The Rogue's Princess (5 page)

‘I know, Mother!’ exclaimed Ann, acting as if the idea had only just struck when doubtless the lovely little Machiavelli had been busy plotting. ‘Why not persuade Master Turner to join her? All of London knows he’s a fine performer. Your guests would be
desolate
not to hear him before they leave.’ She smiled broadly at Kit as she parroted his words back at him.

He bowed to kiss Ann’s hand. ‘It would be an honour.’

‘Oh, Master Turner, is it not very rude of us as to ask you to sing for your supper?’ cried Mistress Belknap, looking thoroughly delighted by the idea. Her feast was about to become a famous success if they could get London’s brightest star to shine for them in private.

‘Ma’am, I have been singing for my supper since I was a little lad so I have no qualms about adding another to the count.’ Kit decided there and then that he was also falling in love with the Belknap family as they were allowing his plan to be apart with the maiden to tumble so perfectly into place.

‘Then it is agreed. After supper you must have a place to rehearse. The closet off the parlour should suit. I will ask the servants to set candles, lute and music in it ready for you. Ann will help you select the songs.’
And act as guard on her young guest’s virtue
, Mistress Belknap’s eyes warned Kit.

Kit thought Ann would make a wonderful third to their party. ‘I can hardly wait to get started. There are several love songs that I am sure Mistress Hart will enjoy learning and I am a most willing tutor.’

Mercy could barely eat a thing. How had this happened? She had come in all innocence to a family supper and ended up agreeing to entertain the entire company of aldermen and their wives with secular songs, accompanying the handsomest man in London. There was no way in Christendom that word of this would not get back to her father and she hated to anticipate his reaction. He wouldn’t shout at her, or scold her as such, but she knew he would be so disappointed. The heaviness of that would weigh round her neck like a milkmaid’s yoke for weeks, if not months. Faith would give her that sad look, the one she reserved for serious breaches of decorum. Edwin would splutter something about the wild company she kept and the well-known liberality of the goldsmiths. All three of them liked Ann, but none entirely approved of Jerome Belknap as, among God-fearing folk, he was known to be very free-thinking. To hear that Mercy had taken part in such a frivolous gathering would be the proof they had been waiting for that all was not as it should be under Belknap’s roof. There would be a sermon in it at least.

‘More marchpane, Mistress Hart?’ Master Turner offered her a plate of her favourite sweetmeats, but the sight of them turned her stomach. She was too nervous to eat.

‘No thank you, sir.’

Mistress Belknap had placed the pair of them side by side at the board in order for them to ‘discuss music’. Mercy had
decided the lady was as bad as her daughter when it came to encouraging flirtations. For the Belknap ladies, it was all a piece of harmless fun, not meant to go beyond the bounds of decent behaviour, but for her, it was a torment. It would have been bearable if every smile on the young man’s face had not made her heart flutter. She was feeling by turns hot and cold in her borrowed clothes, wishing that Ann’s peach camlet bodice was not so tight around the bust and the ruff was not so frothy. She had no clue how to behave with the man’s unguarded looks of admiration. He had not been offensive – far from it, he had been nothing but polite. She reassured herself that he appeared a sober-enough fellow in his black doublet, a wealthy senior apprentice, perhaps, to the Master Burbage Ann’s father so liked. Mercy wondered what line of business they were in to make his voice so famous. Were they makers of musical instruments? That would explain his expectation that she had frequented places of entertainment; doubtless he had to risk going to them himself for the sake of his craft. The Hart family stood apart from the current fashion for the stage. Though Ann had never said as much to her, Mercy suspected the Belknaps even went to the Theatre – that was how liberal the father was. Some churchmen said it was the very nest of the Devil’s brood, but Mercy had a sinful hankering to see what it would be like.

‘Why do I get the impression, mistress, that I make you very nervous?’ her dining companion asked in a low voice. ‘Or it is the prospect of our performance?’

‘Yes,’ whispered Mercy, chasing a piece of pie crust around her plate with her spoon to avoid looking at him.

‘Yes to what? Yes, I make you nervous or, yes, you are worried about playing with me later?’

Mercy flicked her eyes to his face, wondering if the double meaning had been intentional, but he was studying her expression without so much as a glint of a naughty smile. He had to be honest or a very good actor. She decided the lascivious thoughts had been entirely of her own creation and begged God’s pardon for them.

‘Yes to both. I am … um … not accustomed to dining in such company. I live a very quiet life at home.’

‘I had guessed as much. And earlier you said you had never heard a play: why is that? I thought almost all of London went.’

Mercy glanced around her, checking they were not overheard. ‘I have been told the stage is given over to very dangerous spectacles, plays that teach immoral behaviour and drive the watchers to –’ she lowered her voice – ‘acts of lewdness.’

He brushed a hand across his mouth, hiding his expression momentarily. ‘But you have not attended a performance to judge for yourself?’ His note of disapproval was plain in his voice; this was clearly a sore point with him.

‘I doubt it would be allowed.’ Even as she spoke, Mercy wondered if that was the truth. Her father had never banned her from going, merely made his own thoughts on the subject clear to his children. She knew Aunt Rose had slipped away to see the occasional play without making a great announcement of it to the family. These absences had been handled by everyone ignoring the subject on the principle that if they weren’t acknowledged no one would have to take offence.

‘That is a shame, for how else can you make up your own mind? I would argue that the play is the very place to teach
morality, on occasion far more successfully than from the pulpit.’ As he gestured vigorously to emphasis his argument, a lock of his wavy black hair fell forward, teasing the solid line of his jaw. Mercy squeezed her fingers round her knife and spoon to stop herself from reaching out to brush it back. ‘By seeing vice punished and virtue rewarded, would you not be improved by the experience?’ he continued. ‘It is a perverse mind that takes away evil lessons from the plays put on the London stage, all of which are first approved by the Queen’s own servant, the Lord Chamberlain.’

‘You make many good points, sir,’ Mercy said soberly, not wanting to anger the young man. ‘I have much to learn, it seems.’

‘And I would be more than happy to teach you.’ His dark eyes held hers for a thrilling few moments before he blinked and turned away, breaking the spell. ‘Come now, Mistress Hart, you must eat something. One of these custards, perhaps?’

Mercy nodded dumbly, wondering where her wits had fled to when she most needed them about her. He broke off a corner of the creamy tart on his plate and placed it on her spoon, then watched as she nibbled it, his eyes fixed on her lips. To her mortification, Mercy felt her cheeks blush. She had been right in her first suspicions: he was attracted to her and, Lord help her, she was horribly drawn to him. But, then again, was it so bad if he liked her? She was of marriageable age. As a respectable apprentice invited to dine with aldermen, would he not be a suitable husband for her? Ann would say so. She was forever reeling off the selling points of the potential spouses among the young men of Cheapside like so many bullocks going under the hammer at Smithfield. Was it not Mercy’s duty
now she was grown up to turn her thoughts to a future beyond her family if she were not to be an unmarried burden on her brother?

Suddenly the prospect of leaving her home did not seem as terrifying when she had a young man looking at her with such devotion. And he seemed so kind and concerned about her feelings. So quiet and respectful.

She swallowed her mouthful and gave him a blinding smile. ‘Thank you, sir. That was delicious.’

‘Hmmm.’ He seemed quite lost in the contemplation of her mouth. She licked her lips self-consciously. He shifted uneasily in his seat, rearranging his long legs under the board.

She looked behind them at the roaring hearth. ‘Are you uncomfortable, sir? Is the fire too hot?’

‘Not the fire.’ He cleared his throat. ‘Mistress Hart, I believe our hosts have finished. What say you that we retire to practise our songs together?’

After their host gave the prayer of thanks for the meal, Mercy got swiftly to her feet, eager now to be apart with the young man. She tried to ignore the fact that she had rashly convinced herself on little evidence that this flirtation could be the prelude to true love. Instead, she caught Ann’s eye, signalling that they were ready to go. ‘Yes, let’s do that. I am ready to learn a new song if you will teach me.’

3

Kit wasn’t sure he was going to survive the experience of being in the little closet off the parlour almost alone with Mercy Hart. She seemed oblivious that she was within a hair’s breadth of being backed up against the wall and kissed most soundly. Instead she chattered on about music as if her earlier reticence was all quite forgotten. Ann Belknap was a hopeless guard, sitting by the door with her back to them, reading from a manuscript collection of sonnets as if there was nothing in the world for her but poetry at that moment. Kit wondered idly if any of his sonnets had made it into the sheaf; they were enjoying not a little popularity at court and he had even heard one set to music. He had a profitable sideline in writing verses for unpoetical gentlemen courting romantic ladies.

‘Play me something, mistress, so I may judge your skill for myself,’ he asked Mercy to stop himself doing something he would regret.

She went pink with shy pleasure as she settled the lute on her lap. Kit tried not to imagine putting her in the same position on his.

‘You are a musician, sir?’

‘Among other things,’ he said modestly.

‘I guessed as much. Is Master Burbage a maker of musical instruments?’

What was this? How could she not know to whom she was talking? Was it possible that she had missed hearing of Kit’s reputation? Perhaps there were those who would say it was not for him to boast, but he had gained a certain fame in London for his role in
The Knights
. And Burbage, elder and younger, were names known in almost every household.

‘Not exactly, mistress. Are you not acquainted with him, or maybe his son?’

She strummed the lute, bending her cheek to the board to hear if it was in tune. The position did most interesting things to her bodice. ‘Your pardon, sir, but no. As I said, I live a very quiet life and rarely go out in London society.’ She looked up, eyes sparkling. ‘This is the most exciting evening’s entertainment I have ever attended.’

’Twas wondrous strange! Had she not been to the play, a bear baiting or even a fair? The Belknap supper was the tamest event Kit had attended in many a year; it was hard to imagine that anyone would consider it daring. He realized he had lost the thread of the conversation in his preoccupation with the maiden’s artless innocence and, um, other blessings. Oh yes, Burbage.

‘Master Burbage is …’ He wondered what he could say. He suspected that owning to being one of the players she was so suspicious of would send her running from the closet as if he carried the plague. ‘Is a noted purveyor of entertainments to court and elsewhere.’ There, that was suitably vague. Not a lie, but it could mean anything from a provider of musicians to an owner of trained horses. ‘Come, play for me.’

He listened with real enjoyment as she plucked her way through a sweet fantasy for lute that he recognized hearing a time or two at the Theatre. He applauded when she let the last note hum to a close.

‘Beautiful. You make the lute sing like the dying swan, saving her best notes for the end.’

She looked up, startled by his lapse into flowery compliments. Kit kicked himself mentally.
Sober citizen, remember!

‘Thank you, sir. It was but a trifle.’

‘Where did you learn it, if you are not encouraged to study such music at home?’

She looked down, hiding her jade-coloured eyes from him, embarrassed by her confession. ‘I … I … heard it at played at the barber shop near my home. It has been very popular of late.’

Kit smiled in understanding. He, like many young men, had often taken up the lute left out by his local barber, an amusement to pass the time while waiting for a shave. Men of talent were encouraged to entertain the queue while they tarried, to the point that barbers across London had become the best places for the exchange of the most fashionable songs and various regular customers had gathered their own followings to hear them perform.

‘You must have a very good ear, Mistress Mercy.’ Indeed, she did: a delicate pink whorl like the inner parts of a shell just showing under the flap of her coif. He wondered what colour her hair was; dark if her eyebrows were a reliable guide. There seemed to be a promising amount from the heavy mass caught up at the back by the modest coif.

‘Thank you, sir. I am never quite sure if I should.’

‘Should what?’ He wished he could pay more attention to her words, but his mind kept wandering in the most damnable directions.

‘Copy the music like that. I never quite know what I am playing, not even the title or composer.’

‘Any musician worth his salt would be flattered to have such a fair interpreter of his work.’

She lowered her voice to barely a whisper. ‘But what if the music is not decent?’

Catching himself before he laughed, Kit realized she was being serious. His little maid was one very staunch moralist, which didn’t bode well for his hopes of stealing a kiss. But how could he lift her from this hook of a spiritual dilemma on which she had hung her enjoyment?