The Taming of the Rogue

by Amanda McCabe

  Her late husband, Charles Barrett, had used to slap her and break their plate before insisting on his marital rights. So, aye, she much preferred this life here with her father.

  ‘Anna, my darling one!’ Tom cried, stumbling on the raised threshold of the sitting room. He reached out with one flailing hand to catch his balance, nearly tearing down an expensive painted cloth from the panelled wall.

  Anna leaped up from her chair and caught him by the shoulders before he could ruin their furnishings. She knew too well where every farthing came from to pay for their comfortable house. He leaned against her as she led him to the chair by the fire.

  ‘Are you working again?’ he asked, as he fell back onto the embroidered cushions.

  Anna moved her sewing basket away and gently lifted his feet onto a stool as she said, ‘I was going over the receipts for today’s performance. The takings were down a bit, though Lord Edward Hartley took his usual box for the performance.’

  ‘The Maid’s Dilemma is an old play,’ Tom said. ‘We’ll have rich takings indeed once we open Rob’s new play, I swear it.’

  ‘If we open it,’ Anna murmured as she tugged off her father’s boots. They were damp and muddy from his lurch through the Southwark streets, and she set them by the fire to dry.

  ‘What do you mean, my dearest? Rob has never been late delivering a play! And they are always great earners. Audiences love them.’

  Of course they were great earners, Anna thought. Women came flocking to see them, hoping for a glimpse of the writer acting onstage himself, and they always paid extra to sit in the upper galleries, rent cushions and buy refreshments.

  Anna couldn’t really blame them. His plays were extraordinary, no matter how maddening the man was. They were wondrous tales of the powers and dangers of kingship, of betrayal and love and revenge, and deep, stirring emotions. They were written with beautiful, poetic words rarely heard on the stage, and the audience was always in floods of tears by the end.

  Even Anna, who saw plays every week, was always moved by Robert Alden’s words, and the new, wondrous worlds they created. They were worth the trouble he caused.

  Usually.

  She sat down in the chair across from her father’s. ‘His last play had delays being passed by the Master of the Revels. It was weeks before we had a licence to stage it. He grows careless with his plots.’

  Tom waved this away with an airy gesture, and almost toppled out of his chair. ‘Audiences love a bit of controversy. Making them wait only makes them even more excited to see it.’

  ‘Not if you’ve already paid good coin for a play we can’t use!’

  ‘All will be well, Anna, I am sure. You’re working too hard of late. It makes you worry too much.’

  ‘I like the work.’ It kept her busy—and kept her hidden at the same time.

  Tom narrowed his eyes as he gave her a sharp look, the wine haze lifted for an instant. ‘You are too young and comely to bury yourself in account books all the time. You should think about suitors again.’

  Anna laughed bitterly. ‘One husband was enough, Father.’

  ‘Charles Barrett was a stupid brute, and I was a fool to let you marry him,’ Thomas said. ‘But not all men are like him.’

  Nay—some were like Robert Alden. Too handsome and witty for their own good, or for any woman’s good at all. ‘I am content as I am. Don’t we have a comfortable life here?’

  ‘My life has certainly been more comfortable since you came back. This house is wonderfully kept, and my profits from the businesses have doubled.’

  ‘Because I make you invest them instead of spending them all on wine and ale.’

  ‘Exactly so, my dearest. But I should not be selfish and keep you here.’

  ‘I told you, I am quite well where I am, Father. I promise. Now, what about some supper? I can send Madge to the tavern for some venison stew, and there is fresh bread…’

  ‘Oh, I almost forgot!’ Tom cried. ‘I did invite some people to dine with us. They will surely be here at any moment.’

  Anna sighed. Of course they would. Her father was always inviting guests for a meal, or a game of cards which usually went on until morning. It was seldom they had a quiet evening alone.

  ‘Then I will have Madge fetch some extra stew, and perhaps a few pies,’ she said, and went to ring the bell for the maid. At least her father’s guests seldom expected grand fare. ‘Who is coming this evening?’

  ‘Some of the actors, of course. Spencer and Cartley and Camp, and perhaps one or two of their friends. We need to discuss the new play and the casting.’ Tom paused, never a good sign. ‘And Robert. I may have asked him, as well, when I saw him at the Three Bells earlier.’

  ‘Robert was at the Three Bells?’ Anna asked in surprise. She would have thought after his adventures of last night he would have eschewed taverns and gone back to his lodgings to collapse.

  She should know better. No matter what occurred, he always kept moving. It was almost as if he was one of his own heroic creations.

  But she had touched him today, been near to him—looked into his eyes for that one fleeting, vulnerable instant. She knew how warmly human he truly was.

  ‘I heard there was a bit of a disturbance this morning,’ her father said. ‘But he was writing in his usual corner of the tavern, so all must be well. We can press him about the new play when he arrives.’

  Anna braced her palm on the carved fireplace mantel, staring down into the crackling flames. Robert Alden was coming here tonight. She didn’t want to see him again so soon after mending his wound. How could she look at him across her table and keep that secret?

  How could she stop herself from reaching out to touch him?

  ‘Father—’ she began, only to be interrupted by a pounding at the door.

  ‘I will go,’ Tom said as he tried to push himself out of his chair.

  Anna shook her head. ‘Nay, I will go. It seems Madge is otherwise occupied.’

  She took a deep breath as she made her way slowly to the door, steeling herself to see Rob again and to remain expressionless. Yet it was not Rob who waited there on the threshold, it was Henry Ennis, another of the actors in Lord Henshaw’s Men.

  As he smiled at her and bowed, Anna pushed away that unwanted and unaccountable pang of disappointment and said, ‘Master Ennis. We haven’t seen you at the White Heron in a few days.’

  Henry’s smile widened and he reached for her hand to bestow upon her fingers an elaborate salute that made her laugh. Next to Robert, Henry Ennis was the most handsome of the company, slim and angelically blond where Rob was dark as the devil. Henry always seemed to be laughing and cheerful, as open and easy as a fine summer’s day, with no hidden depths or concealed secrets.

  Anna always enjoyed being around him. He made her laugh along with him, and forget her duties and worries. He never made her feel flustered or confused, as Rob always did.

  Against her own will, she glanced past Henry’s shoulder to the shadowed garden behind him. But no one was there.

  ‘My beauteous Anna,’ Henry said as she took his arm to lead him into the corridor. ‘It has pained me greatly to be away from you, but as I had no role in the last production I thought it best I travel to the country to visit my family. They have been neglected of late.’

  ‘Family?’ Anna said in surprise. In their strange, vagabond London life she often forgot the actors might have real families tucked away somewhere. They formed their own bonds among others of their kind, with her father’s house as their temporary hearth.

  Did Rob have a family, too? A wife and blue-eyed children, in a cosy village somewhere?

  ‘My mother and sister in Kent,’ Henry said. ‘I have not seen them in many months.’

  ‘Then I hope you found them well?’

  ‘Very well. A bit bored, mayhap—they always long for tales of London.’

  Anna gave him a teasing smile. ‘I’m sure they especially long for tales of your London courtships. Does your mother not
wish for handsome grandchildren to dandle on her knee?’

  Henry laughed ruefully, his handsome face turning faintly pink. ‘Perhaps she does. I should so like…’ His words trailed away and he shook his head, turning away from her.

  ‘Should so like what, Henry? Come, we are friends! Surely you can talk to me?’

  ‘I should so like for her to meet you, Anna. She would like you very much, I think,’ he said shyly.

  Anna was so shocked by his quiet, serious words that she stopped abruptly in the dining-chamber doorway. Henry wished for her to meet his mother? But surely their friendship was only that—a friendship? Though he was kind and sweet-natured, and so handsome…

  She studied him in speculation in the flickering half-light of the smoky candles. Aye, he was handsome, and so earnest as he watched her. Perhaps friends was a fine place to start. Friends was safe and pleasant—not a threat to her calm serenity, the quiet life she had worked so hard to earn and build.

  But as she looked at Henry Ennis she saw not his pale grey eyes, glowing with wary hope as he watched her, waiting for—something. She didn’t feel his arm under her hand. She saw Robert’s bright blue eyes mocking her as she bandaged his shoulder, staring deep, deep into her hidden soul and letting her glimpse his for one moment. It was his bare, warm skin she felt.

  Anna made herself laugh, and tugged Henry towards the dining chamber. ‘I am not the sort of lady mothers like very much, Henry. And I fear I shall never leave the city now. The country air is far too clean and sweet for me after so long in London.’

  Henry seemed to take her hint, and he laughed merrily, as if that instant of seriousness had never been. Perhaps she had merely imagined it. It had been a long, strange day, after all.

  ‘And my mother will never come to London,’ Henry said. ‘She is quite certain villains lurk on every street corner, ready to cut an unwary throat. So perhaps you will never meet, after all.’

  ‘Perhaps your mother is right to keep her distance,’ Anna murmured. And far wiser than she was herself, living in the very centre of such a perilous world. But she had no desire to leave; this was her home, the only place she could belong. A quiet country hearth was not for her.

  There was another knock at the door, and Anna left Henry at the table with her father so she could hurry and answer it. More of the actors waited for her there, far more than her father claimed to have invited. They greeted her exuberantly, kissing her cheek and lifting her from her feet in fierce hugs, before they dashed into the house looking for food and drink. It seemed her father’s ‘some people’ invited to dine included the whole company, along with their always voracious appetites and endless need for wine.

  Anna was accustomed to such evenings. Her father’s hospitality was boundless, and his memory for such practical matters as how much food to serve was non-existent. Anna sent the servants for more dishes and jugs of wine from the tavern, and the evening passed in a swift, happy blur as she made sure everyone was served and there was enough bread and stew.

  Finally she was able to collapse by the sitting-room fire with her own goblet of wine. She tucked up her feet on her father’s footstool, listening to the shouts and laughter from supper. Her father would be busy until dawn, and then some of the actors could carry him up to his bed.

  Anna reached into her sewing basket for the new volume of poetry she had bought at one of the stalls at St Paul’s churchyard just that day. It was an anonymous sonnet cycle about the deep love of a shepherd for an unreachable goddess he’d once glimpsed at her bath, called Demetrius and Diana. Everyone was reading and talking of it, and she could see why. The words and emotions were beautiful, so filled with raw longing and the sad realisation that such a love was impossible. Life was only what it was—lonely and cold—and there was no escape from that, even through passion.

  She lost herself in that world of sun-dappled sylvan glades and passionate desire, that need for another person. The noise from the company, which grew ever louder as the night wore on, vanished, and she knew only the poor shepherd and his impossible love.

  ‘Why, Mistress Barrett, I see you are a secret romantic,’ a deep, velvet-rough voice suddenly said, dragging her out of her dream world.

  The book fell from her hands to clatter onto the stone hearth and she twisted round in her chair. It was Robert who stood there in the sitting room doorway, watching her as she read. He leaned his shoulder on the doorframe, his arms lazily crossed over his chest. A half smile lingered at the corners of his lips, but his eyes were dark and solemn as they studied her.

  How long had he been standing there?

  ‘You startled me,’ she said, hating the way her voice trembled.

  ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to frighten you,’ he said.

  ‘I didn’t even know you were here. I heard no knock at the door.’

  ‘I have only just arrived. Madge let me in.’ Rob pushed away from the door and moved slowly to her side, loose-limbed and as deceptively lazy as a cat. As Anna watched, tense, he knelt by her chair and picked up the dropped book.

  He took her hand in his, very gently, his fingers light on hers, and carefully laid the book on her palm. But he didn’t let go of her. He curled her hand around the leather binding and held his over it.

  It was a light caress, cool and gentle, and Anna knew she could draw away whenever she chose. Yet somehow she just—couldn’t. She stared down at their joined hands as if mesmerised.

  He stared down at them, too, almost as if he could also feel that shimmering, heated, invisible bond tightening around them, closer and closer. The crackle of the fire, the laughter of the company—it all seemed so far away. There was only Robert and herself here now.

  ‘Are you enjoying the travails of poor Demetrius the shepherd?’ he asked.

  ‘Very much,’ she whispered. She stared hard at the book, its brown cover held by their joined hands. She feared what might happen if she looked into his eyes. Would she crack and crumble away, vanishing into him forever?

  What spell did he cast over her?

  ‘The poetry is beautiful,’ she went on. ‘I can see every ray of sunlight, every summer leaf in those woods—I can feel Demetrius’s grief. What a terrible thing it must be to feel like that about another.’

  ‘How terrible not to feel that way,’ he said. ‘Life is an empty, cold shell without passion.’

  Anna laughed. It seemed she was not the only ‘secret romantic.’ ‘Is it better to burn than to freeze? Passion consumes until there is nothing left but ash. Demetrius is miserable because of his desire for Diana.’

  ‘True. Diana can’t love him back. It isn’t in her nature. But if she could, it would be glorious beyond imagining. It is glorious even without her return, because at least Demetrius knows he can love. He can feel truly alive because of it.’

  She smiled and gently laid her free hand against his cheek. The prickle of a day’s growth of beard tickled at her palm. Beneath it his skin was warm and satin-taut. A muscle flexed under her touch. ‘I believe you are the secret romantic, Robert. Do you envy the shepherd, then?’

  He grinned up at her, and turned his head to press a quick kiss to the hollow of her palm. ‘In a way I do. He gets to be alive—truly alive—even if it’s only for a moment.’

  ‘Until that love kills him.’

  ‘Until then. I see you have peeked ahead at the ending.’

  Anna sat back in her chair, finally breaking their hold on each other. But though not touching him, not physically close, she felt bound to him.

  ‘Are you not alive, then, Robert?’ she asked.

  He sat back on the hearth, resting lazily on his elbows as he stretched his legs out before him and crossed his booted feet at the ankles. He had charged that morning’s rumpled, stained shirt for one of his dandyish and expensive doublets of burgundy-red velvet, slashed at the sleeves with black satin and trimmed with shining rows of gold buttons. His boots were fine, soft Spanish leather, polished to a glowing sheen, his breeches of thi
n, fine-spun wool. A teardrop pearl hung at his ear.

  He was dressed to impress someone tonight, and Anna suspected it was not meant to be her.

  ‘Sometimes I feel I’m already cold in the grave, fair Anna,’ he answered. His tone was light, teasing, but she thought she heard a hard ring beneath it—the tinge of truth. ‘The true, deep feelings of Demetrius are lost to me now. I just counterfeit them onstage.’

  ‘Aye,’ she murmured. ‘I think I know what you mean.’

  His head tilted to the side as he studied her. ‘Do you?’

  ‘Aye. My life is not one of deep emotions, as the poor shepherd has. It is quiet and calm—cold, some might say. But I prefer its chill to the pain of burning.’

  ‘Your husband?’ Robert asked, his voice low and steady, as if he didn’t want to frighten her away.

  As if Charles Barrett could frighten her now. His black soul was dead and buried. But before that, before they’d made the mistake of marrying and it had all gone so horribly wrong, she had once longed for him. Those feelings had clouded her judgement and led her far astray.

  ‘I never want that again,’ she said firmly.

  ‘So you are like Diana now?’ he said. ‘Above the maelstrom of human emotion and desire?’

  Anna laughed. ‘I am no virgin goddess.’

  Suddenly there was a crashing sound in the corridor, a burst of drunken laughter. Someone bumped into the wall outside, making the painted cloths sway.

  Robert held his finger lightly to his lips and rose to his feet.

  ‘Shh,’ he whispered. ‘Let’s walk in the garden for a time, where they can’t find us.’

  ‘The garden?’ Anna asked, confused. To be alone with him, in the dark of night, with no one lurking outside the door? It was—tempting.

  Too tempting. Who knew what she might do there? She didn’t even seem to know herself when she was with him.