The Greatest Lover in All England Read online

  “The true heir to Odyssey Manor. I told Daddy it was just a rumor and the queen still loved you—how could she not?—and that even if it were true, I could marry you and my family could provide for us, but he wouldn’t listen.”

  She wailed like a babe deprived of its teat while Tony patted her hand and plotted. Plotted with the speed and efficiency of a general faced with a battle that altered even as he observed.

  He broke into laughter. Hearty laughter, amused laughter—forced laughter, but Lady Blanche didn’t realize that. “Is that old story making the rounds again?” Placing his fists on his hips, he roared with laughter—the kind of laughter that attracted attention. The kind of laughter that brought his guests out of hiding to watch and listen. “Who is the heir this time?” He whooped. “My dairymaid? An impoverished noblewoman? Or some bit o’ skirt from London who’s heard the tale and plans to earn a pound with it?”

  Guests began to seep out of the open doors, attracted by food and explanation.

  “Good morrow, brother.” Jean greeted him with a kiss on the cheek. “You’re jolly this morn.”

  “Aye, I’ve heard my favorite fairy tale.” Surely she’d come to him because she’d heard the murmurs. Grateful for her support, he hugged her heartily. “Again.”

  “Good morrow.” Lord Hacker strolled out, stretching and yawning just as if he hadn’t been lurking behind the tapestries. “Are you telling fairy tales, Tony?”

  “Aye, ’tis the tale of the missing heir. Would you like to hear it?” Tony walked over and picked up a plate. “I’ve heard it so many times I can recite it by heart.”

  Two couples wandered out, followed by a gaggle of Tony’s candidates all dressed in traveling clothes. Had all his guests planned to sneak out without a word?

  “It was a tragedy, Tony.” Jean took a plate, also, and shot an instructive glance at the fascinated servants. They sprang to attention, holding their spoons like soldiers brandishing muskets. As they dished out eggs and cut ham, she said, “Lord Sadler and his small daughter fled their London town house when a footman fell dead from plague, didn’t they?”

  “Aye.” Tony presented Lady Cavilham with a plate, a bow, and a smile, and he was relieved to see her unwillingly smile back.

  Good. He at least hadn’t lost his charm overnight.

  He continued, “They left quickly, planning to return here, taking only the essentials in a traveling coach”—he paused dramatically, drawing the rest of the guests outside—“and disappeared, never to be seen alive again.”

  “I remember.” An older woman whose face reflected a long life, Lady Caustun-Oaks nodded. “The coach was later found, was it not?”

  “Stripped of its accoutrements and without its horses, with the decomposing bodies of Lord Sadler and the little girl’s nursemaid inside, and the coachman not far away.” The grim facts wiped all shreds of self-interest from Tony’s mind.

  The gaggle of young women whimpered.

  “I beg your pardon,” he said solemnly. “Such a reflection of our own mortality is not breakfast conversation.”

  “Were they murdered?” one girl asked.

  “I remember, too,” Jean said, nodding at Lady Caustun-Oaks. “’Twas the plague which killed them, and how anyone had the nerve to go into that den of contagion to steal the luggage, the money, even the jewelry off the bodies, I will never know.”

  “The queen was grief-stricken at the loss.” Lady Honora stepped onto the terrace, correct and erect. “Lord Edward was one of her favorite courtiers, and she wanted his ring—the ring she’d given him—to remember him by. But it was gone, gone with the thief who took the rest.”

  “May his soul be damned to hell.” Tony meant it in a way he couldn’t explain. True, the thief had taken a tragic story and made it into a mystery that would vex Tony for the rest of his life. But more than that, the soldier in him despised anyone who would loot the corpses of the honored dead.

  “Did they find the little girl?” It was Lady Blanche, finally drawn out of the bushes and into the conversation by the same gruesome curiosity that held the others.

  Tony handed her a plate. “Better eat before your journey, Lady Blanche.” She accepted it with a wavering smile, and he said, “Nay, the child was never found, nor even her body. It was assumed she had wandered off and died.”

  Jean shook her head. “’Twas the thief’s fault. I knew that child. She adored her father, and he adored her. She would never have left his side, not even when he had died. The thief must have stolen her.”

  “Why?” Lady Blanche’s big eyes bulged, and she invested the single word with horror.

  “Perhaps she wasn’t ill, and he took her to sell her into prostitution.” Lord Bothey stepped out the door, glaring at his daughter. “That’s what happens to girls who don’t obey their fathers.”

  Lady Blanche lost color, but Lady Honora drew herself up to her full height. “I obeyed my father when I married, and I might as well have been sold into prostitution.” The company gasped, and Lord Bothey’s eyes looked like his daughter’s, large and shocked. “So don’t try to frighten the girl with that threat, Freddie. It’s just your nasty bully tactics.”

  “Too true, Father.” Tossing her head, Lady Blanche said, “So I’ll stay here.”

  “You will not!” her father roared. “We’re leaving at once. If the orphan-heir has returned, this upstart Tony will be out of his estate and I’ll be saddled with an indigent son-in-law.”

  The company looked from Lord Bothey to Tony, and Tony didn’t disappoint them. “Lord Bothey, you’re forgetting a few things.”

  “Eh?” Knowing he had overstepped his bounds, Lord Bothey turned the color of the scarlet embroidery on his shirt and glared.

  “One servant returned alive from London—my steward, Hal. He was left in London to bring back the horses, and he says when Lord Sadler and the child left, the child was ill already. Even if she might have recovered—and we all know how unlikely that is—she couldn’t have recovered without someone’s care. Her father died, her nursemaid died, the coachman died, and no one would have stolen the girl if she were ill of the plague. No one is that mad, and so the fate of the child is a mystery.” Pausing, he let that sink in, then added, “Our gentle queen was indeed grief-stricken by the loss of Lord Edward, and she ordered a search for him that did not falter for years. For five years, Lord Bothey. The manor was empty for fifteen years in total. Not until Queen Elizabeth’s deepest uncertainties had been laid to rest did she remand this property to me. To imagine the existence of an heir is to doubt the wisdom of our queen.”

  “I say,” Lord Bothey sputtered. “I say!”

  “For that reason”—Tony stepped as close to Lord Bothey as Lord Bothey’s unpadded, protruding stomach would allow—“and through no fault of her own, I cannot beg your daughter to be my wife. An upstart such as myself dares not ally himself with a family whose patriarch lacks confidence in the monarchy.”

  There was one collective hiss as the company sucked in their breaths, and Lord Bothey turned white. “I never…I don’t lack confidence in our blessed queen! I never mentioned that no woman should sit on the throne of England, that it was against the law of God and man. I never suggested such a thing.”

  “Oh, Daddy.” Lady Blanche moaned in despair.

  “If I were you, Lord Bothey,” Jean said, “I would repair to London at once and assure our blessed sovereign of your confidence in her. She will not be pleased when she hears of the resurrection of this rumor, and need I remind you, you are not her favorite courtier.” And my brother is, she added without words.

  Tony looked around at the shocked noblefolk. “Come, let us eat and wish Lord Bothey and his family Godspeed. The rest of you, I assume, will be staying?”

  Everyone nodded in unison, like dumb sheep who dared not oppose their shearer. He had squelched their flight with guile and fear, for none would dare risk Elizabeth’s wrath by giving validity to the talk of the heir’s return. But he couldn’t ke
ep them here forever, he knew. One by one they would invent excuses and slip off, wanting to see him fall yet anxious not to be involved.

  This damnable rumor had blossomed fast. Too fast. Had it been making the rounds the last few days, or had it spread like wildfire from Sir Danny’s single mention of it last night? Was Sir Danny repeating what he heard, or was he the instigator of the tale?

  The house party might be coming to an end, but the acting company would have to stay. Stay until Tony reached the bottom of the matter, and that might mean a fortnight, a moon…he thought of Rosie lying upstairs in his bed, and smiled. A twelvemonth.

  “Good morrow, all! Shall we feast while our appetite is keen?” Oblivious to the undercurrents, Ann stood in the doorway and beamed on the company.

  “We shall indeed,” Tony agreed. “And my appetite, I find, is most keen.”

  Although not for food. He thirsted after knowledge, and would not Rosie be the best way to obtain that knowledge? Wouldn’t he, in his own best interests, have to interrogate the one he suspected of being the pivot of this whole plot? And if she proved impervious to subtle interrogation, might he not have to torture the truth from her?

  Oh, not literally, of course. He didn’t physically torture women. He persuaded them with the weapons he had on hand. And in this case, the best weapon he had on hand might be…his hands.

  He looked down at his fingers, and again they were cupped in the memorable shape of Rosie’s breast.

  8

  There’s rosemary, that’s for remembrance

  —HAMLET, IV, v, 174

  “I don’t understand Ophelia. She’s a pitiful woman.” Rosie crossed one arm over her belly and held it as if she eaten too many green apples. “I want to do Laertes.”

  “Laertes is an important role in Hamlet, but Ophelia is a pivotal role. The troupe needs you to be Ophelia, just as you’ve been Beatrice and Hermia.” The warm sunshine caressed Sir Danny and his student as they sat on the terrace, but his explanation didn’t ease Rosie’s defensive posture, and Sir Danny corrected himself. “We need you to perform with more passion than you did with Beatrice and Hermia. ’Tis easy to convince an audience that you’re a woman when you are a woman in truth. ’Tis even easy to elucidate correctly, to make the grand gestures and capture their attention, but you say you want to make them laugh and cry.”

  “So I do.”

  “They’ll cry for Ophelia. The prince she believed loves her rejects her most brutally, then kills her father. Feel her emotions—despair, anguish, uncertainty.”

  She stared at him solemnly, listening, trying to absorb his knowledge of acting, yet resisting the very root of its lore. It frustrated him, like trying to pour his wisdom into a closed container.

  Moving closer so their knees bumped, he cupped Rosie’s face. “It’s so easy, Rosie, for you of all people. Don’t you remember when I rescued you from—”

  “Nay!” Rosie jerked her head away from his hands.

  “—from that pestilent carriage wherein—”

  “Nay!” Rosie jumped and strode to the edge of the terrace. Her arm remained in a sling, but she clasped the rail with her free hand and stared out across the fields. Most of Rycliffe’s guests had slipped away in the past three weeks, propelled by the rumors Danny himself had started, and the quiet was almost oppressive.

  He could hear the rustle of each leaf as it dropped to the ground, and the birds as they mourned its downfall. Rosie mourned, too, he thought. Mourned a way of life that was now ending. She knew it, although she didn’t admit it, and only Sir Danny, the great, the magnificent, understood how that change would take place.

  He hated to hurt her. He’d always hated to hurt her, and that’s why he’d let her slide along all these years, having nightmares while he pretended he didn’t know what caused them. He’d thought they would get better as time went on, and they had, but they still existed for her, hovering on the edges of her memory, creating shadows in her eyes. Returning sometimes with such intensity she screamed out.

  They’d been coming more often lately, ever since the troupe had arrived at Odyssey Manor. Her acting had worsened, too, as if she feared the demons in her mind might take over her life.

  He’d come to think that maybe, just maybe, the demons she imprisoned also imprisoned her, and they would have to be released before she would be free.

  There was more at stake here than just acting. Her life was at stake now.

  “Rosie.” He went to her side and hugged her shoulder. “Let’s talk about Ophelia, shall we?”

  “I know the story.”

  She’d never been so curt with him. It might be that her arm was paining her, but he didn’t think so. More likely it was an acute apprehension brought on by her first brush with desire. He smothered a grin. God might yet see fit to punish Sir Danny for his sin of neglect, but it relieved Sir Danny to know God had not visited any great misfortune on Rosie.

  Oh, she might think so when Tony watched her with smoldering intent. Feminine instinct, no doubt, told her the reason for her uneasiness. But Sir Danny had protected her from men and their designs as valiantly as—Sir Danny tossed his hair back and arched his neck—as valiantly as the great Zeus himself might protect his own daughter. So Rosie believed him when in desperation he’d said that Tony’s gropings didn’t necessarily mean Tony had realized then that she was a woman.

  Tony knew. Tony wanted her. But for reasons of his own, Tony had not revealed her. Not to anyone. Which meant Tony played a game of his own.

  Lesser men than Sir Danny might be concerned about Tony’s intent, but to Sir Danny, the uncertainty only added to the pique. How enlightening to see how Tony thought! How stimulating to gamble with a master competitor!

  Of course the knowledge that he held the trump only added to his satisfaction.

  “Ophelia is the daughter of Polonius, the king’s minister,” Sir Danny said. “She loves her father, and she also loves Hamlet, the prince.”

  “Loving has made a jest with her,” Rosie said.

  “Verily, it has.” Sir Danny turned his back to the scene and slid onto the railing, sitting where he could watch her face. “Prince Hamlet turns on her when he discovers his mother has wed his father’s brother and murderer.”

  “Typical man,” she muttered. “Blaming one woman for another’s perfidy.”

  Sir Danny perked up. “Do you speak of anyone I know?”

  “Nay.” She traced a vein in the marble. “Do all men smile with their mouths and not their eyes?”

  “Why say you so?”

  “It seems that Sir Tony and Ludovic do so when they are together—at least when I am with them.”

  “Ah, Ludovic.” Ludovic had proved to be a complication. Sir Danny gambled with Tony, but Ludovic was wild, the unknown factor in the deck. He hadn’t been invited to play, but he made his presence known, and he made his knowledge known, also.

  He knew Rosie’s secret, and he wanted her. That had been the suspicion that drove Sir Danny to do what he should have done so many years before. But the time had not yet come to reveal what he’d discovered, and Ludovic thought Rosie available to him.

  She was not. She would never be available to Ludovic. She was fine and pure, so far above Ludovic he might as well have tried to snare a star. Ludovic knew it, too, in his saner moments, but Sir Danny had begun to brood about Ludovic’s sanity, or at least his single-mindedness. Ludovic’s hostility to Tony might result in a battle.

  Tony was a big, well-muscled man, bursting with health and in a position of power, but that didn’t mean he would prevail against a ruthless warrior like Ludovic.

  Ludovic, as Sir Danny knew, fought to win. So did Tony.

  Picking his words carefully, Sir Danny said, “Ludovic wishes to protect you from any threat. Tony wishes to be your friend. Ludovic doesn’t understand that it might be possible for you to be a friend of Tony’s so he is wary of Tony’s intentions.”

  “Like Ophelia’s brother?”

  He
r intuition startled him sometimes. “What?”

  “Isn’t Ludovic like Laertes? He cautions Ophelia not to believe Hamlet’s protestations of love. Ludovic has told me that aristocrats like Tony only pretend to have a friendship with an actor.” She peered at him. “Isn’t that true?”

  “Not always.” Sir Danny brightened. “As you know, the earl of Southampton is a friend to Will Shakespeare.”

  “He’s his patron,” Rosie replied. “And he definitely patronizes Uncle Will.”

  “Aye, well.” Sir Danny scrambled for some other example, but could think of none. “Do you think you should be wary of Tony? He seems to me to be the depository of all virtues.”

  “That’s what worries me.”

  “Hmm?”

  “He seems that way to me, too.”

  He turned his head away to hide his hopeful face. “I think mayhap Tony feels a responsibility to you after setting your arm. The time you spent in his room allowed his affection for you to take root and grow. He is an admirable gentleman. Don’t you agree?” If all Sir Danny’s brightest hopes for Rosie had been brought to life, they would have molded Sir Anthony Rycliffe in the flesh.

  But Rosie shook her head. “I don’t know. He’s very refined, but beneath that facade I sense a different man. Tough as dried meat and twice as hard to swallow. He’s nobody’s fool, Sir Danny. He’s like Hamlet, who knows of the murderous plot which killed his father, yet keeps his counsel to catch the perpetrator.”

  “And are you like Ophelia,” Sir Danny probed, “torn between your love for Hamlet and your love for your father?”

  “I do not love Tony—”

  Sir Danny observed her befuddlement, and thought, Trembling on the verge, my dear.

  “—but I do love you, and I tell you, if you insist on carrying out this blackmail scheme, Tony will be more like Hamlet than I would like.”

  “You mean, he will kill your father as Hamlet killed Ophelia’s father?”

  “I fear for you.”

  He couldn’t doubt Rosie’s sincerity, but divine destiny herself protected Sir Danny Plympton, Esquire. “And will you go mad because you cannot reconcile your love for your father and your love for your father’s murderer?”