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Adorna was silenced, overtaken by the combined thudding in her chest and the crash of the ball against the wall. Had he pretended not to know Cousin Hester? Or had he simply not pretended anything? I look forward to meeting Cousin Hester. Is she…? Of course, it had not occurred to her to discover any previous acquaintance. So what had been the true purpose of his visit to Sir William Pickering’s sister’s home? Chess? Horses? ‘Is his home near them?’ she whispered.
Hester’s reply came with an expression that suggested Adorna ought to have known the answer to that. ‘His father is Lord Elyot,’ she said. ‘He owns Bishops Standing.’
The astonishment showing so clearly in Adorna’s lovely eyes was caught at that moment by the player at the far end of the court whose mind was not entirely on the game. His keen eyes levelled at hers like a hunter stalking a doe, while his partner yelled at him to attend.
‘Chase two!’ the marker called.
‘No. Chase one!’ Sir Nicholas said to himself as he sent the ball crashing across the court. The next time he had chance to look, the two Pickering ladies had disappeared.
The full impact of what was happening to her began to take effect at the end of that day, by which time Adorna was too confused to sleep. She and Hester had strolled back to Sheen House, diverting their steps through the friary paradise especially to examine the overgrown roses, the heavily budding lilies, the rue and lady’s bedstraw that symbolised the Virgin Mary to whom the garden had probably been dedicated. It was a magical place where, even now, the outlines of the beds could still be seen, providing Hester with a topic for suppertime when Lady Marion asked them where they’d been. It saved Adorna herself from having to reply, her mind being far away on another journey.
As the summer evening drew to a close, she made an excuse to be alone, to walk along the raised pathways to the banqueting house to see that the doors and windows were closed. There was a moon, silvering the pathways and the orchard below, outlining the derelict friary and staring through the glassless east window, lighting the high palace wall. She stared out across the paradise where she had walked earlier, frowning as she caught a movement beyond the shadows. A man passed through the garden door from the palace, leaving it slightly ajar, picking his way carefully across the space to stand under a gnarled pear tree, his broad shoulders well inside the low branches. There was no mistaking the shape of him, the long legs, the easy movement, the carriage of his head. Sir Nicholas Rayne. She was quite sure of it.
He had waited no more than two minutes when another figure came through the door, a woman, looking about her hesitantly. Sir Nicholas made no move to show himself, no rush to greet her or sudden urge to embrace. The woman searched awhile and then saw him, but still there was no laughter stifled by kisses but only a slow advance and the joining of hands indicating, Adorna thought, either a first meeting or a last one. The two stood together talking, his head bent to hers, her hand occasionally touching his chest, her finger once upon his mouth, briefly. The watcher in the banqueting house placed a hand upon her own breast to still the thumping inside, to quell the first awful, sour, bitter, agonising pangs of jealousy so foreign to her that she did not recognise them as such. She thought it might be guilt, or something akin to it, telling herself that the man and his woman mattered nothing to her. Less than nothing.
Do you have a lady, Sir Nicholas?
No, sir. Not yet.
What was this, then? An attempt to acquire one, or to get rid of one? He was a flirt. He was already welcomed by Hester’s foster-parents, no doubt as a potential suitor for their niece. There was surely no other good reason for them to encourage his visits, for they had no other family. What did it matter to her, anyway?
The couple was moving apart. The lady was preparing to leave, stretching the last touch of their hands to breaking point. She was weeping. Quickly, he took a stride towards her, reaching out for her shoulders and pulling her with some force towards his bending head. His kiss was short and not gentle, ending with a quick release and a faint cry from her that reached Adorna, wrenching at her heart. She clung to the wall, watching as the woman picked up her skirts and ran to the door, leaving it open behind her.
Sick and dizzy from the impact of a kiss that had not been for her, Adorna stood rooted to the spot, staring at the back of the man she had tried to keep away with her coldness, willing him to turn and come to her here, in the soft shadowy night. He did not move.
A call came to her from the house, her father’s call, loud and unmistakably for her. ‘Adorna! Come in now! It’s getting late, Adorna!’
She must answer, or he’d come looking for her. ‘Yes, Father.’
As she knew he would, Sir Nicholas turned towards the high wall behind him where the banqueting house was built into one corner. She could not leave without him seeing, and her loose blonde hair would show him her exact location. Reluctantly, she closed the double doors with a snap and locked them noisily behind her, tossing her bright hair into the moonlight. If she must reveal herself, then she would do it with aplomb. She did not look below her as she went to meet her father. ‘Coming!’ she called, merrily.
The reflection in the polished brass mirror kept up a steady and silent conversation with the blue-grey eyes, and the candle flame bent in the light breeze from the window, barely shedding any light on the messages of confusion and soul-searching that refused to untangle. What had now become clear to Adorna, after her reaction to the secret tryst in the garden, was that she had blundered in the wrong direction by her attempts to make Hester more attractive. Even to herself, she could hardly pretend that she had done it for Hester’s own sake alone, for at the back of her mind had been the possibility that a young and personable lady with a fortune would surely be of more interest to the man who had behaved with such familiarity towards herself. Then, it had seemed imperative that a way be found to get rid of him or to keep him at a more manageable distance, at least.
But now there had developed within her deepest self a reluctance to exclude this man quite as forcibly as she had been doing, especially now that there seemed to be a real chance of him seeing Hester in a new light. Her foster-parents apparently approved of him, and doubtless Hester herself was impressed by his connections. Another more relaxed and enticing meeting between the two might just be enough to do the trick, and she herself would have helped to bring it about.
Yet she could not like the man. He was too aggressively male, too experienced for her, probably promiscuous, too presumptuous. And rude. And what was he doing speaking so pertly to her when there was another woman, in spite of his denials? No doubt he had a long line of mistresses somewhere, all of whom he would deny whenever it suited him. Yes, let him make an offer for Hester, since she had come into her fortune. A man like him would appreciate more wealth, rather than the Master of Revels’ daughter.
She lifted the sleeve of her chemise to look once more for the imprint of his fingers on her upper arms. There they were, like a row of shadowy blackberry stains. She caressed them, wondering which part of her he had seen yesterday that the other three men had not. Slowly, she slipped her chemise down to her waist and stood, holding herself sideways to the mirror and raising her arms to enclose him, feeling his imaginary grip upon her shoulders, the hard dizzying kiss upon her mouth. How would it feel? Something deep inside her belly began to quiver and melt.
Guiltily, she folded her arms across herself and tiptoed over the creaky floorboards to her bed where she stretched, aching, seeing him again in the moonlit paradise as he turned to look. No, this could not be what they called falling in love; this was confusing and painful; there was nothing in it to make her happy. In the darkness behind her wide-open eyes she watched him at tennis, saw his appraisal of Hester’s new image, saw his hands on her mare’s flanks, his control of his own great mount. His bold words and stare had stirred her to anger and excitement as no other man had done. But no, of course, this was not love. How could it be? She was right; this was not the man for her. Let Hester take the field.
Chapter Three
T his resolution, nursed by Adorna until she fell asleep, had vanished completely by the time she woke, which meant that the whole argument had to be reconstructed from the beginning in order to establish any reason why Sir Nicholas should have been on her mind in the first place. Which was difficult, in the light of day.
Another disturbing development was that, overnight, Hester had apparently discovered how to smile. Adorna suspected that she must have been practising in front of the mirror, but this newest enchantment showed itself first at breakfast and was then rehearsed at intervals throughout the day so that, by the time the two of them had put the finishing touches to an array of subtleties for the banquet, Adorna was forced to the conclusion that Hester was happy. There was surely no other explanation for it.
Not that Adorna had any objections, as such, to Hester being happy, only a reservation that the reason behind it must mean only one thing. Sir Nicholas. After a year or more, Hester was happy to make contact again.
Even Lady Marion noticed it. ‘She’ll dazzle the men with that smile,’ she said to Adorna. ‘They’ll be writing sonnets to it before the week’s out.’
Adorna stood back to look at the effects of the trailing ivy interlaced with roses hanging in swags across the oak panelling of the great hall. ‘She’s learning more quickly than I thought,’ she said with her head on one side. ‘Is that level with the others?’
‘More or less. I think she ought to have her own maid though, dearest. Perhaps I’ll suggest finding one for her. If she’s going to improve as fast as that, we can’t let her choose one who doesn’t know a farthingale from a martingale, can we?’
Visions of Hester wearing a strap from her chin to her waist to keep her head down caused an undignified halt to the proceedings that lightened Adorna’s heart, if only temporarily. Her mother’s relief at having an extra male guest to partner Hester had grown to far greater heights once she discovered that the two were already acquainted and from then on, no instruction was too detailed to make sure that Hester and Sir Nicholas were to be regarded as a pair. From which it was obvious to Adorna that her father had made very little of the man’s visit to the workshop two days ago. Knowing her parents’ tendency to see potential suitors even before they appeared, Adorna was very relieved by this.
Although they had never regarded Master Peter Fowler as a serious contender for Adorna’s hand, Peter himself did, being one of the first to arrive for the dinner party, bringing a gift for his hostess in the shape of a tiny silver padlock and key. A symbol, he told her, of his protection for her most precious jewel.
Smiling courteously, Adorna said nothing to contradict this, for it was precisely this aspect of Peter’s company that had singled him out from other young men. He was tall and well made, personable, correct, agreeable and utterly dependable, as his job demanded. Protection was not only his profession but also the reason for his attraction, for if Adorna could not be safe with Peter, then who could she be safe with? Naturally, his lapse at the Queen’s hawking party in Richmond Park had been unusual, but Adorna did not blame him for that. Brown-eyed and curly-haired, he offered her a brown satin-clad arm while expertly assessing the security of the pale pink bodice that skimmed the swell of her breasts with a hint of white lace to half-conceal the deepest cleft. A lace pie-frill ruff clung enticingly to her throat.
She laid the tips of her fingers on his arm. ‘Peter,’ she said, ‘I want you to meet our house guest. She’s appallingly shy. Will you talk to her?’
Hester curtsied with lowered eyes while Peter, bowing to the shy black-clad figure, thought the contrast to Adorna could hardly have been greater. Even in black, the dowdiness had been replaced by a beguiling vulnerability to which Peter instantly responded, for Hester’s nut-brown hair under a jewelled velvet band had suffered hours of Maybelle’s ministrations and now, framing her face in a heart-shaped roll, suited her perfectly.
Peter’s response to Adorna’s introduction was even more immediate. ‘Sir William Pickering’s daughter?’ He beamed. ‘Why, mistress, I have admired your late father’s exploits since I was so high—’ he held a hand level with his waist ‘—and I even met him, once. Come, will you speak of him to me?’ His large fingers closed warmly over the trembling ones and Hester was obliged to abandon Adorna’s advice concerning smiles and nods in order to talk of a father she had hardly known. It was good practice, but not exactly what Lady Marion had had in mind.
Sir Thomas’s musicians were by now in full swing high up in the gallery at the far end of the hall. Below them, the guests entered from a porch at one side, adding another layer of sound that rose in waves of laughter and drifted away into the great oaken rafters. Even while she chatted, Adorna could identify the booming stage-voice of Master Burbage, their actor friend, followed by the reed-pipe squeak of Master Thomas Tallis whose wife Joan held him up by one elbow as a stool was placed beneath him. Yet, though she was soon surrounded by friends and acquaintances, Adorna felt the effect of someone’s eyes on the back of her head that pulled her slowly round and drew her away like a netted fish.
Although Sir Nicholas was part of a newly arrived group, he took no part in their conversation but aimed his narrowed eyes towards Adorna, meeting hers as she turned, throwing out a challenge for her to come and welcome him. To refuse would have been too discourteous.
She lifted the golden pomander that swung on a chain at her waist and went forward, unable to withdraw her eyes from his though, even as they met, there was not the smile of welcome she had given to others.
‘Your lady mother bade me welcome,’ he said, softly.
‘Of course,’ said Adorna. ‘She would see no reason to do otherwise.’ Her heart beat loudly under her straight pink bodice, making her breathless.
‘And you, mistress? Do you see a reason to do otherwise?’
‘I see several reasons, sir, but don’t concern yourself with them. It cannot be the first time a woman has taken an aversion to you. But then, perhaps it is.’
He glanced around him as if to find an example, but saw Hester instead. ‘Ah, Cousin Hester. Was it your doing that transformed the lady, or had it already begun? Quite remarkable. She’s learning to speak, too, I see. Well, well.’
Coming from another, she might have smiled at this sarcasm, but a mixture of pride and protection quelled it. ‘I was not aware,’ she said, ‘that you and she knew each other. She tells me that you found the hunting good at Bishops Standing.’
‘Is that all she told you?’
His blunt question made her pause, not knowing how to learn more without betraying her interest. Mercifully, she was prevented from saying anything by the Yeoman of the Ewery’s arrival, whose invitation to dip their fingers into the silver bowl of scented water signalled an end to most conversations. She dried hers on the linen towel and handed it to Sir Nicholas. ‘I am expected to take you to her,’ she said. ‘Will you come, sir?’
‘Gladly,’ he said, smiling. ‘I can hardly wait.’
For some reason, she would have preferred a token show of reluctance, but now there was just time, before the procession to the table, to present Sir Nicholas to Mistress Hester Pickering and to watch like a hawk as his eyes smiled into hers and quickly roamed, approving or amused, over the new image. By this time, the effect of conversation and the warmth of the hall had brought a most becoming flush to Hester’s cheeks and a sparkle to her eyes and, though she kept the latter modestly lowered, the newly darkened lashes made alluring crescents upon her skin. This show of mutual pleasure left no doubt in Adorna’s mind that Lady Marion would be delighted to see how her plan was falling into place so neatly.
Peter took Adorna’s arm to steer her to one side, noting the direction of her interest. ‘I thought you said she was shy,’ he said.
Adorna looked puzzled. ‘Did she tell you of her father, then?’
‘Only a little. She talked of Sir Nicholas, mostly.’
Once again, the conversation was curtailed by the ceremonial observed by every noble household at meal-times, the waiting, the seating, the ritual carving and presenting, by which time there were obligatory gasps of delight at the array of dishes, their colours, variety and decoration. Lady Marion had, for this event, brought out the best silver dishes, bowls and ewers, the great salts, the best spoons and knives, the finest monogrammed linen. On the two-tiered court-cupboard stood the best Venetian glasses, while an army of liveried servers attended diligently to every guest’s needs.
Adorna tried to avoid looking at Hester and Sir Nicholas, but her curiosity got the better of her, her sneaking looks between mouthfuls and words feeding her snippets of information as to Hester’s responsiveness to Sir Nicholas’s attentions. His attention was required from other quarters, too, for the table of over thirty guests was merry and light-hearted, and Sir Nicholas was an excellent conversationalist. Adorna would have been blind not to see how the women, young and old, glowed when he spoke to them, prompting her to recall his uncivil manner as he had hauled her out of the river, his familiarity afterwards, even when he had discovered whose daughter she was.
With renewed assiduity she turned all her attention towards the other end of the table and to her partner, taking what pleasure she could from the safe predictability of Peter’s good manners and to the chatter of her friends, all the while straining to single out the deep cultured voice of Sir Nicholas Rayne. At the end of two courses, they were led into the garden where the double doors of the banqueting house had been thrown open to receive the slow trickle of guests. Here was laid out an astonishing selection of tiny sweet-meats on silver trays, candied fruits, chunks of orange marmalade, sweet wafers and gingerbreads, march-pane and sugar-paste dainties covered with gold leaf. Jellies and syllabubs were served in tiny glasses, and biscuits were placed on wooden roundels, each guest nibbling, exclaiming, and moving outside to admire the formal flower-beds, the view over the friary orchard and the river in the distance.
Purposely, Adorna kept some distance between herself and Sir Nicholas while she spoke to many of the guests, laughing at their jokes and listening to their opinions, never straying far from Peter’s side. From there, she could signal to Sir Nicholas that she had no wish for his company. Her mother, however, had already begun to waver on this point.
She whispered in Adorna’s ear, ‘You didn’t tell me!’
‘Tell you what, Mother?’ Acting total innocence came quite easily to her.
‘That he was so handsome. And distinguished. If I’d understood that he was my lord of Leicester’s deputy, I’d have had him instead of Master Fowler partner you. Is Sir Nicholas the one who helped you out of the river?’
Adorna’s eyes strayed once more to the midnight-blue taffeta doublet, velvet breeches and black silk hose, to his elegant bearing, to the gold buckles and jewels on his swordbelt and scabbard. His hand rested on one hip while with the other he held up his wooden roundel, reversed, from which he read the poem painted on the rim.
‘Lord Elyot’s eldest son,’ her mother continued, ‘I think, dearest, that you ought to be making yourself a little more agreeable to Sir Nicholas. He’s going to be wasted on Cousin Hester.’
‘I’d much rather he played the part you invited him for,’ Adorna replied. ‘Though I think Hester’s wasted on him.’
But Lady Marion was only half-listening. ‘Don’t be difficult, dear. Come along!’ she called to Sir Nicholas’s group. ‘You must sing your roundelays, you know. I think you should be the one to start them off, Sir Nicholas, if you please. Show them how it should be done.’
The idea of having guests to sing for their suppers was not a new one, each one expecting to contribute to the others’ entertainment in some way either by singing or by playing an instrument. At thirteen, Adorna’s youngest brother Adrian usually had to be held back forcibly from being the first to perform, but this time he added his voice to his mother’s. Although Sir Nicholas’s roundelay was short, he made it last longer by singing it several times over to a simple tune of his own devising.
And so my love protesting came, but yet I made her mine.
His voice was true and vibrant, but Adorna refused to watch him perform, not wishing to see who he looked at while he sang. Yet as soon as the applause died down and another guest followed, a whispered comment at her back closed her ears to everything except the exchange of riveting gossip.
‘Pity he doesn’t make them his for longer than three months,’ a man’s voice said, half-laughing. ‘He goes through ’em faster than his master.’
‘Hah! Is that how long the last one was?’
‘Lady Celia. Traverson’s lass. Handsome woman, too, but ditched after three months. Penelope Mount-joy afore that and heaven knows how many afore her. He has ’em queueing up for him.’
‘But he’s only been in his post for a year or so.’
The voice chuckled. ‘Trying out the new mares.’
‘They’re happy to assist, eh?’
‘Aye, but not so happy to be left, apparently. Still, if he’s after old Pickering’s heiress, he’ll probably not find any protesting there.’
The two men joined in the applause though they had not listened to the song, but Adorna’s blood ran cold as she sidled away to the back of the crowd to avoid an invitation to sing, shivering with unease at the sickening words. Even among men it seemed that Sir Nicholas’s reputation as a rake was chuckled over, envied, plotted and predicted, his victims pitied. From the corner of her eye, she identified one of the gossips as her father’s colleague, the Master of the Queen’s Jewels, the other as a superior linen-draper who held a royal warrant.
Ditched after three months? Trying out the new mares? It was as she had suspected; the man had been amusing himself, teasing her to make her respond to him, despite her obvious antagonism. Then he would blithely go on to the next before choosing how, when and where to include Cousin Hester in his schemes, sure that she would defer to his convenience more than any other. For the hundredth time, she heard the woman’s sob echo through the evening, saw again her last slow touch, her hurried departure into oblivion. Her heart ached for the woman’s pain and for Hester, too, who would have no experience of how to deal with a man’s inconstancy, being unused to dalliance and light-hearted love affairs. Hester would not recognise insincerity if it was branded on a man’s forehead.
That much was true, though at that precise moment Hester was having no problems with her own brand of innocence or with other people’s kindness, whether the latter was sincerely meant or not. Dear Adorna and Lady Marion had identified her deficiencies, which were many, and had offered her every assistance to overcome them, and it would be both churlish and unnecessary to deprive them of the pleasure of success. Moreover, the pleasure was not all theirs. She practised her smile once more on a young gentleman who offered her a heart-shaped biscuit and saw how his eyes lit up with pleasure, as Sir Nicholas’s had done.
What a pity Aunt Sarah had not made her aware of such delights, but then, her foster parents were much older than Adorna’s and had had neither the time, experience nor patience to be plunged into parenthood with a ready-made child. They had provided her with an elderly nurse and tutor, shelter and food, a good education and firm discipline and, if she wanted company, there were always the horses. Uncle Samuel was a passionate horse-breeder: Aunt Sarah was not passionate about anything. Passion, she had once told Hester, was a shocking waste of energy.
Hester was satisfied, almost pleased, that Sir Nicholas had noticed the changes enough to compliment her. He had always been most kind, and it was quite obvious that Lady Marion had asked him here especially to put her at her ease. The least she could do in return was to remember what they had told her about smiling, listening and keeping her hands still.
She glanced across the long shadows that now striped the lawn, seeing Adorna talking animatedly to a group of men, her expressions so graceful, her hands and head articulate, her back curving and set firmly against Sir Nicholas from whom she had made no attempt to conceal her indifference. They had scarcely spoken to each other at the tennis court, nor had Adorna joined the ladies who surrounded him, but Hester supposed that the gentlemanly Master Fowler was Adorna’s special friend and that she preferred his company to anyone’s. Which Hester could well understand, though for their sakes she would make herself most agreeable to Sir Nicholas since that was clearly what they wished.
Her aunt and uncle had, naturally, warned her that once she was on her own, there would be fortune-hunters, but her mind was at rest as far as Sir Nicholas was concerned, he having a fortune of his own. Apart from that, if he had ever entertained thoughts along those lines, he had had plenty of chances during the six years or more he had been visiting Uncle Samuel.
The guests were beginning to move back into the house again, Adorna firmly linked to Master Fowler. To Hester a dear gentleman offered his arm, which she daintily laid her hand upon, smiling at him, picking up her skirts over the grass and thinking how much easier this was than she had once believed.
In the great hall, the tables and benches had been cleared to leave a space for the entertainments, and here Hester was happy to watch as sheets of music were handed to those guests who were prepared to perform on viol, flute and lute. Nothing could have been lovelier than when Adorna played a beautiful melody by William Byrd on the virginals, for she was able to sing at the same time in a voice so sweet that the guests were spellbound, making Hester appreciate even more how much she herself had to learn.
There was dancing, too, which had never been Hester’s strongest point, so she remained at one side in the company of yet another gentleman who talked non-stop about his fishing visits to Scotland when she would rather have listened to the music. She did, however, notice how Adorna kept her eyes lowered whenever she went forward to take Sir Nicholas’s hand, and how he looked at her without the smile that he had bestowed upon herself, which seemed to indicate that he was as little interested in Adorna as she appeared to be in him.
Then there was the play, written by seventeen-year-old Seton, Adorna’s brother. He had persuaded some of his friends from the theatre company known as Leicester’s Men to join him in this short and extremely funny performance, made all the funnier because it was entirely unrehearsed. Master Burbage, their leading actor, kept it all together somehow, but even he could not keep his face straight when Adrian, who had begged on his knees for a part, began to ad lib most dangerously, throwing the other characters off track. It brought the house down, the evening to a close, and Hester to the conclusion that, if it got no worse than this, she might begin to get used to dinner parties.
As duty demanded, Adorna stood with the rest of her family to bid each of the guests farewell, promising Master Burbage that she would rectify one glaring omission by attending one of the Leicester’s Men’s performances at their London venue before long. With a quick squeeze of her mother’s hand, she slipped away from the family group, along the passageway leading to the back of the house and out into the walled herb-garden. Here she waited until the calls of farewell had begun to fade. This was another of her refuges, used on this occasion as an escape from Peter who had earlier left her in no doubt that tonight a formal kiss on the knuckles would not be enough. Without seeking to argue about it, Adorna was convinced that anything more than that would be too much. It was better, she had whispered to her mother, if she disappeared and explained tomorrow, if need be. Lady Marion had had experience at making excuses.
It was almost dark, but still she could just see the brick pathway leading through the garden door on to the lawn where the guests had strolled earlier. There was the walkway that led to the banqueting house in the corner, the fountain still tinkling. Distant bursts of laughter and chatter still floated through the open windows, shapes moving in and out of soft candlelight.
Keeping to the shadows, she entered the small room with a feeling of relief that the evening was over, that she had escaped Peter’s personal leave-taking and that the act she had kept up all evening could now be dropped. The banqueting-house floor was still littered with crumbs in the light of a single candle that the servants had left burning, and a heap of wooden roundels, painted side uppermost, lay discarded on the table, their rhymes sung and forgotten. Holding them towards the candle flame, she went through the stack one by one until she found the one she wanted, peering to make out the words and touching them with the tips of her fingers.
‘And so my love protesting came,’ she whispered, reading as she turned it.
‘But yet I made her mine,’ came the reply from the doorway.
She half-leapt in fright, clutching the plate to her bodice and whirling to face him, angered by the intrusion. ‘I came here…’ she began, ready to resume the act. But the lines had already faded from memory, and she could only glare, defensively.
‘I know why you came here.’ Sir Nicholas closed the door quietly behind him. ‘You came here to escape Master Fowler’s attentions, in the first place. Isn’t that so? Poor Adorna. Saddling yourself all evening with him to keep yourself out of my way. Was it worth it, then?’
‘It worked well enough until now, sir!’ she snapped.
‘Tch, tch!’ He shook his handsome head, smiling with his eyes. His hair and the deep blue of his clothes blended into the shadowy room, but could not conceal the width of his shoulders or the deep swell of his chest. Though he made no move towards her, Adorna found his presence disconcerting after a whole evening of trying to avoid him. He held out a hand for the plate. ‘May I?’ he said.
Evading his eyes, she placed it back on the pile. ‘A silly jingle,’ she said. ‘Quite meaningless. I must not be seen with you here alone, Sir Nicholas. We have nothing to say to each other, and my father will—’
Before she could say what her father would do, he had stepped forward a pace and nipped the candle flame with his fingers, plunging the room into darkness except for the lambent glow from a rising moon. At the same time, Adorna’s neat sidesteps towards the door was anticipated by the intimidating bulk of his body. ‘Then we must make sure,’ he said, ‘that we are not seen here alone, mistress. But I cannot agree that we have nothing to say to each other when you said so little to me earlier in the evening. Do you not recall the moments when you could have spoken but chose not to? Shall we reconstruct the dance to ease the flow of conversation?’ In the darkness, he held out his hand.
She had noticed his graceful dancing, but this was a game she did not intend to play, nor was she by any means ready to fall into his flirtatious trap, as she was sure many others had done. Far from queueing up for his attentions, she wanted nothing to do with him, especially after what she had heard that evening. It was time someone taught him a lesson.
Taking up the act where she had left off, she let out an exaggerated sigh and turned away from him to stare out of the same window where, two nights ago, she had watched him kiss a woman in the friary paradise. ‘Sir Nicholas, I have had a busy day and I have little inclination to wake all Richmond with my screams. But I am prepared to do so if it’s the only way to get out of here. Now, please will you go and make your courtesies to my parents and leave me in peace? Others may find your ways diverting, but I don’t.’
In one step, he came to stand close behind her with his knees enveloped in her wide bell-shaped skirts. ‘For one so unmoved by my diverting ways, mistress, you send out some strangely contradicting signals,’ he said, his voice suddenly devoid of his former playfulness. ‘You came in here to seek my—’
‘I did not come in here to seek anything!’ she snarled at him over her shoulder. ‘The poem was one that caught my eye.’
‘I see.’ He allowed the explanation to go unchallenged. ‘So perhaps you came here to remind yourself of something you saw out there. Eh?’
‘I saw noth—’ She bit her words off, remembering that he had seen her. She started again. ‘What I caught the merest glimpse of, Sir Nicholas, in no way concerned me. If you choose to tell my father that you have no lady, that’s entirely your own affair. I care not if you have a different lady for each day of the week. All I ask is that you don’t ever consider me to be one of them.’
‘You may be a marginally better actor than your brothers, Adorna, but I still say that your signals are in a tangle. Shall I tell you why?’
