The Rogue's Princess (6 page)

‘I defy you to find an indecent piece of music, mistress. Words, it is true, can lead astray, but music is the language of angels, above reproach.’

She looked very relieved to hear this explanation, giving her the excuse she needed not to feel guilty about her attraction to such worldly things. ‘That is true. I can see I have been getting myself in a fearful muddle over nothing. It is not as if I’m about to march out of my door and make my living playing for the crowd now, is it? Entertaining my family at home is surely a safe and respectable pastime.’

‘Indubitably.’ While his sober outside nodded gravely to Mercy, the real Kit was chuckling at her sweet confusion. She was quick to take correction; perhaps his hopes were not in vain? A kiss could be innocent too, if presented in the right light under the most promising circumstances. ‘Now what shall we play together? I would suggest Lord Cumberland’s
“My thoughts are wing’d with hopes”, a very pretty air for tenor and lute. Lyly has had it performed before the Queen with great success.’ And it had also been a favourite at the Theatre, but she did not have to know that. He passed the music to her.

Mercy worried her bottom lip as she scanned her part. ‘Yes, I think I am familiar with some of this already. The chorus is fairly simple to play.’ She deftly plucked the part.

‘Then shall we take it for a gallop?’

She nodded, her poise all musician as if a mantle had dropped on her from above, covering the shy girl.

Kit took a breath and began singing the love song to the moon, which, in the lyrics of the piece, was entitled Cynthia, a well-known code denoting the Queen. On this performance, he was quietly changing the subject from Cynthia to Mercy in his mind.

‘
My thoughts are wing’d with hopes,

My hopes with love
.’

Mercy glanced up once or twice to catch him gazing at her, sensing the passion beneath his words if not understanding she was the cause. Indeed, he had to be moonstruck to take so to this girl on first meeting, but he was a hopeless captive to his emotions. There was nothing rational about what he felt, but yet he wanted to throw himself into the flood like a leaf in the millrace, letting it toss and turn him as it would. The voyage downstream might be perilous but, oh, it would be glorious.

‘
Thoughts, hopes and love return to me no more,

Until Cynthia shine as she hath done before
.’

‘That was … that was wonderful,’ Mercy said as he finished
the final phrase, her dreamy gaze still lost in the song’s spell. ‘You are truly gifted, sir.’

He seized her hand where it rested on the strings and raised it to his lips. ‘And you, mistress, have played your way into my soul. What enchantment do you use when you pluck the strings, for my heart echoes the very notes?’

Mercy did not pull away, but neither could she bring herself to meet his intense gaze. ‘No enchantments, sir.’

‘Ah, but you do, though you know it not. You cast the spell of the beautiful soul, bringing this unworthy mortal in helpless thrall to your feet.’

Too much?
Kit hid his grimace. He knew his language was ornate at the best of times, a hopeless habit caught from prolonged exposure to the stage. His best friend, Milly Porter, would mock him unmercifully for it if she were here, but happily his little maiden was listening wide-eyed as if it were the first time she had ever heard such compliments.

Then he realized it was exactly so. She was the girl that poets sung about: the bud with the dew of innocence still on the petals. It was her debut on this stage of love. He must be very careful with her, for it would be sacrilege to disturb so perfect a bloom; he must use no debased coinage of words.

Mercy’s eyes were round with wonder, dark pupils rimmed with the hint of green fire. ‘No, sir, it is I who am not worthy. I play very ill compared to your mastery of the music.’

He kissed each finger in gentle worship. ‘Nay, mistress, your touch is exquisite.’ He turned her hand to place a kiss in the centre of her palm. ‘And from this moment on I will not stand for there to be another opinion on the matter.’ He
cupped her soft hand to his cheek, letting her feel the strength of his jaw, the rough texture of the skin.

Mercy’s lips parted, but she clearly could not think of anything to say, caught up in the enchantment woven between them. Checking they were unobserved by their lax guard, Kit quickly dipped forward and pressed his mouth to hers, stealing the kiss he had been promising himself since he first saw her.

‘Will you let me call on you?’ he whispered. ‘Tell me where you live, sweetheart.’

Mercy seemed dazed, unsure of her next move.

‘Tell me, please, or I will have to go knocking on all the doors of London and make myself a notorious nuisance. “There goes that love-sick Turner!” the City men will cry. “Pray take him to the doctor for his lady has smitten his heart with Cupid’s arrow.”’

She smiled at that. ‘Well, we can’t have you risking a visit to the doctor. On London Bridge, at the sign of the bolt of cloth. Southwark end.’

‘Southwark end,’ he repeated, letting his breath stir the curl of dark hair that had come loose by her ear after his kiss. ‘Bolt of cloth.’

‘You … you will call on my father? Request permission?’

He almost asked ‘permission for what?’ before he realized she thought he meant courting in preparation for marriage. The unlikely thought danced across his mind that maybe he did want to woo her as a decent apprentice would a merchant’s daughter. It would be a beautiful dream for a bastard player to hold for a time. ‘Aye, I’d do that and more for you.’ If he were allowed.

She closed her eyes and rested her head briefly on his shoulder. ‘Master Turner.’ Just that, nothing more.

‘I’m known as Kit to my very good friends.’

‘Kit.’

Ann suddenly broke into a paroxysm of coughing, giving due warning that their sweet interlude was about to be disturbed. Mistress Belknap appeared in the door.

‘Master Turner, Mercy, are you ready?’ Her shrewd eyes flicked to the curl bouncing on Mercy’s shoulder. ‘Mercy, tidy yourself, girl. I swear you can’t move a pace without losing pins in your wake like a cart with a badly packed load.’

Mercy groped for the betraying lock and stuffed it under her coif, but not before Kit had time to see that his damsel rejoiced in the most wonderful wine-dark hair, the very red-satin brown of an autumn chestnut fresh from the husk.

‘You have picked a song for us?’ Mistress Belknap continued smoothly, stoically ignoring Mercy’s fluster.

‘Aye, a song of hopeful love,’ replied Kit.

‘As long as it doesn’t get its hopes up too high,’ Mistress Belknap warned, giving him a pointed look.

Leaving the Belknap supper at eleven, Kit floated back to his lodgings, barely aware as Burbage bribed the watch to let them pass after curfew.

‘Enjoyed yourself, lad?’ Burbage asked jovially, a little deep in his cups.

‘It was a very pleasant evening.’ That was an understatement: he was still spinning with joy inside like a child’s top.

‘Aye. You and that little maid entertained us most sweetly. You swayed at least three merchants to our side by your
talents.’ Burbage yawned. ‘Shame we couldn’t put you both on stage. They do in France, you know.’

‘Do what?’ Kit dug in the pouch at his belt and replaced the pearl in his ear.

‘Let women play women on stage.’

Kit snorted. ‘We can’t be having that here. It would give the Lord Chamberlain an apoplexy and be very bad for the boys. As a former company boy, I am against it.’ He raised his hand as if voting ‘Nay’.

Burbage chuckled. ‘Never fear, Turner, I am not about to set such fires in our theatre. They would close us down within a week. Here we are – your lodgings.’

Kit paused outside the door, too excited to settle for the night. Candles were still lit a few doors down in the narrow canyon of the street: Milly must be working late. ‘I bid you good night, sir.’

Burbage saluted as he walked on, a link boy going ahead to light his path, stout cudgel in hand to deter thieves lurking in dark alleys. Kit knocked softly on Milly’s door, hoping she would be welcoming of visitors, even this late. The door opened a crack, a dark face appearing warily, before the gap widened. Milly’s husband, Diego, stood in the entrance. Of middling stature, and of an age with Kit, the blackamoor had once been in service to the Lacey family. Since his marriage, he had become quite a famous personage in his own right in London, managing a successful business teaching riding skills and fencing to gentlemen at a house in Southwark owned by his father-in-law. Unfortunately, he was a cool friend to Kit.

‘Turner, what brings you here so late?’

Kit stepped inside so Diego could shut out the night. ‘I hope you don’t mind, but I wanted to talk to your wife. Is she awake?’

‘Aye, finishing an order for Lady Jane. She stubbornly refuses to let her down by being tardy with the new livery.’

‘Then may I go up?’

Diego shrugged. ‘I do not stand in your way, Master Player.’

That was invitation enough for Kit. He took the stairs two at a time, familiar with the route even though it was unlit. The rest of the family must have retired already. He found Milly, as he expected, seated on a stool by the fire, a candle on a low table to light her work on an embroidered stomacher. She looked up and gave him her warm smile. A slightly built redhead, Milly was a person whose character was far more formidable than her frame.

‘Kit, you stranger, this is a surprise! You’ve not called round so late for months!’

Diego sauntered in behind him. ‘That’s because he knows I like to have you all to myself after business hours.’

Kit rolled his eyes at the young Moor’s territorial speech. ‘God save us from the newly wedded! Gilding not yet off the lily, Diego?’

Diego touched his wife’s neck with a gentle brush of blunt fingertips. ‘Nay, and it never will be.’

Kit was glad to hear it. He had had doubts about the wisdom of their unorthodox match, but London seemed to have taken it in its stride. The patronage of his noble legitimate brothers, Will and James, and their wives, had helped in this.

He wandered about the room, disturbing embroidered frill and bejewelled hat-band in his aimless perusal.

‘What has set your hose in a twist, Kit?’ Milly asked as she snipped a thread. ‘Did the laundress forget to shake out the ants after hedge-drying your clothes?’

Kit wasn’t sure he could pour out his heart before the disapproving Diego, but he was unlikely these days to catch Milly alone. Her husband did not trust him enough to leave them in peace and, to be sure, Kit had offered him enough provocation over the years to earn the suspicion. No other thing for it: he threw himself into the confession like a man jumping overboard with the ship on fire about him.

‘I met the most beautiful creature in the whole of the world tonight.’

Milly tried to thread her needle, but missed. Diego stepped in to do it for her, giving her eyes a rest. ‘By
creature
,’ she asked, ‘do I take it we are talking about a girl?’

Kit paced to and fro in the space between window and her stool. ‘Aye. Mercy Hart, daughter of a cloth merchant and City worthy.’

‘And where did you meet this paragon? Surely not in your usual evening’s haunts?’

Kit smiled at the thought. ‘Nay, she would not know what the inside of a tavern looked like. She is from a very strict family, God-fearing folk all of them. I met her at Alderman Belknap’s supper.’

Milly frowned. ‘The Belknaps? Oh yes, I remember them: a very kind family, rich as a fleet of treasure-filled Spanish galleons, and prompt to settle their accounts. But I do not think I know your lady.’

‘I want to court her.’ Kit said it like issuing a challenge.

Milly did not pick up the gauntlet. ‘I see.’ She bent her head
over her work, her method of ducking an argument with her friend.

Diego was not so reticent. ‘You wish to wed this merchant’s daughter after one evening’s acquaintance?’

‘Aye.’ Kit’s eyes blazed.

‘Is she wealthy and particularly gullible?’

Milly placed a restraining hand on her husband’s arm.

‘This is not about money!’ Kit protested. ‘Nor is she gullible – just innocent!’

‘So it is love?’ Diego smiled at his wife. ‘See how the arch-cynic has fallen.’

‘I want you to meet her, Milly.’ Kit ignored Diego’s evident enjoyment of his predicament. ‘She is so unworldly, unspoilt, and has the most amazing eyes that speak with every glance. And she plays the lute like an angel.’

Milly put the finished piece aside and stretched her weary arms. ‘Why do I think there is a “but” in all this?’

Kit hung his head. Milly was always as damnably sharp as one of her needles. ‘She doesn’t know I’m an actor. She thinks the stage is most like to be the work of the Devil.’

Milly gave him an exasperated look. ‘Oh, Kit, why ever did you hide the truth from her? If you are serious about the girl, she will have to know what you do and not be ashamed of you.’

He held up empty hands. ‘I know I’m not worthy of her, but I didn’t want to end our conversation before it had even started. I wanted a chance to convince her that I was what she wanted.’

‘You can’t do that by not being yourself!’

Kit didn’t like the track this discussion was taking. He just wanted to share his excitement with her, not hear all the drawbacks. ‘I was myself.’

‘Then why are you dressed like a preacher?’

‘Orders. From Burbage.’ He tugged the dreary doublet straight.

‘And would she still look on you with favour if you were not in your borrowed weeds?’

Would she? ‘Of course,’ Kit replied staunchly, though he was far from sure.

‘Then next time you see her you must not feign to be ought else than you are.’

Diego shook his head. ‘My love, you have the player wrong. Being all these people and many others
is
his true self. He has the nature of taffeta, changeable with each light upon it.’ He held up a scrap of the same offending material, shifting its colours in the candle.

Kit didn’t like this portrait, for in part it held much truth. ‘You charge me with inconstancy, sir?’