Praise for

Amanda McCabe:

A NOTORIOUS WOMAN

‘Court intrigue, poison and murders fill this

Renaissance romance. The setting is beautiful …’

—RT Book Reviews

A SINFUL ALLIANCE

‘Scandal, seduction, spies, counter-spies, murder,

love and loyalty are skilfully woven into the tapestry

of the Tudor court. Richly detailed and brimming

with historical events and personages, McCabe’s tale

weaves together history and passion perfectly.’

—RT Book Reviews

HIGH SEAS STOWAWAY

‘Smell the salt spray, feel the deck beneath your feet

and hoist the Jolly Roger as McCabe takes you

on an entertaining romantic ride.’

—RT Book Reviews

God’s wounds, but it was another fight. And Anna was sure she could guess what the cause was, too.

As if theatre life was not already unpredictable enough, Anna thought wryly. Robert Alden could always be relied upon to liven things up.

And that was why she was such a fool. She finally had her life orderly again, after the end of a most ill-advised marriage and a blessed widowhood. She helped her father with his many businesses, especially the White Heron, and she loved the challenge of it all. She had no more use for the perils of romance—especially with an actor.

But when she looked at Rob Alden she felt like a silly girl again. A blushing, giggling clot-pole of a girl—just like all the legions of ladies who only came to the theatre to watch him on stage.

He was a handsome, tempting devil indeed. One with the magical gift of poetry in addition to his azure eyes and tight backside. Anna refused to be tempted. Her task was only to lure plays from him—those wondrous tales that drew vast crowds and great profits.

But there would be no beautiful words if he killed himself in a brawl …

About the Author

AMANDA MCCABE wrote her first romance at the age of sixteen—a vast epic, starring all her friends as the characters, written secretly during algebra class. She’s never since used algebra, but her books have been nominated for many awards, including the RITA®, RT Book Reviews Reviewers’ Choice Award, the Booksellers Best, the National Readers’ Choice Award, and the Holt Medallion. She lives in Oklahoma, with a menagerie of two cats, a pug and a bossy miniature poodle, and loves dance classes, collecting cheesy travel souvenirs, and watching the Food Network—even though she doesn’t cook. Visit her at http://ammandamccabe.com and http://www.riskyregencies.blogspot.com

Previous novels by the same author:

TO CATCH A ROGUE*

TO DECEIVE A DUKE*

TO KISS A COUNT*

CHARLOTTE AND THE WICKED LORD

(in Regency Summer Scandals)

A NOTORIOUS WOMAN†

A SINFUL ALLIANCE†

HIGH SEAS STOWAWAY†

THE WINTER QUEEN

(in Christmas Betrothals)

THE SHY DUCHESS

SNOWBOUND AND SEDUCED

(in Regency Christmas Proposals)

And in Mills & Boon® Historical Undone! eBooks:

SHIPWRECKED AND SEDUCED†

TO BED A LIBERTINE

THE MAID’S LOVER

TO COURT, CAPTURE AND CONQUER

GIRL IN THE BEADED MASK

UNLACING THE LADY IN WAITING

ONE WICKED CHRISTMAS

*The Chase Muses trilogy

†linked by character

THE TAMING OF THE ROGUE

features characters you will have met in

TO COURT, CAPTURE AND CONQUER

a Mills & Boon® Historical Undone! eBook

Author Note

In so many ways, writing historical romance is the perfect job for a ‘nerd’ like me! I can bring in many of my history obsessions and apply them to my characters, spend hours reading history books, and watch Shakespeare in Love over and over and call it ‘Important Research.’ What could be better?

Anna and Rob’s story was inspired by a wonderful evening at the new Globe Theatre in London, watching a production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. I had long been obsessed with the Elizabethan theatre, and this trip was a dream come true—the closest I could come to experiencing a play the way sixteenth century audiences did. I knew I had to write a story set in the thrilling, dangerous environs of the Elizabethan underworld, and Robert, the writer/spy—inspired in part by the brilliant Christopher Marlowe, and by the famous actor Edward Alleyn, who married the daughter of theatre impresario Philip Henslowe—jumped into my mind right away. He was so dashing, and I fell a bit in love with him myself. Sadly, I had to relinquish him to Anna …

I was able to research several aspects of Elizabethan life for Rob and Anna’s story—theatre, Sir Francis Walsingham and his espionage work, life in Southwark and other suburban—and lawless!—neighbourhoods, and the relations between the different classes of Elizabethan London. A backstage tour of the Globe and some books purchased in their shop gave me a very good start.

I also loved looking more deeply into the life of Spymaster Walsingham—one of the many fascinating characters of the Elizabethan era. He spent his life corralling information in a time when such an endeavour seemed impossible, managing a vast network of informants and agents in an effort to keep the Queen safe. He liked to use actors—such as the ill-fated Marlowe—due to their literacy, their powers of observation, their fluid movements, both geographically and socially, and the fact they always needed money.

Walsingham died in 1590, soon after the action of this story, but I enjoyed giving him a role in this tale, as well as his daughter Frances, Lady Essex—who, despite reputedly being rather plain, married first the famous poet Sir Philip Sidney and then the Court heartthrob the Earl of Essex.

And I also loved seeing what happened to Edward and Elizabeth, whom I first met in my Undone short story, To Court, Capture, and Conquer! They set me on this journey in the first place, and I’m glad to see they are still happily in love and having adventures.

Please visit my website—http://ammandamccabe.com—for more behind-the-book history!

The Taming of the Rogue

Amanda McCabe

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Chapter One

London, 1589

God’s wounds, but it was another fight. And Anna was sure she could guess what the cause was, too.

She put down the costume she was mending, and peered over the railing of the upper gallery to the stage below. Morning rehearsal had not yet begun for Lord Henshaw’s Men, and only a few of the players sat there, desultorily running their lines as Old Madge swept up the used rushes of yesterday’s performance. It seemed an ordinary start to a day at the White Heron Theatre—perhaps she had imagined that shout.

Nay, for there it was again, moving closer from the lane outside. A man’s hoarse yell, a woman’s scream. A mocking laugh.

The men on the stage heard it, too, breaking off mid-sentence to turn curiously towards the bolted doors.

‘It seems Master Alden has returned,’ Anna called down to them, her voice calm and steady. Unlike the rest of her. Her hands trembled as she longed to grab Robert Alden and give him a violent shake! And then to drag him close and kiss him …

‘Fool,’ she whispered, not knowing if she meant him—or herself. She had fought hard to impose control on her life, and she wasn’t going to let a ridiculously handsome, troublemaking actor wreak havoc on that.

‘Shall we bring him in?’ asked Ethan Camp, the company’s comedian. He relished a good brawl.

‘I suppose we must,’ Anna said. ‘He owes us a new play, and we’ll never have it if his arms are broken.’

She spun round and hurried towards the narrow staircase, lifting her grey wool skirts as she dashed down the winding wooden steps past the lower galleries, empty and echoing so early in the day, and into the yard which was open to the sky above. The quarrel was louder there, as if the participants played to the groundlings.

But Anna knew too well that if any blood was shed it would not be from a burst pig’s bladder hidden under a costume.

Ancient Elias, the porter, was already unlocking the doors, the players drawing their daggers. Even Madge leaned on her broom, looking on with keen interest.

As if theatre life was not already unpredictable enough, Anna thought wryly. Robert Alden could always be relied upon to liven things up.

And that was why she was such a fool. She finally had her life orderly again, after the end of a most ill-advised marriage and a blessed widowhood. She helped her father with his many businesses, especially the White Heron, and she loved the challenge of it all. The fact that she was good at the work, and was needed, was something new and welcome. She could do her work and hide backstage. She had no more use for the perils of romance. Especially with an actor.

But when she looked at Rob Alden she felt like a silly girl again. A blushing, giggling clot-pole of a girl, just like all the legions of ladies who only came to the theatre to watch him on stage. To toss flowers at his feet and swoon. To lift their skirts for him in one of the boxes when they thought no one was looking.

He was a handsome, tempting devil, indeed. One with the magical gift of poetry in addition to his azure eyes and tight backside. Anna refused to be tempted. Refused to be another of his easy conquests. Her task was only to lure plays from him, those wondrous tales that drew vast crowds and great profits. A play by Robert Alden was always a great success, and ran for days and days to sold-out crowds.

But there would be no beautiful words if he killed himself in a brawl, which Anna feared he might. He had a reputation even in tumultuous Southwark for his temper.

As soon as the doors swung open she dashed through them, clutching the fearsome weapon of her sewing scissors even as she wished she had the short sword she carried when she collected her father’s rents. The actors were right behind her.

Southwark was fairly quiet in the morning hours. A district that made a living in dubious pleasures like bear pits, brothels and taverns—all the things that were banished from within the city walls and into the suburbs—could never easily rouse itself after a long night’s revelry. The thick pearl-grey mist drifting off the river hung over the shuttered, close-packed buildings and the muddy, mucky lanes.

But a few shutters were thrown open, sleepy faces peering down to see what the trouble was. Trouble always attracted attention in Southwark, no matter what the hour. But everyone soon melted away once it was over.

Anna first saw the woman—a buxom female clad in once-bright, now-dingy yellow satin, her matching yellow hair straggling over her shoulders. She was crying, the tears carving streaks in her thick face paint.

Anna’s gaze darted to the man who stood in front of the whore, waving a sword around wildly. A great, portly bear of a man, with a reddened face and thick black beard. He looked quite unhappy, ready to explode, and Anna felt a cold touch of disquiet in her belly. The man was obviously drunk, and that made him even more unpredictable.

Unlike a play, where the script made it clear how all would end. Had Rob gone too far this time?

She turned to face Rob, who seemed most unconcerned by the whole scene. Probably he, too, was ale-shot, but he gave no indication of it. His blue eyes shone like a summer sky, his grin was merry and mocking, as if imminent disembowelment was greatly amusing.

Unlike his opponent, Rob was lean and lithe, with an actor’s powerful grace. His unlaced white shirt revealed a smooth, muscled expanse of bare chest—and a wide smear of blood. He held a rapier, lightly twirling the hilt in his hands as the weak sunlight flashed on its blade and on the gold rings adorning his ink-stained fingers.

Anna knew that he was a skilled fighter. Everyone knew that in Southwark. She had seen it too many times, both on stage and in the streets. The man’s mocking tongue and quick temper were irresistible temptations to brawlers. But somehow this time felt different. There was a tense charge to the air, a feeling of time standing still before crashing down on them.

‘Mistress Barrett!’ Rob said, giving her an elaborate bow. ‘I see you have come to witness our revels.’

‘What seems to be the trouble this time?’ she asked, glancing carefully between Rob and the enraged bear-man.

‘He’s a boar-pig of a cheat!’ the bear-man roared. ‘He owes me money for the lightskirt.’

The woman’s sobs grew louder. ‘‘Tweren’t like that. I told you! Some men aren’t brutes like you. I weren’t working then …’

‘Aye,’ Rob said cheerfully. ‘Some of us know how to be a gentleman and woo a lady properly.’

Gentleman? Anna pursed her lips to keep from laughing. Robert Alden was many things—witty, clever, and damnably handsome. Gentlemanly wasn’t one of them.

This was just another quarrel—over payment to a Winchester goose. Yet somehow she still sensed there was more to it. Something else was happening underneath this common, everyday disagreement.

She opened her mouth to argue, turning back to Rob, but just then that strange tension snapped and chaos broke free in the quiet morning. With an echoing shout, the bear-man lunged at Rob, all flailing arms and flashing blades, faster than she could have imagined possible.

His men, half-hidden in the shadows, tumbled after him, shouting, and everything threatened to hurtle over into a full-blown battle. Anna pressed herself back against the wall.

But she had underestimated Rob. Debauched he might look, yet the long night had lost him none of his actor’s grace. Swift as the tiger in the Queen’s menagerie, he sidestepped his attacker, reaching out to grab his arm. Using the man’s bulk against him, Rob flipped him to the ground. A brittle snap rang through the air, causing the bear-man’s minions to freeze in place as he howled in agony.

Rob gestured to them with his blade. ‘Who is next, then?’ he called.

Predictably, no one took that offer. They scooped up their fallen leader and ran away, the sobbing whore reluctantly following them. The sudden explosion of violence receded as fast as it had come.

‘I hope you are content now,’ Anna murmured.

Rob leaned his palm against the wall near her head, laughing. ‘I am, rather. They ran like the gutter rats they are. Didn’t you find it amusing, Mistress Barrett?’

‘No, I did not. I think …’ Then she saw it. The smear of blood on his bared chest was a thicker, brighter red, staining his rumpled shirt. ‘You’re hurt!’

She reached out to touch him, but he drew away with a hiss. ‘‘Tis a scratch,’ he said.

‘A scratch can lead to the churchyard if it’s not seen to,’ she protested. ‘I am the daughter of Tom Alwick, remember? I’m certainly no stranger to wounds. Please, let me see.’

He glanced past her at the gawping actors, reluctant to lose their excitement so fast. ‘Not here,’ he muttered.

‘What? Do you fear having your modesty offended? Fine, we can go to the tiring-house.’

‘I will happily shed my garments for you, Mistress Barrett. You need only ask …’ Suddenly Rob swayed, his bronzed face ashen.

Anna caught him against her, her arm around his lean waist, as alarm shot through her. Robert Alden was never pale. Something troubling indeed must have happened in the night.

‘Rob, what is it?’ she gasped.

‘No one must know,’ he said roughly, his breath stirring the curls at her temple as he leaned against her.

Know what? ‘I will not let them,’ she whispered. ‘Come inside with me now, and all will be well.’

If only she could believe that herself.

Chapter Two

Anna led Rob through the twisting maze of corridors behind the stage of the White Heron. It was eerily silent there, with Rob’s breath echoing off the rough wooden walls. The smell of dust, face paint and blood was thick in her throat, and Rob’s body was too warm as he leaned on her shoulder—as if he had a fever.

Despite her efforts not to worry, Anna couldn’t help it. All her life, with her father and her husband, and now with her father again, she had lived among men of hot and unpredictable tempers. Fights and feuds, duels, even sudden and violent death, were things all too commonplace in the streets of Southwark and Bankside. She had learned the hard lessons of dealing with such men.

But Rob Alden—despite his own quick temper, he had always seemed above such things, able to win a brawl with a quick flick of his sword and a careless laugh. He was known and feared in this world. Men said his smile hid a lethal heart, and they avoided him when they could. Anna had seen this time and again, and puzzled over it. Rob walked through life as if enchanted. Unlike her own existence.

Had the enchantment worn away?

She pushed away that cold, clammy fear and led him into the deserted tiring-house behind the stage. Chests full of costumes and properties were stacked along the walls, and a false cannon gleamed in a dark corner. Anna pushed aside a pile of blunted rapiers and made Rob sit down on a scarred old clothes chest.

He slowly lowered himself to the makeshift seat, watching her warily. There was no hint of his carefree laughter, his constant sunny flirtation. He looked older, harder, the sharp, sculpted angles of his handsome face cast in shadows. How had she never noticed that coldness before?

It made her even more cautious of him—of the threat his good looks posed to her and her hard-won peace.

‘What happened?’ she said. She turned away from the steady, piercing glow of his eyes and dug out her basket from a cupboard. She always kept bandages and salves nearby for these all-too-frequent moments. There were always injuries in the theatre.

‘You saw for yourself,’ Rob said. His voice was as hard as his expression, with no hint of the light humour he usually used to cloak his true self.

Whatever Rob Alden’s true self might be. Anna wasn’t sure she wanted to know.

‘A quarrel over a whore?’ Anna said.

‘Aye. It happens all the time, alas.’

‘Indeed, it does.’ Her father was the landlord of brothels. She knew what went on behind those doors, and actors were the worst sort of trouble there. Yet she couldn’t shake away the sense that something more was happening here.

She watched Rob as he pulled his shirt off over his head. He winced as the cloth brushed over his shoulder, and Anna could see why. A long gash arced over his upper ribs into the angle of his shoulder—a jagged red line that barely missed his heart. It was crusted over with dried blood, but some fresh, redder liquid still seeped out onto his smooth burnished skin.

There were older scars, as well—stark white reminders of other fights and wounds that marred his perfect beauty, making Anna remember the daily danger of this life.

She dampened a clean cloth and carefully dabbed at the new wound. She breathed shallowly, slowly, and kept her expression bland and calm. She had learned a thing or two about artifice from working around actors. Nothing should ever be what it seemed.

‘A quarrel over payment?’ she asked as she lightly sponged away the dried blood to examine the depth of the wound.

His breath roughened but he didn’t move away from her. He just watched her with that steady, unreadable look on his face, with those blue eyes that seemed to see so much yet give nothing away.

Anna slowly raised her gaze to meet his. She saw why the bawds fought over him as they did. He was the last sort of man she needed in her life, but he was a rare specimen of manhood with that face, and that lean, strong body displayed before her now. He was a danger just by simply being himself, and whatever it was he kept so well hidden only made him more so.

She dropped her attention back to the work of cleaning the wound. The coppery tang of blood was a timely reminder.

‘Aye,’ he answered after a long, heavy pause. ‘Her keeper tried to charge me more than agreed on after we were done. Something I’m sure your esteemed father would never do in one of his houses.’

Was that sarcasm in his voice? Anna nearly laughed. She wouldn’t put anything past her father and his business practices. He was such an old rogue. But not even he would cheat Robert Alden.

And neither would anyone else in Southwark. Too many had felt the chill of Rob’s dagger, and ever since he’d been tossed into Bridewell Prison for a short spell after a fatal duel he had grown even colder. That had been before he’d become a sharer in Lord Henshaw’s Men, and one of their most popular actors and playwrights, so Anna didn’t know the details of the crime. But she had heard all the gossip.

‘And he did this to you? The bawd’s pimp?’ she said, as she dabbed some of the sticky salve onto the clean wound. ‘For I would wager it was not the girl herself who took a blade to you.’

A hint of his usual careless grin whispered over his lips. ‘Nay, she couldn’t bear to ruin my handsome looks. But it wasn’t that boar-pig of a pimp who did this.’

‘It wasn’t? Two brawls in one night? That’s a great deal even for you, Rob.’

‘It was an old quarrel. Nothing to worry about at all, fair Anna.’

‘Then I hope it was resolved at last. Or someday someone will ruin your looks, I fear.’

‘I’m touched that you worry about me.’

Anna laughed. She reached for a roll of bandages and wrapped the linen tightly over Rob’s shoulder. The white cloth was stark against his bare skin. ‘I worry about my family’s business. With no more Robert Alden plays the White Heron would surely suffer a loss of receipts, and my father has many expenses.’

Rob suddenly caught her wrist in his grasp, his fingers wrapping round it in a tight, warm caress. For all his wounded state, he was still very strong. He drew her closer—so close she could feel his breath on her throat, the alluring heat of his body against hers.

‘You wound me, Anna,’ he said, and for once there was no laughter in his deep, velvet-smooth voice. ‘Is that truly what you think of me?’

She wasn’t sure what she thought of him. He had confused her ever since she’d met him, when she’d come back to her father’s house after the blessed end of her wretched marriage. He was unpredictable, attractive, changeable …

Dangerous.

She tried to pull her hand away from him, to create a safer distance between them. For an instant his hand tightened and she thought he wasn’t going to let her go. She swayed towards him, not even realising what she was doing.

He pressed a quick, hard kiss to the inside of her wrist. ‘Of course you do,’ he muttered, and let her go.

Anna stumbled back a step. She still felt dizzy, baffled, and she didn’t like that feeling at all. In her marriage she’d had no power, no control, and she had worked hard since to make her life her own. She didn’t want Robert Alden, with his handsome face and wild ways, tossing her back into turmoil again.

She wouldn’t allow it.

She scooped up his rumpled shirt from where he had dropped it on the clothes chest and tossed it to him. Despite his wound, he caught it neatly with one hand.

‘We all need you here, Robert,’ she said. ‘Your careless behaviour endangers us all.’

He laughed, and Anna thought she heard a bitter note to it, underneath the dismissive carelessness. Did he see what he did to them? Did he care at all?

He pulled the shirt over his head, covering the bandage, and said, ‘I have disappointed you again, fairest Anna. But don’t despair—I will have the new play to you within a fortnight. I’m sure even I can stay healthy and whole for that long.’

Anna wasn’t so sure. Temptations lurked around every corner in Southwark, and Rob wasn’t one to deny them. Her doubt must have shown on her face, for Rob laughed again.

‘Perhaps you would want to lock me up in your garret?’ he said. ‘I could slip you the pages under the door as I write them, and with every scene you could reward me with bread and ale—and whatever else you might care to bestow.’

With kisses, maybe, like his bawds? Exasperated, Anna threw the rest of the bandages at his head. ‘Don’t tempt me, Robert Alden—I may do just that!’ She whirled round and dashed from the room, his laughter following her as she went.

‘I look forward to being your captive, Anna,’ he called. ‘I can think of so many ways we could pass the time.’

She slammed the door behind her, cutting off his infuriating laughter, and made her way back to the open air and light of the theatre. The actors were all gathered there, milling around on stage as if waiting to see what would happen next.

‘What are you all loitering about for?’ Anna shouted. She was thoroughly fed up with actors and their wild doings. ‘We have a performance this very afternoon and there is no time to waste.’

They quickly went back to their rehearsal, and Anna returned to her sewing in the gallery, trying to get back to the day’s many tasks. But her hands were trembling so much she could scarcely wield the needle.

Chapter Three

As soon as Anna was gone from the tiring-house, the door safely shut between them, Rob slumped back down onto the chest. His shoulder felt as if it was on fire, the salve burning as it knitted the flesh back together, and his mind was heavy with weariness after the long night he had just passed.

He rubbed his hands hard over his face and pushed back the rumpled waves of his hair. It had been meant to be a simple task—a quick one. Go to a party, wait until everyone was ale-shot, and find the documents. Compared to what he usually did for Queen and country, it was simpler than crossing the lane.

Only it had not worked out quite that way. He had the papers—but he had also got a dagger to the shoulder.

‘Surely it is time for me to retire,’ he said, and then gave a wry laugh. No one retired from the service of Secretary Walsingham—unless it was in a wooden box to the churchyard. But, God’s teeth, he was growing weary of it all.

He prodded at his shoulder and felt the ridge of the neat bandage there against his skin, which made him think of Anna Barrett. He remembered the cool softness of her hands on his bare skin as she nursed him, the cautious light in her jewel-green eyes as she examined the wound. She smelled of roses and fresh sunlight, and her body was so slender and supple, had felt so warm against his as she’d leaned close. So close he could almost have slipped his arm around her waist and pulled her to him for a kiss …

She was beautiful, with her glossy red-brown hair and pale skin, the lush, full pink lips that seemed to contradict her prickly distance. Rob had long been a great appreciator of female beauty and softness, and the moment he’d met her all those months ago he’d been drawn to her. There was passion under her coolness, a flash of raw fire that beckoned to him.

But she was untouchable. Everyone in Southwark said she had no desire for men, or for women, either. She was above all of them, chilly and glittering, like the North Star. All the men who tried their luck with her were laughingly turned away.

So Rob did not try. There were too many willing women for him to waste his time on other than Anna Barrett. But he did like to tease her, flirt with her, just to see that rose-pink glow rise in her cheeks, feel the spark of her temper. He liked even more to touch her whenever he could, in those rare moments she let him close enough, and feel the heat of her body.

He dared do no more. Anna Barrett was above him, just as that star was, in this sordid world of Southwark, but not of it, and he wouldn’t drag her down into his work. He was not that heartless, surely, not quite that far gone. Not yet.

Yet there were moments, flashes of something he usually kept hidden even from himself, when he wondered what it would be like to have her admiration. To kiss those soft lips and feel her respond to him, open to him.

Given the way she’d run from the tiring-house, today was not that day. And he had to keep it that way. She had to go on thinking he had been wounded in a tawdry quarrel over some Doll Tearsheet—just as she had thought so many times before. She had to see him as the face he presented to the world: a careless brawler.

‘Your careless behaviour endangers us all,’ she had said, and she was more right than she knew. The White Heron was the closest thing to a real home Rob had known for a long time, the Lord Henshaw’s Men his only family now. He had to protect them.

He laced up his shirt, pushing away the lingering pain in his shoulder. He could smell Anna’s rosewater perfume on the linen folds, and he dragged in a deep breath to hold it with him for one more fleeting instant. That bitter weariness was pressing down on him, but he couldn’t rest now, couldn’t take refuge in the softness of Anna Barrett. He had to deliver those papers.

There was a quick knock at the door, and Rob shook away the last of the pain to gather the concealing cloak of a careless player around him again. The two sides were so much a part of him now it was as easy as changing papier-mâché masks on stage. But could it all become too easy? Did he lose his real self in the switch?

‘Rob, are you there?’ a man called. ‘They told me you were hiding in the tiring-house.’

It was his friend and sometimes co-conspirator Lord Edward Hartley. ‘Come in, Edward,’ Rob said. ‘Obviously I am not hiding so very well.’

Edward pushed open the door and slipped inside, closing it behind him. As usual he was dressed in the very height of Court fashion—black velvet doublet slashed with crimson satin, a short cloak embroidered with gold thread, and a plumed cap. He looked like a bright peacock dropped into the drab, dusty backstage area of the theatre.

But Robert knew the steel that lurked behind that jewelled velvet. Edward had saved his life many times, as Rob had saved his in turn. They both served the same cause. With him, Rob could relax his ever-constant vigilance just a bit—just for a moment.

Edward held out a rough pottery jar. ‘I heard tell there was a brawl of some sort this morning. I thought perhaps you could use this.’

‘Word does travel fast,’ Rob said as he reached for the jar and uncorked it. The heady smell of home-made mead rose up in a thick, alcoholic cloud, and he tipped his head back for a long drink. It burned going down, doing its task most effectively. ‘I thought you had gone off to the country with your beauteous Lady Elizabeth.’

At the mention of his lady-love, Edward grinned like a passion-struck fool. ‘Not as of yet. Our departure was delayed for a few days, which is a good thing if you need stitching up after a fight.’

Rob wiped the back of his hand across his mouth. ‘No stitching up required this time. Mistress Barrett mended me well enough.’

‘Did she, now?’ Edward’s brow arched as he reached for the jar to take a drink of his own. ‘And does the fair Mistress Barrett know the true nature of this quarrel?’

Rob remembered the look on Anna’s face as she told him how his behaviour affected them all. He took another drink of the mead, but even that couldn’t quite erase the memory of her frown. ‘She knows I quarrelled over a whore’s payment. Like everyone else.’

Edward nodded. ‘And the papers?’

‘I have them.’

‘Shall I go with you to deliver them to Seething Lane, then? Maybe with two of us there will be no more trouble on the way.’

‘Perhaps tomorrow.’ Rob corked the jar again, and resisted the strong urge to dash it to pieces on the flagstone floor. It was his damnable quick temper that had got him here in the first place. He had vowed never to let it get the better of him again, yet it had led to the bloody fight—and almost revealing himself to Anna. ‘There is something I must do first.’

Chapter Four

Anna bent her head over the ledger books spread across her desk, trying to concentrate on the neat rows of numbers tabulating that day’s receipts from the theatre. She usually loved keeping the accounts—in the end, figures always added up to the correct answer. Unlike human life, they were regular and predictable. She understood them.

Tonight, though, the black ink numbers kept blurring before her eyes. Images kept flashing through her mind, bright and vivid, of Robert Alden and that blood on his shoulder. The solemn look in his eyes as he looked up at her, as if he hid ancient and terrible secrets deep inside—secrets he had only allowed her to glimpse for that one moment before he concealed them again.

‘Fie on it all,’ she cursed, and threw down her quill in frustration. Tiny droplets of ink scattered across the page. Of course Robert had secrets. Everyone in their world did. It was a dirty, crowded life, and everyone had to survive any way they could. She saw it every day. No one emerged with clean hands or hearts, least of all those who relied on the theatre for their living. She held enough secrets and regrets of her own—she didn’t need anyone else’s.

Yet something in his eyes had moved her today, quite against her will. Rob Alden was a handsome, merry devil, known to be as quick with a mocking laugh as with his rapier. Today he had looked old and sad, as if he had seen far too much. As if one too many friends had suddenly turned enemy.

Then that glimpse had been gone, and he was hidden again behind his handsome face. But she couldn’t forget that one flashing, sad look.

‘Don’t be such a gaping fool,’ Anna said out loud. She was as bad as that sobbing bawd in her cheap yellow dress, weeping over Rob in the street. There was no time for such nonsense, no time for soft emotions—especially over a rogue who did not deserve them and would only laugh at them. Actors were good at counterfeiting love onstage, and rotten at living it.

She carefully scraped the spilled ink off the vellum and tried to return to the neat columns of figures. Shillings and pounds—that was what she needed to ponder now, what she could understand.

Suddenly the house’s front door, just beyond her sitting room, flew open, and her father stumbled in. Through the door she caught a glimpse of the White Heron across their small garden, the theatre dark and quiet now in the gathering twilight. The afternoon’s revels were long ended by this hour, the crowds gone back to their homes across the river or to more dubious pleasures in the nearby taverns and bawdy houses.

It seemed that was where her father had been, as well. Tom Alwick’s russet wool doublet was buttoned crookedly, his hat set askew on his rumpled grey hair. Even from across the room she could smell the cheap wine.

Anna carefully set aside her pen and closed the account book. Her precious quiet hour was done. There would be no time for reading poetry now, as their usual evening routine began. At least her father, unlike her late husband, was an affable drunk. Tom was more likely to regale her with wild tales before he fell to snoring in front of the fire. Sometimes he would cry for her mother—dead since Anna was a toddler of three, but never forgotten by her father.

Her late husband, Charles Barrett, had used to slap her and break their plate before insisting on his marital rights. So, aye, she much preferred this life here with her father.

‘Anna, my darling one!’ Tom cried, stumbling on the raised threshold of the sitting room. He reached out with one flailing hand to catch his balance, nearly tearing down an expensive painted cloth from the panelled wall.

Anna leaped up from her chair and caught him by the shoulders before he could ruin their furnishings. She knew too well where every farthing came from to pay for their comfortable house. He leaned against her as she led him to the chair by the fire.

‘Are you working again?’ he asked, as he fell back onto the embroidered cushions.

Anna moved her sewing basket away and gently lifted his feet onto a stool as she said, ‘I was going over the receipts for today’s performance. The takings were down a bit, though Lord Edward Hartley took his usual box for the performance.’

‘The Maid’s Dilemma is an old play,’ Tom said. ‘We’ll have rich takings indeed once we open Rob’s new play, I swear it.’

‘If we open it,’ Anna murmured as she tugged off her father’s boots. They were damp and muddy from his lurch through the Southwark streets, and she set them by the fire to dry.

‘What do you mean, my dearest? Rob has never been late delivering a play! And they are always great earners. Audiences love them.’

Of course they were great earners, Anna thought. Women came flocking to see them, hoping for a glimpse of the writer acting onstage himself, and they always paid extra to sit in the upper galleries, rent cushions and buy refreshments.

Anna couldn’t really blame them. His plays were extraordinary, no matter how maddening the man was. They were wondrous tales of the powers and dangers of kingship, of betrayal and love and revenge, and deep, stirring emotions. They were written with beautiful, poetic words rarely heard on the stage, and the audience was always in floods of tears by the end.

Even Anna, who saw plays every week, was always moved by Robert Alden’s words, and the new, wondrous worlds they created. They were worth the trouble he caused.

Usually.

She sat down in the chair across from her father’s. ‘His last play had delays being passed by the Master of the Revels. It was weeks before we had a licence to stage it. He grows careless with his plots.’

Tom waved this away with an airy gesture, and almost toppled out of his chair. ‘Audiences love a bit of controversy. Making them wait only makes them even more excited to see it.’

‘Not if you’ve already paid good coin for a play we can’t use!’

‘All will be well, Anna, I am sure. You’re working too hard of late. It makes you worry too much.’

‘I like the work.’ It kept her busy—and kept her hidden at the same time.

Tom narrowed his eyes as he gave her a sharp look, the wine haze lifted for an instant. ‘You are too young and comely to bury yourself in account books all the time. You should think about suitors again.’

Anna laughed bitterly. ‘One husband was enough, Father.’

‘Charles Barrett was a stupid brute, and I was a fool to let you marry him,’ Thomas said. ‘But not all men are like him.’

Nay—some were like Robert Alden. Too handsome and witty for their own good, or for any woman’s good at all. ‘I am content as I am. Don’t we have a comfortable life here?’

‘My life has certainly been more comfortable since you came back. This house is wonderfully kept, and my profits from the businesses have doubled.’

‘Because I make you invest them instead of spending them all on wine and ale.’

‘Exactly so, my dearest. But I should not be selfish and keep you here.’

‘I told you, I am quite well where I am, Father. I promise. Now, what about some supper? I can send Madge to the tavern for some venison stew, and there is fresh bread …’

‘Oh, I almost forgot!’ Tom cried. ‘I did invite some people to dine with us. They will surely be here at any moment.’

Anna sighed. Of course they would. Her father was always inviting guests for a meal, or a game of cards which usually went on until morning. It was seldom they had a quiet evening alone.

‘Then I will have Madge fetch some extra stew, and perhaps a few pies,’ she said, and went to ring the bell for the maid. At least her father’s guests seldom expected grand fare. ‘Who is coming this evening?’

‘Some of the actors, of course. Spencer and Cartley and Camp, and perhaps one or two of their friends. We need to discuss the new play and the casting.’ Tom paused, never a good sign. ‘And Robert. I may have asked him, as well, when I saw him at the Three Bells earlier.’

‘Robert was at the Three Bells?’ Anna asked in surprise. She would have thought after his adventures of last night he would have eschewed taverns and gone back to his lodgings to collapse.

She should know better. No matter what occurred, he always kept moving. It was almost as if he was one of his own heroic creations.

But she had touched him today, been near to him—looked into his eyes for that one fleeting, vulnerable instant. She knew how warmly human he truly was.

‘I heard there was a bit of a disturbance this morning,’ her father said. ‘But he was writing in his usual corner of the tavern, so all must be well. We can press him about the new play when he arrives.’

Anna braced her palm on the carved fireplace mantel, staring down into the crackling flames. Robert Alden was coming here tonight. She didn’t want to see him again so soon after mending his wound. How could she look at him across her table and keep that secret?

How could she stop herself from reaching out to touch him?

‘Father—’ she began, only to be interrupted by a pounding at the door.

‘I will go,’ Tom said as he tried to push himself out of his chair.

Anna shook her head. ‘Nay, I will go. It seems Madge is otherwise occupied.’

She took a deep breath as she made her way slowly to the door, steeling herself to see Rob again and to remain expressionless. Yet it was not Rob who waited there on the threshold, it was Henry Ennis, another of the actors in Lord Henshaw’s Men.

As he smiled at her and bowed, Anna pushed away that unwanted and unaccountable pang of disappointment and said, ‘Master Ennis. We haven’t seen you at the White Heron in a few days.’

Henry’s smile widened and he reached for her hand to bestow upon her fingers an elaborate salute that made her laugh. Next to Robert, Henry Ennis was the most handsome of the company, slim and angelically blond where Rob was dark as the devil. Henry always seemed to be laughing and cheerful, as open and easy as a fine summer’s day, with no hidden depths or concealed secrets.

Anna always enjoyed being around him. He made her laugh along with him, and forget her duties and worries. He never made her feel flustered or confused, as Rob always did.

Against her own will, she glanced past Henry’s shoulder to the shadowed garden behind him. But no one was there.

‘My beauteous Anna,’ Henry said as she took his arm to lead him into the corridor. ‘It has pained me greatly to be away from you, but as I had no role in the last production I thought it best I travel to the country to visit my family. They have been neglected of late.’

‘Family?’ Anna said in surprise. In their strange, vagabond London life she often forgot the actors might have real families tucked away somewhere. They formed their own bonds among others of their kind, with her father’s house as their temporary hearth.

Did Rob have a family, too? A wife and blue-eyed children, in a cosy village somewhere?

‘My mother and sister in Kent,’ Henry said. ‘I have not seen them in many months.’

‘Then I hope you found them well?’

‘Very well. A bit bored, mayhap—they always long for tales of London.’

Anna gave him a teasing smile. ‘I’m sure they especially long for tales of your London courtships. Does your mother not wish for handsome grandchildren to dandle on her knee?’

Henry laughed ruefully, his handsome face turning faintly pink. ‘Perhaps she does. I should so like …’ His words trailed away and he shook his head, turning away from her.

‘Should so like what, Henry? Come, we are friends! Surely you can talk to me?’

‘I should so like for her to meet you, Anna. She would like you very much, I think,’ he said shyly.

Anna was so shocked by his quiet, serious words that she stopped abruptly in the dining-chamber doorway. Henry wished for her to meet his mother? But surely their friendship was only that—a friendship? Though he was kind and sweet-natured, and so handsome …

She studied him in speculation in the flickering half-light of the smoky candles. Aye, he was handsome, and so earnest as he watched her. Perhaps friends was a fine place to start. Friends was safe and pleasant—not a threat to her calm serenity, the quiet life she had worked so hard to earn and build.

But as she looked at Henry Ennis she saw not his pale grey eyes, glowing with wary hope as he watched her, waiting for—something. She didn’t feel his arm under her hand. She saw Robert’s bright blue eyes mocking her as she bandaged his shoulder, staring deep, deep into her hidden soul and letting her glimpse his for one moment. It was his bare, warm skin she felt.

Anna made herself laugh, and tugged Henry towards the dining chamber. ‘I am not the sort of lady mothers like very much, Henry. And I fear I shall never leave the city now. The country air is far too clean and sweet for me after so long in London.’

Henry seemed to take her hint, and he laughed merrily, as if that instant of seriousness had never been. Perhaps she had merely imagined it. It had been a long, strange day, after all.

‘And my mother will never come to London,’ Henry said. ‘She is quite certain villains lurk on every street corner, ready to cut an unwary throat. So perhaps you will never meet, after all.’

‘Perhaps your mother is right to keep her distance,’ Anna murmured. And far wiser than she was herself, living in the very centre of such a perilous world. But she had no desire to leave; this was her home, the only place she could belong. A quiet country hearth was not for her.

There was another knock at the door, and Anna left Henry at the table with her father so she could hurry and answer it. More of the actors waited for her there, far more than her father claimed to have invited. They greeted her exuberantly, kissing her cheek and lifting her from her feet in fierce hugs, before they dashed into the house looking for food and drink. It seemed her father’s ‘some people’ invited to dine included the whole company, along with their always voracious appetites and endless need for wine.

Anna was accustomed to such evenings. Her father’s hospitality was boundless, and his memory for such practical matters as how much food to serve was non-existent. Anna sent the servants for more dishes and jugs of wine from the tavern, and the evening passed in a swift, happy blur as she made sure everyone was served and there was enough bread and stew.

Finally she was able to collapse by the sitting-room fire with her own goblet of wine. She tucked up her feet on her father’s footstool, listening to the shouts and laughter from supper. Her father would be busy until dawn, and then some of the actors could carry him up to his bed.

Anna reached into her sewing basket for the new volume of poetry she had bought at one of the stalls at St Paul’s churchyard just that day. It was an anonymous sonnet cycle about the deep love of a shepherd for an unreachable goddess he’d once glimpsed at her bath, called Demetrius and Diana. Everyone was reading and talking of it, and she could see why. The words and emotions were beautiful, so filled with raw longing and the sad realisation that such a love was impossible. Life was only what it was—lonely and cold—and there was no escape from that, even through passion.

She lost herself in that world of sun-dappled sylvan glades and passionate desire, that need for another person. The noise from the company, which grew ever louder as the night wore on, vanished, and she knew only the poor shepherd and his impossible love.

‘Why, Mistress Barrett, I see you are a secret romantic,’ a deep, velvet-rough voice suddenly said, dragging her out of her dream world.

The book fell from her hands to clatter onto the stone hearth and she twisted round in her chair. It was Robert who stood there in the sitting room doorway, watching her as she read. He leaned his shoulder on the doorframe, his arms lazily crossed over his chest. A half smile lingered at the corners of his lips, but his eyes were dark and solemn as they studied her.

How long had he been standing there?

‘You startled me,’ she said, hating the way her voice trembled.

‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to frighten you,’ he said.

‘I didn’t even know you were here. I heard no knock at the door.’

‘I have only just arrived. Madge let me in.’ Rob pushed away from the door and moved slowly to her side, loose-limbed and as deceptively lazy as a cat. As Anna watched, tense, he knelt by her chair and picked up the dropped book.

He took her hand in his, very gently, his fingers light on hers, and carefully laid the book on her palm. But he didn’t let go of her. He curled her hand around the leather binding and held his over it.

It was a light caress, cool and gentle, and Anna knew she could draw away whenever she chose. Yet somehow she just—couldn’t. She stared down at their joined hands as if mesmerised.

He stared down at them, too, almost as if he could also feel that shimmering, heated, invisible bond tightening around them, closer and closer. The crackle of the fire, the laughter of the company—it all seemed so far away. There was only Robert and herself here now.

‘Are you enjoying the travails of poor Demetrius the shepherd?’ he asked.

‘Very much,’ she whispered. She stared hard at the book, its brown cover held by their joined hands. She feared what might happen if she looked into his eyes. Would she crack and crumble away, vanishing into him forever?

What spell did he cast over her?

‘The poetry is beautiful,’ she went on. ‘I can see every ray of sunlight, every summer leaf in those woods—I can feel Demetrius’s grief. What a terrible thing it must be to feel like that about another.’

‘How terrible not to feel that way,’ he said. ‘Life is an empty, cold shell without passion.’

Anna laughed. It seemed she was not the only ‘secret romantic.’ ‘Is it better to burn than to freeze? Passion consumes until there is nothing left but ash. Demetrius is miserable because of his desire for Diana.’

‘True. Diana can’t love him back. It isn’t in her nature. But if she could, it would be glorious beyond imagining. It is glorious even without her return, because at least Demetrius knows he can love. He can feel truly alive because of it.’

She smiled and gently laid her free hand against his cheek. The prickle of a day’s growth of beard tickled at her palm. Beneath it his skin was warm and satin-taut. A muscle flexed under her touch. ‘I believe you are the secret romantic, Robert. Do you envy the shepherd, then?’

He grinned up at her, and turned his head to press a quick kiss to the hollow of her palm. ‘In a way I do. He gets to be alive—truly alive—even if it’s only for a moment.’

‘Until that love kills him.’

‘Until then. I see you have peeked ahead at the ending.’

Anna sat back in her chair, finally breaking their hold on each other. But though not touching him, not physically close, she felt bound to him.

‘Are you not alive, then, Robert?’ she asked.

He sat back on the hearth, resting lazily on his elbows as he stretched his legs out before him and crossed his booted feet at the ankles. He had charged that morning’s rumpled, stained shirt for one of his dandyish and expensive doublets of burgundy-red velvet, slashed at the sleeves with black satin and trimmed with shining rows of gold buttons. His boots were fine, soft Spanish leather, polished to a glowing sheen, his breeches of thin, fine-spun wool. A teardrop pearl hung at his ear.

He was dressed to impress someone tonight, and Anna suspected it was not meant to be her.

‘Sometimes I feel I’m already cold in the grave, fair Anna,’ he answered. His tone was light, teasing, but she thought she heard a hard ring beneath it—the tinge of truth. ‘The true, deep feelings of Demetrius are lost to me now. I just counterfeit them onstage.’

‘Aye,’ she murmured. ‘I think I know what you mean.’

His head tilted to the side as he studied her. ‘Do you?’

‘Aye. My life is not one of deep emotions, as the poor shepherd has. It is quiet and calm—cold, some might say. But I prefer its chill to the pain of burning.’

‘Your husband?’ Robert asked, his voice low and steady, as if he didn’t want to frighten her away.

As if Charles Barrett could frighten her now. His black soul was dead and buried. But before that, before they’d made the mistake of marrying and it had all gone so horribly wrong, she had once longed for him. Those feelings had clouded her judgement and led her far astray.

‘I never want that again,’ she said firmly.

‘So you are like Diana now?’ he said. ‘Above the maelstrom of human emotion and desire?’

Anna laughed. ‘I am no virgin goddess.’

Suddenly there was a crashing sound in the corridor, a burst of drunken laughter. Someone bumped into the wall outside, making the painted cloths sway.

Robert held his finger lightly to his lips and rose to his feet.

‘Shh,’ he whispered. ‘Let’s walk in the garden for a time, where they can’t find us.’

‘The garden?’ Anna asked, confused. To be alone with him, in the dark of night, with no one lurking outside the door? It was—tempting.

Too tempting. Who knew what she might do there? She didn’t even seem to know herself when she was with him.

But as he held his hand out to her, she found herself reaching for it.

‘There is a beautiful moon tonight, my Diana,’ he said. ‘And I find I am in no fit mood for company.’

She nodded, and together they tiptoed down the corridor and out of the front door into the night. Once they were outside, the raucous roar of the gathering faded away to a mere distant hum.

The garden that lay between the house and the darkened theatre was quiet and full of shadows from the shifting of the moon’s glow between drifting clouds. A tall stone wall held back the flow of Southwark life beyond—the taverns and bustling brothels, the shouts and shrieks and the clash of steel and fists. It all seemed very far away in that moment.

Anna sat down on a stone bench and tipped her head back to stare at the silvery-pale moon in the blue-black velvet sky. It was nearly full, staring down impassively at the wild human world below.

‘It is lovely,’ she said softly. ‘I don’t look at the sky enough.’

‘Our lives are too frantic to remember such simple joys,’ he answered. He rested his foot on the bench beside her and braced his forearm on his knee—so, so close, but not yet touching.

‘Your life is terribly busy, yes?’ she asked. She held tighter to the cold, solid stone beneath her, to keep away the temptation to lean against him. ‘Writing, acting, dodging demanding theatre owners, assignations with admiring ladies—fights with their husbands …’

Rob laughed. ‘Such a great opinion you have of me, Anna. I would have you know I work hard for my coin every day. And if I choose to enjoy myself when the work is done—well, life is too short not to seek out pleasure.’

Anna smiled up at him. He was so good at seeking out pleasure, it seemed, at drawing out every hidden morsel of joy in their striving, heaving existence. What was that like? What would it feel like to let go of control and duty for one mere moment and just—be?

She feared the cost of that one moment would be too high. But it was tempting, nonetheless, especially when he looked at her like that under the shimmering moonglow.

‘Perhaps we do need to stop and glance at the stars once in a while,’ she said. ‘Lest we forget they are even there at all.’

‘It’s difficult to see them in the city,’ Rob said. He sat down beside her, his shoulder pressed very lightly against hers. He did only that—sat beside her—and yet she was so very aware of the hard, lean line of his body, the heat of his skin on hers through the layers of their clothes, the raw strength of him.

‘I’ve never lived anywhere but London. Not for long anyway,’ Anna said. ‘This is the only sky I know.’

‘When I was a lad I lived in the countryside,’ he said. His voice was quiet in the darkness, as if suddenly he was far away from the garden. Somewhere she couldn’t quite see or follow.

‘Did you?’

‘Aye, and often on summer nights I would slip out of my bed and go running down to the river, where there was only the water and the sky, perfect silence. I would lie down in the tall grass at the riverbank and stare up at the stars, making up tales for myself of other worlds we could not see. Wondrous places beyond the stars.’

Anna was fascinated by this small glimpse of Rob’s past, his hidden self. She had never thought of him as a boy before; he seemed to have just sprung up fully formed onstage, sword in his hand, poetry on his lips.

‘You must have been the despair of your mother, running away like that,’ she said.

He smiled at her, a flash of his usual careless grin, but it swiftly faded. ‘Not at all. My mother died when I was very young. Our aunt then stayed with us for a time, but she cared not what we did as long as we didn’t dirty her nicely scrubbed floors.’

‘Oh,’ Anna said sadly. ‘I am sorry.’

‘For what, fair Anna?’

‘For your losing your mother so young. My own mother died when I was three.’

Rob studied her so carefully she felt a warm blush creeping stealthily into her cheeks. She was very glad of the cover of darkness—the moon was behind the clouds. ‘Do you remember her?’ he asked.

She shook her head. ‘Not very much at all. She would sing to me as I fell asleep at night, and sometimes I think I remember the way her touch felt on my cheek, or the smell of her perfume. My father says she was very beautiful and very gentle, that there could be no lady to compare to her and that is why he never married again.’ Anna laughed. ‘So it seems I inherited little from her, having neither beauty nor gentleness!’

‘I would disagree—about the beauty part, anyway,’ Rob said, his old light flirtatiousness coming back, encroaching on their fleeting moment of intimacy.

‘I am not gentle?’

‘Gentleness is quite overrated. Spirit—that is what a man should always look for in a female.’

Anna thought of the weeping whore in her tattered yellow dress. She had not seemed especially spirited, but then Anna hadn’t seen what had come before the morning quarrel. Maybe the night had been spirited, indeed.

Had it all only been that morning? It seemed like days ago, so very distant from this quiet moment.

And she felt a most unwanted twinge of pleasure that he might think she was spirited—and beautiful. Even though she knew very well it was only a mere flirtatious comment—a toss-away he no doubt said often to many women. But she had long ago lost her youthful spirit. It was buried in the real world.

‘Surely spirit can cause more trouble than it is worth?’ she said sternly. ‘For instance—how is your shoulder tonight?’

He flexed his shoulders as if to test them before answering her. His muscles rippled against the fine fabric of his doublet.

‘Better, I thank you,’ he said. ‘I had a very fine nurse.’

Anna waited to see if he would say more, tell her how he had come to be wounded in the first place, but he did not. A silence fell around them, heavy and soft as the night itself. She let herself lean closer against him, and didn’t even move away when his arm came lightly around her shoulders.

‘Tell me about those worlds you saw beyond the stars,’ she said. ‘Tell me what it felt like to escape there.’

‘Escape?’ he said. She could feel the way he watched her in the night, so steady, so intense, as if he wanted to see all her secrets. ‘What do you want to escape from, Anna?’

Everything, she wanted to say. At least for that one moment she wanted not to be herself, here in her workaday life, her workaday self. She wanted him to be not himself, either. If only they were two strangers, who knew nothing of each other or of what the world held beyond this garden.

‘It’s more what I want to escape to, I think,’ she said. ‘Something beautiful, clean and good. Something peaceful.’

‘Something beautiful?’ he said. ‘Yes. I think I’ve been looking for that all my life.’

Anna felt the sudden gentle brush of his hand against her cheek. His touch was light, and yet it seemed to leave shimmering sparks in its wake across her skin. She reared back, startled, but he didn’t leave her. His palm cupped her cheek, holding her as if she was made of the most fragile porcelain, and she swayed towards him.

Slowly, enticingly, his hand slid down her throat to the ribbon trim of her neckline. He toyed with it lightly between his fingers, his dark gaze following his touch. He didn’t even brush the bare, soft swell of her breast above the unfashionably modest bodice, yet she trembled as if he did. She felt unbearably tense and brittle, as if she would snap if he did not touch her.

‘Why do you always wear grey?’ he asked, twining the bit of ribbon between his fingers.

‘I—I like grey,’ she whispered. ‘‘Tis easy to keep clean.’ And easy to fade into the background. It was a suitable colour for a woman who spent her time hovering behind the scenes.

‘In my star kingdom you would wear white satin and blue velvet, sewn with pearls and embroidered with shining silver thread.’

He stroked one long strand of her hair that had escaped its pins and trailed over her shoulder, tracing the curve of the curl. She felt the heat of his touch against her skin.

‘And you would have ribbons and strands of jewels in your hair.’

Anna laughed unsteadily. ‘That would not be very practical as I went about my tasks. I would be always tripping over the satins and pearls and getting them dirty.’

‘Ah, but in that kingdom you would have no such tasks. You would be queen of all you surveyed, seated on your golden throne as everyone hurried to serve your every whim.’

‘Gold and silver and pearls?’ she said, mesmerised by his touch, his words. ‘La, but I do like the sound of this kingdom of yours.’

He twisted his fingers into her hair and drew her close, so close she could feel his warm breath whisper over her skin. He cradled the back of her head on his palm, holding her to him.

‘You deserve all of that, Anna,’ he said. All hint of his usual teasing manner was gone, and there was only dark seriousness in his words and in the way he watched her. ‘That should be your life, not—this. Not Southwark.’

Anna felt a sharp prickle behind her eyes and was afraid she would cry. She could not do that—not here, not with him! She already felt too open and vulnerable. She tried to turn away but he held on to her, his hand in her hair. His touch didn’t hurt, but he wouldn’t let her go.

‘You know naught of my life,’ she said.

‘I’m a poet, Anna,’ he answered. ‘It is my lot in life to see everything—even that which I would rather not. And I see your sadness.’

‘I am not sad!’ Not if she could help it. Emotions, like sadness and anger and love, only brought trouble. She preferred serenity now.

‘You are, fair Anna.’ He pulled her even closer, until his forehead rested lightly against hers. She closed her eyes, but he was still there—very close. ‘I see that because it calls out to the sadness in me. We both see too much, feel too much. We just don’t want to admit it.’

Nay, she did not! She didn’t want to hear this, know this. She tried to twist away, but Rob suddenly bent his head and kissed the soft, sensitive spot just below her ear. She felt him touch her there with the tip of his tongue.

She gasped at the rush of hot, sizzling sensation. Her hands clutched at the front of his doublet, crushing the fine velvet as she tried to hold on and keep from falling. Her eyes closed and her head fell back as she gave in to the whirling tidepool of her desire. His mouth, open and hot, slid slowly along her neck to bite lightly at the curve of her shoulder.

‘Robert!’ she cried, and his arms closed around her waist to lift her onto his lap as his lips met hers, rough and urgent.

Anna had never felt so weak and strange. Something deep and instinctive, primal, rose up deep inside her, blotting out the world around her so that she knew only him and this moment with him. Only his kiss.

She felt the press of his tongue against her lips and she opened for him. He tasted of wine and mint, of something dark and deep that she craved far too much. She wrapped her hands around the back of his neck, as if she could hold him to her if he tried to leave, and felt the rough silk of his wavy dark hair on her skin.

She heard him moan deep inside his throat as her tongue met his, and the sound made her want him even more—madly so. He was so alive, the most wondrously alive person she had ever known, and she craved the heat and pulse of him. For that one instant he made her feel alive, too—free of her calm, cool, still existence.

He made her feel too much—he frightened her, her feelings frightened her. She was drowning in him.

She tensed, and Rob seemed to sense her sudden flash of fear. He tore his lips from hers, and the clouds suddenly skittered away from the moon. Its silvery light streamed down onto his face, casting it into angular shadows. For a second he was starkly exposed to her, and she saw the horror in his eyes, as if he realised just what he was doing. Whom he was kissing.

Anna felt as if a freezing winter wind washed over her, her passion turned to cold, bitter ashes around her. What was she doing? How could Rob say he saw her, knew her, when in that moment she didn’t even know herself?

She pushed him away, and as his arms slid from her body she forced herself up from his lap. Without him holding her she felt shaky and cold, but she knew she had to get away from him.

If only she could run away from herself, as well.

As she dashed towards the house she heard him call her name, yet she couldn’t stop. She just kept running—past the dining room where her father and his friends still roared with laughter, and up the narrow stairs to her bedchamber. She slammed and bolted the door behind her, as if that could keep out what had happened.

She stumbled past the curtained bed, already turned back for the night by their maid, and went to the window. It was open to let in the night’s breeze, and she could see that garden below, full of shadows and secrets.

Rob wasn’t there any longer. The stone bench was empty. Had he also fled from what had exploded between them?

Somehow she couldn’t imagine Rob Alden fleeing from anything. She didn’t know anyone who ran into danger as he did.

Anna shut the window and sank slowly to the floor, her skirts pooling around her. She pressed her hands to her eyes, blotting out the night. Soon it would be dawn, and a new day’s tasks would be before her. Soon she could lose herself in the busy noise of her life, and this would all be as a dream. A foolish dream.

It had to be.

Chapter Five

‘And this fair place, this Eden, is as nothing compared to your—your …’

Rob stared down at the words on the page, and an intense, fiery wave of anger washed over him. They weren’t right—the right words simply wouldn’t come that morning. They were imprisoned behind an impenetrable wall, locked away. There were no tender love words to be conjured that day. Not by him.

There was only that anger, burning away everything else. Anger and something he had never known before, something he despised—guilt. The conscience he’d thought he didn’t have, couldn’t afford, pricked at him like sharpened poniards.

‘Z’wounds,’ he cursed, and threw down his pen. Ink splashed over the papers scattered across his table, blotting out the words he had just written. Work was the last thing he could think of today.

Anna Barrett filled his thoughts—and created that anger.

Rob sat back in his chair and flexed his hand, the ink-stained fingers stiff from trying to write tenderness and love where there was none. He thought of how that hand had touched Anna last night, how he hadn’t been able to stop himself from giving in to the luscious temptation of her rose-scented skin, the softness of her hair.

The way her mouth had tasted against his—like ripe, sweet summer fruit to a starving man. Everything else had vanished when they were alone like that, just the two of them in the night, and he had lost himself in her. The control that was so vital to his life had disappeared as if in a puff of mist, and he’d been desperate for her.

He’d wanted, needed, the softness of her, and if they had been in a private chamber with none passing by he would surely have lifted her skirts and taken her in that rush of sudden, desperate lust.

Thank the stars they had been outside, with a houseful of people mere feet away. That Anna had come to her senses when it had seemed he had none and pushed him away.

That look of blank surprise on her face as she’d run from him had awoken him from his sensual dream as nothing else could have. The memory of it now made him even angrier—though whether at Anna or himself, or at the whole world, he couldn’t say. If only there was a brawl to be had, here and now! A fight would erase all else, burn away the emotion that ran too fast, and he could forget. For a moment.

Rob pushed back from the table so swiftly his chair clattered to the rough wooden floor. He kicked it out of the way and went to thrust open the window and let in some of the early morning light.

His rented room at the top of the Three Bells tavern looked down on one of the back alleys of the Southwark neighbourhood, so high he was above the overhanging eaves of the buildings that nearly touched above the road. It meant he had more light and air than the dank lower chambers—better for his long hours of solitary writing. The fetid smells of the dirt lane were more distant, as well, and he could think and work here. It was his sanctuary, rough and small as it was.

Today it didn’t feel like a sanctuary. It felt like a prison, binding him up alone with unwelcome feelings and desires.

Desires for Anna Barrett, of all women. Rob leaned his palms on the scarred wooden ledge and stared down at the alley below. He didn’t see the passing water-girls or the drunks straggling home from the night’s revels. He saw Anna, her full, soft lips pink and damp from his kisses, her bright green eyes wide and startled. Her body so soft and pliant against his.

Anna Barrett—the prickliest, most distant female he knew—soft in his embrace. Anna Barrett oversetting his emotions, which he had long thought mastered. Who could have thought it? Someone who shaped human ends had a sense of humour.

It was surprising, and he had thought he could never be surprised again. That alone was enticing.

But he could not afford to be enticed by Anna, or to have anything to do with her at all. If she knew the truth about him—about what he was doing at the White Heron—she would castrate him herself with a rusty stage rapier and toss his severed member into the Thames.

Rob turned away from the window and the piercing daylight that rose above the jagged rooftops, pulling his rumpled, ink-stained shirt over his head. The morning moved apace, and he had work to do.

If only today’s task was half as pleasant as being in the garden with Anna Barrett. He could easily face every danger if such a reward waited at the end.

But it was thinking like that—careless and impulsive, seeking pleasure at all costs—that had brought him to this place. It was the Alden family’s downfall, always.

As Rob splashed cold water from the basin over his face and bare chest, he thought of his family. He usually refused to think of them at all. Memories of his time before London, before Southwark, were futile and foolish. They were gone and he had made his choices. The past was no more. His parents would have disowned him for all he did now. His short stint in prison after a brawl had shown him what his life had become—how far he was from his old life. His parents would have been disappointed, indeed.

But his sister—pretty Mary, gone from him now for so long—she still lingered with him. Sometimes he seemed to sense her sad spirit at his shoulder, and it was that memory that drove him forward, that kept him alive amidst all the danger and his own careless ways. He had to do right by her, to fulfil his goal before he could let go and be at peace.

That had long been the implacable force driving him onward. He wouldn’t let Anna Barrett be an obstacle, no matter how well she kissed. No matter how much he wanted her.

Rob scrubbed hard at his face with a rough cloth, as if he could wash away last night and the emotions it had aroused in his long-cold heart. Wash away all the past. That was impossible, but he could at least make himself look a bit more respectable. Like a man with important business to conduct.

He pulled on a clean shirt and reached for his best doublet—the crimson velvet sewn with gold buttons he’d worn last night and which lay discarded on his rumpled bed. But it still smelled of roses and night air, of Anna and their closeness in the garden.

‘God’s teeth,’ he muttered, and tossed it aside. His next-best doublet, a dark purple velvet and black leather, would have to do, and was more sombre, anyway. Better for where he was going. He donned it quickly and smoothed the tangled waves of his hair before he reached for his short black cloak—and the packet of papers.

He had to journey to Seething Lane before the day was too far gone.

‘Anna, dearest? Are you well this morning?’

‘Hmm? What did you say, Father?’ Anna asked as she stared out of the window of the dining room. The garden in the morning light, with the slow traffic of Southwark waking up just beyond, seemed so—ordinary. The same trees and overgrown shrubs she saw every day. How had she ever been so carried away by dreams and fantasies in such a place? Even under night’s cover?

It was a terrible, twisting puzzle that had kept her awake until dawn.

‘It’s just that you seem distracted, daughter,’ her father said. ‘You’re about to spill that beer.’

Anna looked down, startled, to see that the pitcher of small beer she was pouring into pottery goblets was indeed about to spill. She quickly put it down on the table, and reached for a cloth to wipe up the last drops.

‘Fie on it all,’ she murmured. ‘I’m sorry, Father. I suppose I’m just a bit tired today.’

‘Sit down and have some bread,’ Tom said, pushing a platter of bread and cheese across the table to her. ‘I shouldn’t have asked so many people to supper yesterday. We talked too late into the night.’

No, he shouldn’t have asked them, Anna thought as she listlessly poked at a piece of bread. Maybe then she would have spent the evening quietly with her book, not wandering off in dark gardens with Robert Alden, forgetting herself and acting like a fool.

She felt her cheeks turn hot at the memory of their kiss, of the way she’d flung herself onto his lap and held him so tightly, as if she was drowning and only he could save her. But there had been such a feeling of inevitability about it all—like the fate that led characters in a play to their inescapable ends. Something dark and needful had been growing between them for a long time. Something she didn’t understand and didn’t want.

Anna took a long sip of the beer. Perhaps it was best something had happened. Now it was done and past, and they could forget it.

But what if it was not so past? What if it happened again and she found she truly was a strumpet with no control?

She almost laughed at the thought. Strumpet or not, she knew Rob was pursued by so many ladies—Winchester geese and fine Court women alike. She saw them all the time at the White Heron, his admirers clustered around the stage with shining eyes and low-cut bodices. He certainly didn’t need a grey-clad widow like her.

She just had to forget him—put last night’s folly down to a wild dream and move forward. It was as simple as that.

Only that didn’t seem so very simple, even in the hard light of day.

‘We will have a few quiet evenings for a time,’ her father said. ‘No more late dinners. I can meet with the actors at the tavern to read the new plays.’

‘Invite them here whenever you like, Father,’ Anna said. She refilled his goblet, careful not to spill any beer this time. ‘I do not mind.’

‘I don’t want to make more work for you, dearest, not when you do so much already. Perhaps you would like a holiday in the country?’

‘A holiday?’ Anna said, startled. Her father was a London man, born and bred; the dirty water of the Thames was in his blood. He never thought they should go to the country.

‘Aye. You seem to need a rest, and soon the hot weather will be upon us. What if the plague comes again?’

‘It won’t.’ But the country—fresh air and quiet, long walks, space to think, to be. A place away from the theatre and Rob Alden. It sounded quite enticing. But … ‘And I have too much work just now to go away.’

Thomas shrugged. ‘If you say so. But think about it, my dear. We could both use a change of scene—especially right now.’

Anna laughed. ‘You would die of boredom away from London, Father! Why this sudden urge to go to the country?’ A suspicion struck her. ‘Are you in some sort of trouble?’

‘Trouble? Certainly not!’ he blustered. But he wouldn’t meet her gaze, and his rough, lined cheeks looked red. ‘Whatever would make you say such a thing? When am I ever in trouble?’

All the time, Anna thought. Southwark was ripe with trouble around every corner—especially for men like her father, who had business concerns in every narrow street and dark corner. Yet he’d never wanted to run away from it before. He seemed to enjoy trouble.

Just as Robert did.

‘I will think about going to the country for a time,’ she said. ‘When business grows slow in the hotter weather. But for now I have things I must do.’

Her father nodded, somewhat mollified. But his face still bore that guilty flush. ‘What are you doing today, my dear?’

‘It’s rent day, and a few tenants are still behind in their payments. I’m going to visit them myself and have a word with them. You must keep a watch on the rehearsal at the White Heron, Father, or they will waste away the whole morning.’

He nodded, but Anna feared he was inclined to laze away the morning with them. She rose from her chair and kissed the top of his balding head. The old rogue—how she loved him, despite everything. He was all she had, her only family, and she was all he had, as well. She had to look out for him.

‘I will be back by afternoon, Father,’ she said. ‘Don’t worry about a thing.’

He reached up to pat her hand. ‘I don’t worry, Anna. Not while you are here.’

Anna left the dining chamber and went up to her room to fetch her hat and shawl. As she pinned the high-crowned grey hat to her neatly coiled hair, she caught a glimpse of her pale face in the small looking glass. Usually she only took a quick look, to be sure she was tidy, but today she looked longer, studied herself.

Her father had always claimed she was pretty because she looked like her mother, but Anna had never thought herself so. She saw the finely arrayed Court ladies, with their golden curls and rouge-pink cheeks, their white bosoms displayed above jewelled bodices. She saw the admiration they gathered from men, and knew she did not resemble them. Her hair, though thick and long, was brown and straight, her eyes too tilted and her chin too pointed. She was pale and thin, her gowns plain grey, as Rob had pointed out. Her lips were fine enough, but were too often pressed thin with worry.

She was not a vivid beauty, likely to catch and hold the eye of a handsome devil like Robert.

‘He must have been very ale-shot last night,’ she said, and jabbed the pin harder into her hat. Perhaps she had been, as well—or at least drunk on the moonlight and on his words, the rare glimpse he’d given her of his past.

But that had been last night. This was today, and she had work to do.

Anna looped her wool shawl over her shoulders and reached for her market basket. Her father was still at the table with his beer when she went downstairs, looking uncharacteristically sad and reflective. Something was happening with him, she was sure of it. But she had no time to puzzle it out now; the mysteries of men would have to wait. She had business of pence and pounds today, and that she could decipher and understand.

Men, she vowed, she would never fathom.

Anna was nearly to Mother Nan’s bawdy house, her first rent-collecting stop of the day, when she caught a sudden glimpse of Rob through the crowd. He was taller than most of the people passing around him, the plumes on his cap waving like a beacon, and her heart suddenly beat faster at the sight of him.

There was no time to prepare herself for seeing him again after last night, and she felt very flustered and uncertain. She hated that feeling. How dared he make her feel so discomposed?

And—and how dared he not even notice her?

As Anna watched him, pressing herself against the whitewashed wall in case he glanced her way, he kept walking quickly on his path, looking neither to the right nor the left but just straight ahead. The people around him, the crowded, quarrelling knots and tangles of humanity, made way for him as naturally as if he was a prince. They didn’t jostle him or grab his arm to entreat him to buy their wares, and no one dared try and rob him. It was extraordinary.

Yet Rob appeared to be lost in his own thoughts. Under the narrow brim of his fine cap his brow was furrowed, his expression dark as a storm cloud. There was not even a hint of reckless laughter about him, only some intense purpose that drove him onward.

Where on earth was he going? Anna was intrigued in spite of herself. In her world it never paid to be curious. Only minding one’s own tasks kept trouble away in this neighbourhood, and not even always then. And Rob always seemed to bring trouble with him.

‘Oh, what am I doing?’ she whispered, but she followed him anyway, as if her feet could no longer obey her. She hurried after him, keeping those plumes in sight as her guide. She had to be very careful not to let him see her.

She had never known Rob to be like this before, so solemn and purposeful, so lost in his own thoughts. Was he in some sort of debt or planning a crime? Or perhaps he was planning to sell his new play right out from under her father’s nose.

They left the most crowded streets behind, leaving the thick knots of people and the busy shops for the pathway that ran alongside the river itself. Luckily there were still enough people gathered there for her to stay out of sight, using them for shields. Boatmen plied their trade, looking for passengers to ferry to the opposite bank, and fishmongers announced their fresh catch.

Robert kept walking, and Anna had to quicken her steps to keep up with him. They passed warehouses, close-packed merchants’ houses, and London Bridge came into view, with the boiled heads of the executed staring down sightlessly at the crush of humanity. Rob started to cross the huge edifice and Anna realised with a sudden cold shock where he was heading—towards the silent stone hulk of the Tower.

Anna shrank back from its tall, thick walls and gates, its waving banners and the guards who patrolled the ramparts. She had never been there herself, but she had heard such terrible tales of what happened behind those blank walls. Pain and blood and fear as could only be faintly imagined in revenge plays were a reality there, and most who were swallowed up by it never returned. Even from where she stood, at a safe distance along the river, she could feel the cold, clammy reach of it.

What business could Rob have there? She could well imagine he would do something to cause his arrest. Actors were always getting into fights and being thrown into gaol, and there had been rumours he had once fetched up in Bridewell. Yet surely no one, not even a bold player like Rob, would voluntarily go near the Tower?

She hurried across the bridge herself and stood up on tiptoe, straining to catch a glimpse of him. She finally saw his plumes again, and to her relief he was not entering the dark environs of the Tower but continuing along the river on the other side. She ran after him, dodging around pedestrians to keep him in her sight as he made his way into the tangle of streets just beyond the Tower’s walls.

He went past more shops and houses, not even glancing at them. Gradually the buildings grew farther apart, with large gardens and empty spaces between them and the road, until he came to what had once been the entrance to an old Carthusian monastery. A vast complex had once lain here, covering many acres and containing churches, dining halls, scriptoriums and butteries and barns. Now there were large homes, quiet and watchful behind their new gates.

At one of them, a tall half-timbered place of solemn, tidy silence and glinting windows, Rob stopped at last. He glanced over his shoulder, and Anna dived into the nearest doorway to stay out of sight. As she peeked out cautiously, he sounded the brass knocker on the heavy iron-bound door. A black-clad manservant, as solemn as the house, answered.

‘He has been expecting you, Master Alden,’ the man said as he ushered Robert inside. The door swung shut, and it was as if the house closed in on itself and Rob was swallowed up by it as assuredly as if it was the Tower itself.

Anna stared at the closed-up structure in growing concern. What was that place? And what business did he have there? She did not have a good feeling about it.

A pale heart-shaped face suddenly appeared at one of the upstairs windows, easing it open to peer down at the street. It was a woman, thin and snow-white, but pretty, her light brown hair covered by a lacy cap and a fine starched ruff trimming her silk gown. The watery-grey daylight sparkled on her jewelled rings.

Anna realized that she recognised the woman. She sometimes visited the White Heron to sit in the upper galleries with her fine Court friends. It was Frances, Countess of Essex—wife of one of the Queen’s great favourites and daughter of the fearsome Secretary Walsingham, whose very name struck terror in everyone in Southwark.

‘Oh, Robert,’ Anna whispered. ‘What trouble are you in now?’

Chapter Six

‘Wait here, if you please, Master Alden,’ the dour manservant said to Rob. He gestured to a bench set against the wall in a long, bare corridor. ‘The Secretary will receive you shortly.’

‘I thought he had long been expecting me,’ Rob said, but the man just sniffed and hurried on his way. Rob sat down on the bench to wait; it was a move no doubt calculated to increase the disquiet any visit to this house in Seething Lane would cause.

He had been here too many times, heard and seen too many things in its rooms and corridors to be too concerned. Still, it was always best to be gone from here quickly.

The house was dark and cool, smelling of fine wax candles, ink, and lemon wood polish. The smooth wooden floors under his feet were immaculately clean, the walls so white they almost gleamed. Lady Walsingham was a careful housekeeper.

Yet underneath there was a smell of something bitter and sharp, like herbal medicines—and blood. They did say Secretary Walsingham was ill—more so after the stresses of the threatened Spanish invasion the year before. But not even the great defeat of the Armada, or this rumoured illness, seemed to have slowed the man at all.

He was as terribly vigilant as ever. No corner of England escaped his net.

And no filament of that net, even one as obscure as Rob, ever escaped, either.

He swept off his cap and raked his hand through his hair. This was the only way he could protect the ones he cared about—the only way he could see them safe. He had always known that. But lately it had become harder and harder.

Especially when he thought of Anna Barrett, and the way she looked at him from her jewel-bright eyes …

‘Master Alden. My father will see you now,’ a woman’s soft voice said.

Rob forced away the vision of Anna and looked up to find Secretary Walsingham’s daughter watching him from an open doorway. Her fine gown and jewels glistened in the shadows.

‘Lady Essex,’ Rob said, rising to his feet to give her a bow. ‘I did not realise you were visiting your family today.’

‘I come as often as I can. My father needs me now.’ She led him down the corridor and up a winding staircase, past the watchful eyes of the many portraits hung along its length. ‘Don’t let him keep you too long. He should rest, no matter how much he protests.’

‘I will certainly be as quick as I can, my lady,’ Rob said. He had no desire to stay in this house any longer than necessary.

She gave him a quick smile over her shoulder. ‘My friends and I did so enjoy The Duchess’s Revenge. We thought it your best work yet.’

‘Thank you, Lady Essex. I’m glad it pleased you.’

‘Your plays always do—especially in these days when distraction is most welcome, indeed. When can we expect a new work?’

‘Very soon, God willing.’ When his work here in Seething Lane had come to an end.

‘Don’t let my father keep you away from it. We’re most eager to see a new play. Always remember that.’ Lady Essex opened a door on the landing and left him there with a swish of her skirts. Rob slowly entered the chamber and shut the door behind him.

It was surprisingly small, this room where so much of England’s business was conducted. A small, stuffy office, plainly furnished, with stacks of papers and ledgers on every surface and even piled on the floor.

Walsingham’s assistant, Master Phellipes—a small, yellow-faced, bespectacled man—sat by the window, with his head bent over his code work. The Secretary himself was at his desk in the corner, a letter spread open before him.

‘Master Alden,’ he said quietly. Walsingham always spoke quietly, calmly, whether he remarked on the weather or sent a traitor to the Tower. ‘Have you any news for us today?’

‘Nothing that can yet be proved,’ Rob answered. ‘But work progresses.’

Walsingham tapped his fingers against the letter, regarding Rob with his red-rimmed, murky eyes. ‘Were you working when you took part in that little disturbance outside the White Heron? A quarrel over a bawd, I hear.’

‘It may have seemed so. I had to come up with a quick excuse to cover my stealing of this.’ Rob took out a small, folded packet of papers and passed it across the desk.

Walsingham glanced at it. ‘A step in the right direction. Yet we still do not have the names of the traitors in Lord Henshaw’s Men. We know only that they pass coded information to Spain’s contacts via plays and such. Surely you are well placed to discover them?’

Rob watched Walsingham steadily. He had no fear of the Queen’s Secretary, for he had never done him double-dealing in his secret work here. But Walsingham held so many lives in his hands, and one slip could mean doom for more than himself. This was Robert’s first task of such magnitude—tracking down a traitor in Tom Alwick’s theatre. It was a change from coding, courier work and fighting. It was a dangerous task on all sides.

He could not fail at it. No matter who was caught in Walsingham’s wide net.

He pushed away the image of Anna’s smile and said, ‘I am close.’

‘I’m glad to hear it,’ Walsingham answered. ‘Phellipes is busily decoding a letter another agent intercepted, which should be of more help to us in this matter. Once we have that information I will send you word. But for now, tell me all your impressions of Lord Henshaw’s Men and their home at the White Heron …’

It was a half hour more before Rob left Walsingham’s house, ushered out through the door by Lady Walsingham herself, whose pale, worried face spoke of her concerns for her husband, working so hard through his illness. Once outside in the lane, he drew in a deep breath. Even the thick, fetid city air of the Tower Ward was better than the dark closeness of the house.

Rob frowned as he thought of Walsingham and Phellipes, bent over endless letters, tracking down traitors among the theatre people he spent his own days with. One of them used his art for a darker purpose, but which one and why? He could not be wrong in this. So very much was at stake.

He put on his cap and turned back towards the river. His thoughts were still in that dark house, and for a moment he didn’t notice the lady lurking across the street. But then a flash of grey, a surreptitious movement, caught his eyes and he swung round with his hand on the hilt of his sword.

To his shock, he saw it was Anna Barrett who tried to duck down a side street out of sight. What was she doing so far from home, so near the lion’s den? What was she looking for—and what did she know?

Rob strode after her, determined to find out.

Chapter Seven

‘What are you doing so far from home, Mistress Barrett?’

Anna whirled round, her heart pounding at the sudden sound of Rob’s voice. When he had emerged from that house, alone and with a distracted cast to his face, Anna had been so startled she’d stumbled back against the wall behind her hiding place. He had not been in there very long.

As he started towards her, she spun and hurried down the alleyway—only to find her path blocked by a blank stone wall. She ran back the way she’d come and tried to retrace her steps to the river. Rob was no longer in sight, and she thought she could breathe again.

But she was quite wrong. She ran down to the riverbank—only to be brought up short by the sight of Rob standing there, negotiating with a boatman. He glanced back over his shoulder, as if he could sense her standing there, and she whirled around to feign interest in a tray of flower posies.

What a terrible intelligencer I would be, she thought, holding her breath as she prayed he would leave now, that he hadn’t seen her.

Her prayers were in vain.

At his words, she turned to him and tried to give him a smile. If only she could hear above the pounding of her heart in her ears!

‘Why, Robert Alden,’ she said. ‘I could ask the same of you. Do you have business at the Tower, mayhap? It does seem strangely appropriate …’

He suddenly reached out and caught her arm in a hard clasp. It wasn’t painful, but it was as implacable as a chain, and Anna found she couldn’t break away. He leaned close to her, his face hard and blank as he studied her.

He seemed like a complete stranger, not at all the tender, passionate lover who had kissed her in the garden. It made her feel cold, despite the warm breeze that swept down the river.

‘You saw where I went,’ he said. His voice was as fearsomely blank as his face.

Anna tried to tug her arm free, but he wouldn’t let go. He held her so easily, so effortlessly. She swallowed past the sudden dry knot in her throat and said, ‘I don’t know what you mean, Robert. I care not where you go.’

‘I tell lies for my profession, Mistress Barrett,’ he said. ‘You can’t out-deceive an actor—especially with eyes like yours.’

‘Eyes like mine?’

‘So green and pretty—so transparent, like a clear country pool. You can’t hide from me.’

‘I have naught to hide.’ Anna stiffened her shoulders and threw her head back to look at him directly. She wouldn’t cower, no matter how frightened she might feel. ‘Not like you, it seems.’

‘Come with me.’ Still holding on to her arm, Rob steered her back to the walkway. Once again the crowd seemed to make way for him, and he moved quickly, so easily, though Anna had to almost run to keep up with him.

She wanted to break away, to run—not to know whatever secrets he held. But something deep in her heart, the spark of some long-lost sense of adventure she had worked so hard to erase after her marriage, did want to know. She had long thought there were many things Rob hid—angles and shadows he dwelt behind, where no one could follow.

Was she about to discover what they were? She felt as if she stood on a stony windswept ledge, peering down into a roiling sea. One small shove and she would topple over and be lost.

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