‘All is well, I trust?’ Rob said.
‘Very well. It’s been quiet since the last spell—and that was days ago, as you know. Things are very tranquil today.’ Nelly glanced curiously at Anna.
‘Nelly, this is Mistress Barrett, who has come with me from London,’ said Rob. ‘I wanted her to meet you, and to see the village where I grew up.’
Nelly curtsied to Anna as Anna smiled back at her. Nelly’s look was full of frank curiosity. ‘We’re very pleased to meet any friend of Master Alden’s, mistress.’
‘As am I, Mistress Nelly,’ Anna answered. Any glimpse behind Rob’s ever-changing masks was to be treasured. She studied the plain, scrubbed hall of the curious little house and listened for any sounds, but there was none to hear.
‘I’m just putting together a pie for dinner,’ Nelly said. ‘You can make your visit while I finish it up. I hope you’ll stay to eat with us? There’s plenty to go round.’
‘Of course, Nelly. I would never miss the chance to taste your pie again,’ Rob said.
He looked to the closed door at the end of the hall, and Anna glimpsed that dark shadow passing over his eyes. She tightened her hand on his arm, and he gave her a quick smile.
‘Is it possible for me to go in alone, Nelly? Is that wise after last time?’
‘All has been quiet of late,’ Nelly answered with a smile.
She led them to the end of the hall and threw open the door. Anna followed Rob inside to find a sunny little sitting room, the window open to let in the morning air. The space was whitewashed, and laid with a dark wood floor that gleamed with polish, scattered with footstools and cushioned chairs covered with bright embroidery.
A girl sat by the window, her head bent over a tambor frame as she worked. She wore a simple white gown covered with a loose pale blue surcoat, and her hair fell in long dark waves down her back.
She didn’t look up at their entrance, until Nelly clapped her hands and said, ‘Mistress Mary, your brother has come to visit you!’
The girl turned to them, and Anna almost gasped at the sight of her face. She looked like a female version of Robert, with his bright blue eyes and elegant cheekbones. Her jaw and mouth were softer, yet it was obvious they were siblings.
But the left side of her face bore a terrible scar—a faded slash across her cheek that ended at her chin and marred the peach perfection of her skin.
She gave a vague smile, as if she had no idea who it was that stood before her yet was trying to be polite.
‘’Tis a fine day, is it not?’ she said.
‘I will leave you to your visit, then, while I see to my pie,’ said Nelly. She backed out of the room and closed the door softly behind her.
Mary went back to her sewing, humming a little tune under her breath.
Anna watched her in astonishment. ‘This is your sister?’ she whispered.
Rob gave a grim nod. ‘She never knows me, though. She remembers nothing at all most days—which is surely a blessing. Sometimes she is violently upset, sometimes quiet. We must hope today is a quiet one.’
Before Anna could ask him more, he moved very slowly and cautiously to stand by Mary’s chair. She merely kept sewing.
‘What do you work on today, Mary?’ he asked quietly. ‘It’s very fine.’
Mary didn’t answer, and Anna edged closer to examine the half-finished cloth. It was in the same style as the cushion covers—a bright scene of flowers and leaves. The open workbox on the table beside her was filled with skeins of silk threads in all colours, even twists of gilded gold and silver. An expensive collection, and one Rob no doubt provided, along with the cottage and the nurse.
All for a sister who didn’t know him.
Anna knelt down carefully next to Mary and said, ‘I believe Mistress Mary is using a French satin stitch—a most complicated technique, indeed.’
Mary gave her a smile. ‘Aye, it is complicated, but I have been practising it. I used a cross stitch for the border, see? And I will bead the edges when I’m done to make it shine.’
‘You are very talented at the work,’ Anna said. ‘I can do plain mending, but I make a terrible mess of such fine work.’
Mary giggled, and Rob sat down on a chair to watch her. For the next half-hour Anna chatted with Mary about embroidery, slowly drawing Rob into the conversation. Mary seemed cautious of him, but all went well enough. She only looked truly fearful once, when a group of rowdy, loud boys dashed by outside the window, but Anna’s hand on her arm seemed to steady her.
When Nelly came to summon them to dine Mary went with her, happily chattering, and Anna followed slowly with Robert.
‘What is amiss here, Rob?’ she whispered. ‘Has she always been thus?’
He shook his head, watching his sister with hooded eyes as she fluttered down the corridor. ‘Nay, not always. Only the last few years. After something—happened.’
Anna swallowed hard in sudden cold trepidation. ‘Something?’
‘We must go to them now,’ he said. ‘I will tell you on our walk home, Anna, I promise. Though I fear it is not a pretty tale…’
* * *
Rob carefully studied Anna’s face as they walked along the river away from the village. She had been quiet ever since they’d left the cottage, her face calm and expressionless, as if she pondered mysterious things.
He hadn’t been sure he should take her to see Mary. Their time at Hart Castle had been precious to him—moments of passion and laughter in the midst of uncertainty and danger—and he didn’t want to mar the few moments they had left.
Yet he also wanted Anna to know him, the little he could reveal, and see what drove him to his actions. Perhaps then she would not hate him quite so much when the sword that hung over them came crashing down. She would see that he had gone into this to protect the scarred and the vulnerable, like Mary and Anna herself.
Or perhaps that was a vain hope. He knew Anna was fierce in protecting herself and those she cared about, especially her father. She had a core of steel. Yet she also had a tender heart she tried to hide away, a yearning for truth and understanding that matched his own.
He’d seen that tenderness clearly as she sat by Mary and talked to her so gently and patiently. She’d coaxed Mary to peek out of the shell that protected her from the world, and even made her smile.
Rob found that he craved that tenderness for himself—that he wanted the shelter Anna offered from the past and the terrible uncertainties of the present. Shelter from himself. He wanted her goodness, her honesty, her strength.
Her beauty. The sunlight filtered through the trees above her, casting long patterns of shadows on her hair as she carried her hat. She turned her face up to its warmth and a little smile touched her lips. Her whole face softened when she smiled, and for an instant she looked free and content.
She deserved to have that all the time. He wanted to give that to her—to give her all she deserved in life, all she longed for.
She turned to him, her smile fading. ‘You take such good care of your sister.’
Good care? When she shrank from the sight of him because he was a man? ‘I only do what I can. I fear it is not nearly enough.’
‘That can’t be true. You pay for her to have a quiet home, a nurse, fine clothes and the best embroidery silks, while you live over a tavern and write plays for the amusement of the crowds. You see to it she is safe and happy. Most families would have sent her to rot in a madhouse, out of sight and mind.’
‘You would not have done that,’ Rob said. ‘You look after your father with every bit as much care, and more so because you are with him every day. You would never abandon those you love.’
‘Of course I would not. And neither do you, no matter how much you play the rakish, careless actor to the world.’ She looked back to the river. ‘You love your sister.’
‘I love her more than life,’ he said simply, truthfully. He owed his sister for not being there when she needed him. For encouraging her romantic nature with
his own poetry. ‘Even as she does not know me now.’
Anna stopped at a shady spot by the turn of the water, and Rob removed his short cloak to spread on the grassy ground for a seat. She put her hat and gloves down beside her and smoothed her skirts over her legs.
Rob lay down on his side next to her, propping himself up on his elbow. They were so close, close enough to touch, yet it felt as if the river flowed between them. He could see her, yearn for her, reach for her, but she couldn’t fully be his. Too many secrets lay between them.
But he feared now that no matter what befell them, nor what she would come to think of him, she was his and always would be. Anna was like no one else he had ever known. She was more beautiful, kinder—more everything. And yet she did not know it.
‘What happened to her?’ Anna asked. ‘You said she was not always thus.’
‘Nay, she was not. Mary is many years younger than me. By the time she arrived my parents had given up hope of more children. She was such a pretty, laughing babe, always into some mischief, and we all adored her. I fear we spoiled and indulged her, and only more so after my mother died. She had a great deal of freedom, and a great imagination.’
Anna smiled down at him. ‘A family trait, I see.’
Rob laughed ruefully. ‘Her imaginings were always more fanciful than mine, more romantic.’
‘More fanciful than running away to join a company of players?’
‘She wanted to fall in love—marry a fine gentleman who would carry her off to Court to meet the Queen. She had dreams of castles and silk gowns, of a man who would always indulge her as we did and whom she could adore in return. I fear I fanned those dreams higher with my own poetry. She was always begging for a fairy story.’
Anna drew her legs up to her chest and rested her chin on her knees as she watched the water wend its way past. ‘Did she find him?’
‘Strangely enough, she did. Have you heard of a family called Carrington?’
She considered for a moment, and shook her head. ‘I don’t think so. But I don’t know all the great families at Court—especially if they have no fondness for the playhouse.’
Rob plucked at the soft grass under his hand. He hated to come to this part of the tale. It sounded like a play—only far too real, with real people as its victims. And it was his fault for living in his dream world and not protecting those he cared for the most.
‘They are not at Court any longer,’ he said. ‘Most of them are dead now. But once they owned the fine estate now possessed by Thomas Sheldon, and they had a son named William who was so handsome and wealthy he was ardently pursued by every maiden in the county.’
‘And this was Mary’s sweetheart?’ Anna asked, drawn into the tale even as she feared the terrible ending she knew was coming.
‘Well may you be astonished. The golden son of a landed family and the daughter of a leather-worker? Such wickedness! Mary and William were clever. They met in such secret even my father did not know of it, and the village gossips had no idea. I was gone on my wanderings with Lord Henshaw’s Men by then, and only heard of what happened after.’ He had abandoned them to their fates. Only now could he try to atone.
Anna bit her lip. ‘What did happen?’
‘My father became ill, and Mary and her swain grew bolder in their meetings. It seemed he declared to her he would marry her, and even gave her a ring,’ Rob said, his voice flat and distant, though she could sense the terrible pain beneath. ‘But there was something he did not tell her—or perhaps he did not even know himself. His father and his elder brother had joined a plot to set Mary of Scotland on the throne and depose Queen Elizabeth.’
‘How terrible!’ Anna cried. She well remembered what had happened to the traitors in the Babington Plot to set Queen Mary on the English throne. The stench had hung over London for days. ‘Treason right here in this peaceful place.’
‘Treason raises its ugly Hydra head everywhere, Anna, and especially where Queen Mary and Spain had greater room to scheme.’ And Spain was not done with scheming, even with its grand Armada destroyed, as Rob knew too well. ‘It destroys the innocent, as well as the guilty.’
‘Innocents like your sister?’
‘Aye, like Mary. She had gone to see her sweetheart when Walsingham’s men raided his family’s house. The tale of what happened then is a confused one, but it can easily be imagined. The servants were beaten and terrorised, Lady Carrington locked up, the house ripped apart in search of hidden priests and treasonous papers. Mary’s suitor hid her in the kitchen before he went to help his family, but she was found.’
Anna’s arms tightened around her legs. ‘They—hurt her? Walsingham’s raiders?’
‘Not them. When she was dragged to the great hall of the house, she saw that her lover was dead. One of the servants who was there that day told me later Mary was hysterical at the sight, screaming and crying, trying to reach him.’ Rob kept his narration carefully quiet and toneless, but the old images still made her heart ache. She could feel the pain so horribly, so clearly. What would she feel like if it was Rob lying there dead?
‘His brother dragged her from William’s body,’ he continued. ‘But he did not release her. He used her as a hostage to shield him as he left the house, shouting that she must be the “traitorous bitch” who had seduced his brother and set Walsingham on them all. Mary wept and protested, fought him, but he dragged her through the fields to a deserted barn where he raped her and cut her face.’
Rob’s fist closed hard on the earth, and his mind clouded with hot blood and fury, as it always did when he remembered the monster who’d hurt Mary. And his own part in it all.
Anna reached out and laid her hand gently over his clenched fist. Her cool touch scattered some of the pain of the old memories, tethered him again to their present moment there under the trees.
‘Was he captured?’ she asked softly.
‘Of course, and carried away to a traitor’s death. But it was too late for Mary. Her mind had snapped and would never be repaired. My father sent for me, and I returned just before he died. He beseeched me to care for Mary, though she shrank from the sight of me as a man. I set her up with Nelly, who had been our nurse when we were children, in that cottage, and went back to London to earn my coin.’
Anna’s fingers curled tighter over his hand. ‘And to work for Walsingham?’
‘Aye.’ Rob rubbed his other hand over his face and rolled to lie on his back. The sky arched overhead, blue and endless, and the curve of Anna’s cheek was kissed by a stray curl of her dark hair. He reached up to brush that strand back, and his touch skimmed over her warm, soft skin.
‘I told you I worked for Walsingham for money and advancement,’ he said. ‘And I do. I can’t lie about that. But mostly I work for him to bring down men like the traitor who attacked my sister and who would destroy the peace of our country.’
‘Oh, Robert.’ Anna lay down beside him and rested her head on his shoulder. ‘You do like to play the careless cynic, but now you have revealed the truth.’
‘And what might the truth be?’ he asked, doubt heavy in his voice.
‘That you are a defender of women and the weak. A white knight.’ Her hand flattened against his chest, stroking him through the thin linen of his shirt. ‘With armour that is a bit rusty, perhaps…’
‘Rusty?’ He seized her hand and raised it to his lips for a kiss. ‘I am quite ready to defeat all challengers.’
And he was. With her by his side, his secrets safe in her hands, he finally felt he could move ahead. That he could somehow make wrongs right and slay all her dragons. That he could be her protector and her love forever, be worthy of her.
If only he himself was not her greatest dragon of all.
‘I know you are ever ready to charge into battle, Robert,’ she said with a sigh. ‘That is exactly what I’m afraid of.’
Chapter Nineteen
Anna sat on her bed, the breeze from the half-open window cool through her light chemise. F
rom the garden below she could hear music and laughter as the other guests of Hart Castle danced in the moonlight. It sounded so light-hearted and merry, as if it all came from another world—the realm of fairies and dreams.
She knew she should go down to them, put on the fine gown spread before the fire and go dancing. But she felt frozen in place, and the silence of her chamber wrapped around her like a comforting blanket.
Her mind kept seeing Mary Alden, with her pretty blue eyes as blank and empty as a summer sky and that scar on her cheek. Lost deep in the maze of her own mind.
And Robert, who loved his sister so very much he had given his life over to protecting innocents like her in the only way he knew how—with his pen and his sword. The servant of the great spider Walsingham.
Anna had thought she had begun to know Rob. Now she saw she knew nothing at all.
‘Masks upon masks,’ she whispered. She slid down from the bed and went to peer out of her window. The gardens were lit up by a multitude of torches, blazing so brightly the night itself was kept away. Everyone danced between them, like a sumptuously coloured glittering serpent, winding round and round.
She smiled to see their merriment, and wished she could revel in that one fleeting moment as they did. She wished she could feel Rob’s arms around her, twirling her until the sky was a blur and all she knew was him.
She wished that life could be as a play, with heroes and villains and romances, a clear line from beginning to end and a happy jig to close all.
‘But make it a comedy, please,’ she said. A tale of disguises revealed, love triumphant, no tragedy or bloody revenge. No more bloodshed.
Her heart ached for Mary Alden, and for Robert. His life was a revenge play, and she feared there was no place in it for her. No place for tenderness and caring. He felt he did not deserve it, when she knew he was the most deserving of all. But it could never be, not now.
She heard the soft click of her door sliding open, and she turned to see Rob standing there. He wore only his breeches and shirt, the soft linen unlaced to reveal his glistening chest. His hair was tousled and he held a book in his hand. And she suddenly knew—he had been standing there waiting for her all the time.
The Taming of the Rogue Page 17
