The Rogue's Princess (17 page)

His little Puritan was teasing him – and it was wonderful! ‘Ay, like an iron post. I cry you mercy, Mercy.’

She leant forward and placed her hands on his shoulders. ‘When you call my name like that, Master Turner, how can I refuse? My answer is “yes”.’

With a hoot, he jumped to his feet, seized her round the waist and lifted her into a kiss, her toes only brushing the ground. When their lips parted, he tucked her head next to his heart.

‘Oh, sweet, I do so need you,’ he said fervently, squeezing her to him as if he would never let go. ‘I need you to keep me on the straight and narrow path. You must scold me if I slip back into my old ways, get mixed up in bad company.’

She pulled back so she could see his expression. ‘What kind of company is that?’

He chuckled. ‘Oh no, no confessions of past misdeeds. We start anew, you and I. May I assume your father is unlikely to give his approval?’

Mercy brushed his hair off his face. ‘How did you come to that conclusion? Was it when he had insulted you and your ancestors or when he had you thrown out at sword point?’

‘Oh, so you think he doesn’t like me?’ Kit said with mock surprise.

She gave his chest a consoling pat. ‘No, not yet. But my aunt thinks he will warm to the match if we proceed and come to him already having said our vows.’

‘And you – what do you think?’

She traced the pattern on his green doublet, absent-mindedly tucking her finger into the cuts on the chest where the fine cambric of his shirt peeped through. He thought she probably
didn’t realize what she was doing, but each touch was setting him on fire. ‘I think he will not reconcile to the match even so. He may agree for decency’s sake – either that or see me disgraced before the congregation of believers – but he will never really forgive me.’

‘Ah, my love.’

‘But that is the price and I have no choice but pay it, for I love you, Kit, and will come to you barefoot as he threatened and make the best of it. I will renounce the name of Hart only to take on that of Turner.’

He could do nothing to comfort her but kiss her. He lifted her again so their lips could meet.

‘Ah, Mercy, kissing you is very heaven. There will be happiness, so much joy in our marriage, that your father’s displeasure will not weigh too heavy on us. He is a good man – he will change his mind when he sees you are content.’

‘I pray so.’ Mercy initiated the next kiss, opening her mouth to let him deepen the caress, one step further on this path they had set themselves on.

He enjoyed the taste of her kiss for a good long while, but he wanted more. She was to be his wife; he wanted to learn her shape and feel, transform his imaginings into experience. His hands swept down her back then returned up her sides. Reverently, he brushed her bosom through her clothing.

At this, Mercy stiffened and pushed him away, reacting as if his touch had been a burning brand.

‘What are you doing?’ she asked in scandalized tones, clutching her hands to her breast.

Kit really didn’t think it needed a diagram to explain. ‘Kissing you, sweet. Here, come back to my arms.’

‘
That
wasn’t kissing!’

He had gone too far for his little Puritan. Through his frustration, he struggled to see the funny side, which he knew was there. His friends would laugh to see him spurned for so slight a matter. ‘What was it then?’

‘You were … you were touching my … my endowments.’

Gads, she talked like a lawyer. Endowments were they? ‘Mercy, you are to be my wife. There is much more to being man and wife than kissing, you realize.’

From the confused look on her face, she clearly didn’t know.

‘I touched you most respectfully through I don’t know how many layers of clothing – three at least. I wanted you to feel at ease with me before we wed.’ And, it had to be admitted, get a closer acquaintance with her most striking bounty. He thought he had been the model of forbearance till this point and had earned the right to this much.

Mercy was too shocked to consider that she might have overreacted. ‘I’m sure that isn’t right. Christian husbands and wives don’t do such things.’

Annoyed as well as grimly amused, Kit threw himself on the ground and propped his head up on one hand while his lady paced off her own frustration. She was too innocent to realize that part of the agitation she felt was exactly because she hadn’t let him continue.

‘And tell me, Mistress Hart, what do Christian wives and husbands do? I’d be mighty interested to find out because I’ve clearly been doing it all wrong thus far.’

She clapped her hands to her cheeks to hide her blush – a futile task because it flushed her neck and what little of her
chest he could see. ‘They … they meet in the privacy of the chamber to … to know each other. That’s what the Bible says.’

‘
Know
each other?’ He chewed the end of a stalk. ‘How do they do that, pray?’

‘I don’t know. But I know it doesn’t happen in the open air with people touching other people’s …’ The poor lass ran out of words.

‘Endowments. Yes, I understand you. But I’ve got news for you, my sweet, that is exactly how it often happens.’

‘Maybe for people of loose morals, but not for God-fearing folk,’ she declared mutinously. ‘And you said that you wanted me to help you be good, not mix in the wrong company. Clearly this is one of those points on which I need to correct you.’

Anger was winning out over amusement. The last thing Kit wanted after months of the most irreproachable of living was to be preached at by Mercy.

‘You want to correct me?’ He sat up, letting his hands hang loose over his knees. ‘I suppose you have a list to bring to my attention?’

She paced, knotting her hands in the fabric of her dove-grey skirt. ‘Well, perhaps aside from that touching thing,’ she waved vaguely in the air, not daring come anywhere close to her bosom, ‘you could stop wearing the earring. And your clothes,’ she flicked her eyes over his costume, ‘well, obviously, they could be somewhat more restrained.’

Kit thought the dark green doublet he had on this day was really the dullest he had ever ordered made – a recent purchase with Mercy in mind. ‘You don’t like my clothes?’

She squeezed her hands together. ‘It’s not that I don’t like them, I just think that you will find you are more acceptable to other people if you don’t stand apart so much in your choice of apparel.’

Kit got up smoothly, his six feet making her five and a bit seem suddenly very small. He had not used his height to intimidate her before, but now he was angry enough to do so.

‘I thought you said you loved me, mistress.’

Mercy stopped pacing and wrapped her arms round herself, stance rejecting his all too eager readiness to embrace her. ‘Aye I do.’

‘But it seems to me that you’ve been expecting me to do all the changing. Willingly I have altered my way of life, even these clothes are not the kind I usually favour, but you still keep to every sign of your God-fearing upbringing.’ He flicked the dull skirt contemptuously. ‘I’ve not tried to change you.’

‘But, Kit …’

Kit wagered she was going to say that she didn’t need changing as she was accepted as she was and he wasn’t. He didn’t want to hear this. It all depended on which crowd you moved in and Kit suddenly wasn’t sure he wanted to belong in hers. He knew more than enough about judgemental Puritans.

‘Save your words, Mistress Hart. I think we should return to the others.’

Mercy bit her lip, tears brimming in her eyes. ‘Aye, we should.’

They walked back in silence, the grass ring still on her finger, but fading with every second that passed.

12

Mercy spent a long time on her knees in prayer after the service ended that Sunday. The previous day’s outing had turned from a beautiful dream into a nightmare and all because of a thoughtless word on her part. She had reacted from instinct and that had sent her off on the wrong tack. She should have seen that Kit, more used to sinners than God-fearing folk, would not think anything wrong with touches that she found shocking. Her fault had been to go about telling him so gracelessly, prompting him to think she was finding him unworthy of her when she had intended it in the spirit of one Christian correcting another.

Looking about her at the sober faces of her neighbours as they exchanged Sabbath greetings, she was sure she was right to try to curb him. She couldn’t imagine Master and Mistress Hudson caressing each other in that fashion, nor Reverend and Mistress Field, God forgive the thought. No, she was certain that whatever ‘knowing’ one’s wife entailed, it did not mean that.

Her father caught her arm. ‘Mercy, there’s someone I want you to meet.’ He steered her to face a young man dressed in grey, much like the hue of her own skirt. ‘You may not remember him, but this, Mercy, is Righteous Field, our priest’s
eldest son. He’s been in Antwerp the last few years, studying with the brothers there.’

Mercy bobbed a curtsy. ‘Pleased to meet you, sir.’ Though she could not remember meeting him, she had heard much about him from his mother. They were hoping Righteous was going to follow in his father’s footsteps and become a minister.

Field bowed. ‘Mistress Mercy, it is a pleasure to meet you. I had the honour of being introduced to your sister earlier.’ He turned his round moon of a face on her father. His grey eyes never seemed to blink. ‘God has blessed you with a fine crop of daughters.’

‘Aye, they are a credit to my house, no matter what loose tongues might say,’ her father said testily.

Kit’s incursion into the church had given many of the gossips fuel for months, but thankfully it was now beginning to die down with no further evidence that Mercy was about to disgrace herself with a player.
And mayhap I’ll never now get the chance
, she thought glumly.

After a further exchange of words with the young scholar, ones that Mercy scarce paid attention to as they dealt with dry matters of theology, her father bade Master Field farewell and escorted his family home. On return from church, Mercy rushed to her bedroom – she couldn’t get to the window quick enough. Would Kit come? She had already decided that failure to appear would signal that he withdrew his suit, but she hoped he would find it in his heart to forgive her for her incautious words. She’d kept his ring, tying it by a silk thread round her neck where none would note it.

The river beach was deserted.

He had to come; he had to! Mercy couldn’t bear to think
she had offended him so greatly that he would give her up. Surely her ill-judged words had not destroyed any hope they had of being together?

But he fell in love so swiftly; would it not be like him to fall out the same?
a traitorous voice whispered, feeding the doubting part of Mercy’s mind that could not understand why such a bold fellow should be attracted to a dull duck like her.

She got on her knees again and bent her head.

‘Dear God, if it pleases You, make Kit forgive me,’ she prayed.

Faith hurried into the room. ‘I beg your pardon, sister, for interrupting your devotions, but there’s an earl below and Father needs us all in attendance.’

‘A what?’ Mercy reeled. Faith could have said ‘elephant’ and she would not have been more surprised.

‘A real earl.’ Faith, who was impressed by few worldly things, couldn’t help but be astounded by the honour visited on their family: a merchant household favoured by the personal attention of a noble – it just was not done under any but extraordinary circumstances! ‘You must come.’

Mercy rose, sneaking a last look out of the window, but she couldn’t see Kit’s beach, as she called it, without making a more betraying movement in that direction. Following her sister, she hurried down to the parlour.

Her father was standing in humble stance before a handsome young man dressed in noble scarlet and gold. Three men attended him: two servants in brown and Tobias Lacey, the very same brother she had met with Kit outside the theatre that fateful day. Her heart squeezed painfully as he looked so like his player-brother with his shaggy black hair and amused
expression. But why were they here? It could not be coincidence. Could Kit have sent them to tell her he had irrevocably withdrawn his suit? Surely an earl would not run such an errand for his brother unless they wanted to grind in the point that she was missing out on a noble connection that any other family in the land would sell their firstborn to gain.

‘Faith, Mercy, fetch the earl some refreshment,’ ordered her father, not thinking such an exalted nobleman would desire an introduction to such unimportant people as his own daughters.

The two girls hurried into the kitchen. It was the maid’s day of rest so they had to prepare the offerings of cold meats and wine themselves. Faith carried the platter while Mercy followed with the jug and glasses, which they only used on very special occasions. They had both agreed in whispers that this visit surely qualified.

The earl was now seated in her father’s chair while John remained standing in his presence. ‘I pray your pardon that I have called on the Sabbath.’ The earl’s manner was kind but clearly used to command. ‘This is not the day to discuss business, but I wanted to meet you after hearing about you from my brother.’

Mercy rattled the tray of glasses in terror.

‘Yes, Tobias heard you were a man of unimpeachable probity. I need such a one to help me put my new shipment of cloth to the market.’

The earl might be ignoring her, but Mercy saw that Tobias was watching her every move. Hands shaking, she almost overset the jug as she tried to pour the wine. He came to her side and relieved her of the burden.

‘A pleasure to meet you again, Mistress Hart,’ he murmured.

Mercy swallowed. It didn’t sound as if he’d spoken to Kit recently if he was still talking about pleasure. ‘And you, Master Lacey.’

He took two glasses from the tray. ‘Here, my lord, do you wish for some wine?’

The earl waved the drink away, too intent on his talk with Mercy’s father.

‘But I won’t say “no”.’ He put the rejected glass back on the tray and took a sip of his drink. ‘So, Mistress Hart, what have you done to our Kit?’