The Rogue's Princess (4 page)

Burbage collected Kit from his lodgings in Silver Street shortly before seven. The actor-manager raised an eyebrow at his leading man’s attire.

‘Really, Turner, do you have to so blatantly break the rules under my very nose?’

Kit brushed down the sober black doublet and hose he had ‘borrowed’ from the tiring house. Normally he would be facing a hefty fine, but both he and Burbage both knew he was only following orders to come dressed as if for church. None of Kit’s usual clothes, with his exuberant taste for colour and fashion, fitted the bill.

‘Come now, sir, at least I won’t disgrace you at Alderman Soberside’s table.’

Burbage gestured to the torch-carrying link boy to precede them to Cheapside. ‘True, you look very fine, exactly as I wished.’

Kit tugged at the tight white ruff under his chin. He preferred to go clean-shaven and, without the protection of whiskers, the starched cambric itched like fury. His hand brushed his pearl earring, and he thought better of it so removed it from the lobe. Why spoil his disguise with something that so loudly proclaimed his aspiration to keep at the cutting edge of fashion?

‘And why do you want to parade you newest leading man before the City worthies, sir? Or is the plot too secret to share with a lowly mechanical such as I?’ Kit asked.

Burbage clapped him on the back. ‘Business. Richard pleaded a prior engagement so you are to show them the youthful vigour in my company, the crowd-pulling power of a handsome face. When they look at you, they will be costing
out how many ladies will be paying for the best seats to admire your … um … fine acting.’

‘You mean legs.’

Burbage didn’t even blush. ‘Aye, I mean legs. Not that you aren’t a fine actor too, but you have that little extra that young men like Tom Saxon and Will Shakespeare can’t aspire to. You know well enough they are only ever going to be walk-ons with a line or two. You, like Richard, are the ones who have to carry the play.’

‘Well, thanks, I think.’ Kit was secretly very pleased to find the elder Burbage mentioning him in the same company as his talented son – there was no better young actor in London in Kit’s opinion.

Alderman Belknap’s house did not disappoint Kit’s expectations of City opulence. With a frontage on Goldsmith’s Row, the house stretched back far from the street, opening out on to a garden, which even in this wintry season was pleasing to the eye, with clever intertwining paths and low box hedges framing the beds. At the far end, set up on an artificial mound, was a summerhouse, like a miniature castle. He could imagine it a very pleasant place to spend a July evening with the roses blooming and birds singing in the twilight. Only banking wealth could have purchased such a little patch of heaven right in the centre of one of the biggest cities in the world. Kit tried not to feel envious, or give away, by gawping, how impressed he was.

The house itself was decorated in modern style: in one room the plaster was painted with the family crest, fruit trees and mythical beasts; in the next the walls were panelled with oak. A fine carpet lay on a side table, showing off the jewel-bright
colours that must have been woven in some Arabian city. Kit’s stomach rumbled just imagining what wonders the kitchens of this alderman would produce. It was a well-known fact that many City men dined far better than the court, having first call on the most exotic imports arriving in the bellies of the merchant ships.

Their host greeted them in the family parlour, his back to a roaring fire, not that the day was that cold for February, more a statement of how much money he had to burn if measured in coals or faggots of wood. Kit had prepared himself for a butterball of a man rolling in his riches; instead he was introduced to a tall, daddy-long-legged gentleman who would not have looked out of place in a pulpit, grey hair clipped close, face almost gaunt, clothes fine, but restrained with only a modicum of fur-lining and very little gold flashing on fingers. How such a Spartan fellow could run a prestigious business as a purveyor of golden luxury and loans was a puzzle. Perhaps the fact that he looked unlikely to be seduced by lucre himself was the very reason for his success. Suspicious of religious types, Kit stood back, watching for any sign of the manic gleam in the eye that he’d seen all those years ago in the preacher that had dunked him in the horse trough, but Jerome Belknap seemed quite sane and happy to reconcile his devotion to God with a love of the theatre.

‘And you, Master Turner, I saw you in
The Knights of Malta
– excellently done, i’faith.’ Belknap appeared to have genuinely enjoyed the play – Kit thought it an indifferent piece, enlivened only by lots of crowd-pleasing sword fighting. His side still bore the bruise from a mistimed swipe by Saxon.

‘Thank you, sir.’ Kit amused himself by acting the modest
man of sober opinions to match his host and his garb. ‘I am flattered by your high opinion.’

‘I’m glad to see you are taking after your master and his son rather than those wild fellows that run riot in the taverns giving the stage a bad reputation, what’s-his-name Marlowe, Saxon and the like.’

Burbage coughed, warning Kit to behave.

‘Indeed, sir, I have no desire to squander my time in low company.’ Kit wagered his expression could have charmed the sternest of puritans.

‘Good, good. My family have been eager to meet you ever since I announced you were coming to supper – and my business partners, of course. We may be serious fellows in Cheapside, but never let it be said we have forgotten how to make merry!’

Kit had an image of himself as a lion in the Queen’s menagerie in the Tower, being poked at for the amusement of the city populace. He wasn’t sure he relished this role that Burbage had foisted on him.

‘Ah, here are my girls. Mistress Belknap, my wife.’

A smiling lady with a fair complexion and slight frame curtsied to the company. She was gaily dressed in a light blue damask kirtle and bodice with white sleeves. Gold embroidery glittered discreetly on seam and forepart. Kit wondered if his friend, Milly Porter, who owned a fine finishing business on Silver Street, had had the task of creating the detailing. She would have been the one who could get right the balance between a suggestion of opulence and tasteful restraint.

‘And my daughters, Catherine, Alice and Ann.’

Three of the four girls clustered behind Mistress Belknap
curtsied. They were little blonde copies of their parent, dressed like a rainbow, one in orange, another in green, the third in violet. Kit had no idea which was which. They were pretty enough; rumour had not lied on that account.

‘And last, but not least, little Mercy Hart, a good friend of my daughter Ann.’ The fourth girl, hidden at the back of the group, bobbed a hasty curtsy, preventing Kit from getting a clear sight of her. Belknap turned to Burbage. ‘You must know of her father, John Hart?’

Burbage nodded. ‘Ah, yes, he has cornered the market in silk I hear, but not likely to be interested in my business unfortunately.’

Belknap smiled ruefully. ‘Aye, that is so or I would have invited him tonight. Girls, look after Master Turner here. I’m going to introduce Master Burbage to my other guests and I’m sure our business talk will bore him.’

Kit watched cynically as Belknap took Burbage over to the city merchants gathered at the other end of the chamber. So this was the part of the evening where he was supposed to prove his power to charm the ladies, was it? With an internal shrug, he steeled himself to begin, deciding that he would prove Burbage’s trust in him by impressing the hardest challenge in the room. It was clear that this Hart fellow was an important connection that had so far eluded Burbage. A friendly cloth importer would be invaluable to the costume makers at the Theatre. Kit would see what he could do to turn this Mercy Hart to their side.

2

‘Master Turner, have you been with Master Burbage long?’ asked Mistress Belknap, signalling for her servants to begin serving the welcome cup of mulled wine.

Kit seized a drink from the tray, remembering just in time to take prudent sips, rather than downing it in one. ‘Indeed, ma’am, since I was a boy. He taught me everything I know about the business.’

‘And a better teacher you could not hope for.’

‘You echo my thoughts exactly.’ Kit almost yawned. The strain of keeping back his usual flowery style of address was as tiring as holding the reins on a team of spirited horses. And he still hadn’t caught a clear look at the shortest of the girls, his quarry for the evening. It was time for him to cut her from the herd. ‘Mistress Hart, tell me, do you enjoy hearing a play?’

The sea of rainbow skirts parted as the Belknap girls turned to their guest, granting him his first clear sight of her. Kit felt as if he had just been thrown from the saddle. He had not been expecting to encounter such a creature in an alderman’s parlour. She was stunning: more curves packed into her five feet two inches than many a ship’s figurehead, a sweet heart-shaped face and the most earnest pair of green eyes he had ever
seen. As he watched, a faint blush rose over her strawberries-and-cream skin, making him even hungrier, though this time not for food. He couldn’t help letting his gaze drop to her chest where small fingers played nervously with the laces on her modest peach-coloured bodice.

Peaches
– that was absolutely the last image he needed right now when he was trying his utmost to behave.

‘I’ve never heard a play, sir,’ the girl said shyly.

So she didn’t attend the theatre. For the moment that did not matter to Kit; he was willing to be anything she wanted as long as he could get her talking.

‘What about music? Do you like Byrd’s madrigals or do you prefer Tallis?’

The girl shuttered her eyes with a sweep of her long dark lashes. ‘You must think me very ignorant, sir, but I am not familiar with the latest music. My father does not approve of anything but psalms sung at home.’

The Belknap daughter in orange was watching the interchange with amusement, her squirrel-bright eyes leaping between them. Kit guessed that meant she knew that he was not quite as he appeared this night, an easy deduction if she had last seen him skewering Saracens on stage.

‘Mercy has a lovely voice, Master Turner,’ the Belknap chit said. ‘Perhaps later you could teach her one of Lyly’s songs?’ She turned to her friend. ‘They are very good, Mercy, nothing unsuitable about them, you’ll see. Even the Queen asks for them to be played – Lyly’s her favoured poet and he trains the boys of St Paul’s to be excellent performers.’

The girl appeared to be struggling against a desire to prod her friend in the ribs for making the suggestion. ‘What’s right
at court is not necessarily welcomed under my father’s roof, as you well know, Ann.’

So that was Ann. Kit sensed an ally in the orange-garbed maiden. ‘And you, Mistress Ann, how like you the fashion for madrigals? I see they have even begun to print the sheet music so that each singer has his stave facing the right way when a quartet gathers around a table – a welcome innovation.’

‘Marry, sir, that is very convenient in a house that has a tuneful family, but ours is sadly lacking in that respect.’ Ann’s eyes twinkled with merriment. ‘My sisters and I are most politely asked not to sing the responses at church for fear of throwing the others off key.’

‘But do you play?’

‘The lute, but badly. Mercy here is far more accomplished than I, even though she pretends not to excel at anything so worldly.’

Ann staggered, but continued smiling as if nothing had happened. If Kit was not mistaken, the little daughter of the cloth merchant had just kicked her friend in the calf – well padded by layers of skirts from any true injury. This parading of Mercy’s skills was proving a very entertaining subject, confirming his suspicion that she was eminently easy to tease. He always appreciated that in a girl, not having a very serious approach to life himself.

He placed his hand on his breast and bowed. ‘Then, Mistress Hart, I would be desolate to leave this night without hearing your voice or enjoying a few melodies from your accomplished fingers.’

’Swounds, he wished he hadn’t created that image as his mind was now full of entirely inappropriate images of her
wandering hands and his all too willing flesh. She was a decent girl, far too modest for such sport, and he shamed her by even entertaining such ideas in private.
Behave, Kit, behave.

‘I’m sure she will be more than happy to oblige,’ Ann replied, prudently moving out of kicking distance. ‘Oh, Mother? Do you know where we put the lute after Mercy’s last visit?’

Mistress Belknap beamed her approval. ‘Oh, Mercy, are you going to play for us? You know how I love to hear it after years of being tortured by music lessons for my own daughters.’ She leaned confidentially towards Kit. ‘Sadly, sir, they all make the lute sound like the strings are still attached to the gut of some unfortunate creature.’

‘To sound so awful must be a skill of sorts,’ suggested Kit gallantly.

‘One of use to bird-scarers perhaps,’ muttered Mercy, thinking only Ann would hear her little commentary.

Happily, Kit caught her words and laughed out loud. His damsel had a sharp sense of humour. Until today, he had never believed in that nonsense about falling in love on first meeting, but he was reacting to this girl as he had to no other. The fact that she was completely oblivious to her effect on men was all part of her charm and he felt quite drunk in her presence. He was wracking his brains to think how he could get her on her own for a few minutes to further their acquaintance.

Mistress Belknap took Mercy’s hand. ‘Will you play for us, love?’

‘Have mercy on us, Mercy!’ chorused the three daughters – then fell into giggles, telling Kit this was all part of an old familiar joke, playing on her name.

Mercy buckled under the combined pressure, as Kit anticipated she would. Already he was certain that his maiden had not a selfish bone in her very comely body. ‘To please you, ma’am, I will.’ She took a worried glance around the room. ‘But only if all the company are happy to hear me. I would not want to put myself forward and seem a proud sort of girl wanting all the attention for herself.’