

  “Just a room.” She pointed at the wardrobe. “Was this here before?”

  “I brought it from London with me.”

  She eased herself away from him. “And the desk.”

  “It’s mine, also.”

  Gaining confidence, she stepped away—but not too far away—and feathered her hand along a narrow table. “But this was in the room before.”

  “Aye.”

  “And this?”

  She picked up one of the carvings Lord Sadler had collected, another Madonna and child. She stroked the smooth wood, and he wondered at the memories cradled in her palms. There was no madness here, Tony admitted, only memories so old they tormented Rosie with their flashes of recollection. If this was to be her home, she couldn’t continue denying those memories or her heritage.

  “Did your father like that carving?”

  “I don’t remember.”

  “Was this his table?”

  “I don’t remember.”

  She stood absolutely still, yet he sensed the emotion that roiled beneath her facade. Why was she so angry? So afraid? “Rosie?”

  “I don’t remember anything. I don’t remember this place. I don’t remember the man you say is my father.” Setting the carving down hard on the table, she insisted, “I don’t remember.”

  “I don’t believe you.”

  “Why not?” She turned on him fiercely. “Why doesn’t anyone believe me?”

  “Because you are too emphatic.”

  “I’m not! I’m—” Taking a breath, she gathered her composure around her. “I’ve already warned you that I lay claim to Odyssey Manor, so what is the point of your questioning?”

  “Rosie.” Going to her, he stroked her cheek with his fingers. “Talk to me. Tell me what you remember. Don’t you know you’re Lord Sadler’s daughter?”

  She smiled at him tightly. “Everyone believes I’m Lord Sadler’s daughter. Sir Danny says”—her voice shook—“I’m Lord Sadler’s daughter. Even you say I’m Lord Sadler’s daughter.”

  “Aye, so I do.”

  “Therefore, I must be.” In a softer voice, she said, “Maybe that’s why Sir Danny left me behind.”

  Shudders shook her slender frame, and he pulled her into his arms. She shook him off, wanting none of his comfort, and although he understood the strife within her, her rejection hurt.

  “Come, then,” he said sharply, leading the way toward the light and warmth of the bedchamber. “You’re damp, and this chilly antechamber is no place for a woman who has suffered the loss of one father and the discovery of another.”

  She made no move to follow him. She wilted, sliding back into apathy and anguish, and he couldn’t allow that. She had to stay with him, talk to him, become the vivacious woman that lurked beneath the shadow of want and insecurity.

  She needed a shock. He glanced around the chamber, seeking he knew not what, and said, “You shouldn’t worry about Sir Danny. I sent a letter with him to be delivered to one of my men in the Queen’s Guard, and besides, he’s as wily an old goshawk as ever I’ve seen.” His knife. He pulled his fighting knife from his belt and thrust it under her nose.

  She saw that. She tried to jump back, but he clasped the strings of her shift. “I’m going to remove your stomacher,” he said. “Don’t move.”

  “You can’t.”

  “Watch me.” He sliced the ribbons at the front in one clean slash, made all the more impressive by the sharp edge he honed on his blade. “Oops!” he exclaimed. “Nicked the material. I must not be as proficient as I thought.”

  Her eyes widened, and she sucked in her breath.

  “I’ll have to practice on these.” He cut the strings that held the stomacher together, and the whole contraption fell open.

  “Are you deranged?”

  He’d succeeded. He’d brought her back to life.

  Rosie reacted to his exhibition with fury. “A more childish performance of manly prowess I’ve never seen.”

  Her damp linen above-the-knee shift revealed as much as his had during the sword fight, and she had more to show. Ah, and he wanted to see, but she turned her back and paced toward the bedchamber. The light shone through the fine material and he followed eagerly, captured by the curve of her silhouette.

  He latched the cursed door behind him as she stalked to the fire. “Not that I haven’t seen other childish performances. Men are full of them. Once Sir Danny walked the top rail of the Globe and I thought he…” She brushed her hand across her eyes, and her voice wobbled. “Sir Danny…”

  Tony realized that her fury was disintegrating into tears again. But these tears were different. Not tears of mourning, but tears of rage.

  “How could he have left me here?”

  One of her hose drooped, and with her back to him, she tugged at the loose garter. He saw a peek of curly hair when she bent over. He thought his heart would stop and groped for the big chair set within the ring of warmth.

  Not that he needed the warmth. Somehow a coal had dropped into his lap and it was igniting his whole body.

  “He knows how I feel about losing him. Didn’t he understand that if he dies, I die?”

  Tony tested his restraint, and didn’t grab for her. He tested her knowledge, and asked, “Why should he die now? Why not yesterday? Or tomorrow?”

  “Because today he goes back to London where the earls of Es
sex and Southampton wait for him like vultures wait for carrion. And that’s what Sir Danny is to them. Carrion, just—” She turned on him, and the flames behind her almost banished the straight drape of her shift. He couldn’t have seen any more if she’d been naked.

  The coal in his lap turned from flaming red to intense blue.

  “You know why he’s gone,” she raged. “You know the danger he’s in. How could you encourage him to leave without me?”

  How could she fail to notice the glorious agony of his burning? “What possible good would you be to him?”

  “I can fight as well as any man!”

  “And go to prison as well as any man.” The blaze within him dimmed as his mind brought forth pictures that made him cringe.

  “If that be what is required.”

  “But you’re not a man, and prison has special tortures for women which it reserves almost solely for the fair sex.” Fear stifled his fire, leaving him cool and focused. “And those special tortures would not preserve you from the others which the executioner would call forth.”

  “Upon Sir Danny’s head.”

  Too late he perceived the trap which he had set for himself, but he couldn’t deny the truth. “Sir Danny serves the queen unselfishly, for that is Sir Danny’s nature. Would you have him be less than what he is?”

  “Nay, but I would serve the queen with like generosity.”

  “Sir Danny has delayed his service for love of you. He couldn’t return to London until he knew you had been settled, for your safety means more to him than his hope of salvation.”

  “My safety.” She wrapped her waist in her arms and hugged herself, pulling the shift into her form and up her legs. “I care nothing for my safety if Sir Danny lives not, and am I not the master of my own fate?”

  “Nay, for you are the daughter of Sir Danny’s heart.”

  “You seek to bind me in chains of affection.”

  “Methinks you are already bound, at least by Sir Danny.” His voice deepened as his love and his wanting ignited the spark once more. “And the chains with which I seek to bind you owe little to the paltry emotion of affection.”

  For the first time, she glanced around and realized they were alone. She glanced down and realized how scantily the shift covered her charms, and tugged the them of it as if she could stretch it to cover her legs. “What do you intend?”

  “What do you think I intend?” He grinned at her trepidation. “I’m going to acquaint you with the running of the estate. Your estate. You must know your duties before you present your petition to the queen.”

  “Now? You wish to tell me about the estate now?”

  “Nay, ’tis not what I wish to do.” He stared meaningfully at her body. “But it’s what I must do. There’s one of my shirts draped over the fireguard. Why don’t you trade your wet shift for it?”

  She blushed. “Not likely, varlet!”

  “It’s considerably longer than the one you’re wearing.” She still shook her head, and he still smiled. “Think of it as a way to distract me.”

  She fingered the massive cream-colored shirt that hung on the metal fireguard. “Silk?”

  “I indulge myself.” The smooth pink roundness of her nipples pressed against her shift. If he held them in his palm, they wouldn’t be smooth, regardless of her body heat. They would be tight, puckered, and in his mouth.

  He must have made her nervous, for she babbled, “I’m accustomed to men seeing me without my clothes, you comprehend.”

  He was on his feet without realizing it. “What?”

  “I mean that a gentlewoman cannot dress herself without help, and Sir Danny frequently helped me when I prepared for my acting parts.”

  Sinking down in his chair, he rubbed his cheek with the flat of his hand. “Certes. I knew that was what you meant.” How evil a man he was, to be jealous of the man who loved her like a father.

  “Turn around,” she instructed.

  He covered his eyes with his hands.

  “That won’t do.”

  “Don’t you trust me?”

  She laughed, a rather brusque laugh, and when he peeked through his fingers she had disappeared. He heard a scrabbling behind him, then she came into the light and he forgot to pretend he hadn’t watched. The shirt had never looked like that on him. The cream color accented her brown hair and amber eyes and made her skin glow. It reached well past her knees in a shimmering fall. The full sleeves covered her hands, and she’d tied the neck tight to inhibit his thoughts.

  It didn’t work.

  Luckily, she had refused to remove her hose, baggy things that they were, and the wool material obscured her ankles and knees.

  “You’ll catch a chill from those wet hose,” he said.

  She ignored the hint.

  “Just as well to leave them on,” he grudgingly admitted. “Throw that pillow over here by my feet and sit.”

  “Sit at your feet, sir? I will not.”

  “Bring a comb, too. I’ll untangle your hair.”

  Lifting her hand self-consciously, she touched the wisps that stuck out in wild profusion.

  He nodded at her unspoken question. “Aye, it looks like a bird made a nest on your head. The comb’s over there.”

  With a cushion under one arm and the comb in the other, she did his bidding, and he rejoiced at her obedience. She was obviously in a weakened state, and he planned to make inroads on her resistance while he could.

  “The parish on this estate supports over three hundred souls.” Separating the strands of her braid, he began to work the ivory comb through the damp tangles. “When I arrived at Odyssey Manor, the estate had been in the queen’s hands for thirteen years, and much neglected. The villagers were hovering on the edge of starvation, and I sank my free capital into renovating the manor. Necessary, but also good for the economy of the parish.”

  “How generous of you.” Her obvious interest offset her sarcasm. “I’ll see that you’re compensated.”

  “Not at all. I’d been planning my whole life for the moment I acquired an estate of my own, and nothing was more important than the health of my property and my people.” The wide-set teeth of the comb bit into the glossy brown, subduing the wildness and leaving sleek wet strands in his hands. “Can you understand that?”

  “I think so.”

  Her cautious answer didn’t fool him. He depended on her comprehension to build a longing for the land. “During the spring and summer, we hire an additional six men to work on the grounds. That causes a hardship in the fields, but I discovered early that the villagers would rather be overworked than ignored, and that professional gardeners are sneered at in the country.” Up and down the comb worked, massaging her scalp, spreading the individual hairs to dry. “Having Hal as a steward has worked marvelously well, for he’s a native and conscientious beyond the bounds of duty. Should you persuade the queen to grant you this estate, you would be well served to keep Hal on.”

  As he talked and worked his fingers through her hair, he saw her tension dissipate.

  “What’s the use of learning about the estate when I only wanted it for Sir Danny?”

  She loved Sir Danny, true. She loved him above all things, and that mortified Tony, for surely by now the silly woman should have developed fond and lusty feelings for him. But if she had, she hid them well, and he resolved to hold the mirror before her face until she saw herself as she truly was—selfish and considerate, grasping and generous. A human like any other. A human like him.

  Turning her to look at him, he said, “You only wanted it for Sir Danny? Who would you have laugh at such a jest? Not me, Lady Rosalyn. I know why you demanded your rights to the estate. You may not like it, but you and I are as alike as two litter mates.”

  “We are not!”

  “Aren’t we? Two travelers through the world, never quite as good as the others for no fault of our own, branded by the cruelest of epithets—bastard for me, actor for you.”

  “Not so,” she said faintly,
but he persisted.

  “You know me, but what’s worse for you—I know you. I know how the wandering life left you longing for a place of your own, where you could strip off the disguise and be what you are and not what others expect you to be. You longed for the dirt in which to sink your roots and the time to remain and grow. When you laid claim to this estate, I knew what was in your heart, and you can’t tell me that the land will mean any less to you should Sir Danny perish. If anything, it will mean more.”

  Unnerved by his acute observations, she struggled to speak. “Not so. If Sir Danny should die, I’ll have nothing left to live for.”

  He chuckled, and wrath and hurt struggled for supremacy on her countenance. “When I threatened you with the knife, you struggled against me. If you had no reason to live, you would have let me slit your throat.”

  She didn’t want to admit that life once more coursed through her veins. He suspected her blossoming fascination seemed like a betrayal of Sir Danny, and she said defensively, “I don’t know that he’s dead yet.”

  “Exactly.” With his thumb, he traced the tracks of her tears, then rising, wet a cloth and returned. “Think on it, Rosie. Think of the injustice you do Sir Danny by donning mourning black before his death, and think of how proud he’ll be when you prove his faith in you by taking control of your responsibilities. He’ll know then he made the right decision.”

  “He won’t know if he’s dead!”

  “Oh, won’t he?” He held her gaze until she looked down, then with the expertise of a parent, he scrubbed her tearstained face.

  He was done before she could do more than struggle and cry, “Hey!”

  He chuckled. “I have experience with rebellious children.”

  “Yours?” she asked sullenly.

  He checked, then hustled her toward the bed. “Nay. Didn’t you know? My brother Michael has eight little heirs whom I have undressed and placed in bed, and that is what I plan to do with you now.”

  As he expected, she clutched the bottom of his shirt. “What?”