LIBERTINE in the Tudor Court: One Night in Paradise / A Most Unseemly Summer

‘You have little choice in the matter, my girl,’ he said with his arm across her back. ‘You can either walk sedately by my side to Sheen House or you can be carried there as you were last night. Make up your mind. Which is it to be?’

‘You are insufferable, sir!’

He smiled at her fury, urging her forward. ‘Pity you remember so little, you in your flimsy kirtle in the garden afterwards, and me wrapping you in my—’

She drew back a hand to hit him, to put a stop to the shameful picture she had no wish to see. But this time he was prepared, and she was slowed by the dull thudding in her head. He caught her hand well before it made contact, pulling her uncomfortably close to him in a restricting embrace. ‘That’s enough!’ he said, sternly. ‘So I shall not give you any more details except for one reminder that you must have missed.’

‘And that, sir?’

‘That the game of chase has ended and that you had better start to regard yourself as mine. Which is exactly how those people in there…’ he tipped his head towards the palace wall ‘…are seeing you, whether you like it or not. Far better to go along with it. Less confusing for everybody.’

Only a week or so ago, she would have argued herself in circles at his arrogant assertion that she belonged to anybody. To be held in his arms was something kept only for the night’s secrets, but to be added to his list of conquests was quite a different thing. Yet the appalling headache of the morning had left her feeling distinctly unsteady, and now she was unable to summon up enough strength to continue the contest. ‘Let me go, sir, please, just let me go. We can finish this conversation another time. Tomorrow, perhaps.’ The fields and trees swirled dizzily into a black void as a tingling sensation froze her arms and legs. She had had nothing to eat all day. ‘Please,’ she whispered, ‘I need to sit…down…’

And so it was that Adorna Pickering, against every resolution to keep this man at a distance, was carried once more up Paradise Road, this time in broad daylight, to Sheen House where Maybelle and the Pickerings’ loyal chamberlain were there to take receipt of her yet again.

It was not the most dignified way to end the day, but at least it gave her an excuse to avoid the interrogation that her parents had intended for her after church.

By Monday morning, when they had had time to put the events into some perspective, they had agreed that, all in all, Sir Nicholas’s appropriation of their beloved daughter at the masque was probably no bad thing, even if she had suffered some embarrassment by it. After all, they reasoned, she could have been even more embarrassed without his protection, and he had, apart from the horseplay, behaved in a careful fashion. A storm in a wineglass, one might say.

Sir Thomas returned to Sheen House from the palace, mid-morning, waving a letter he had just received from the Queen thanking him for his efforts last evening. He found Adorna in the still-room preparing some rosewater, her hands deep in a bowl of petals. ‘Well, my lass,’ he said. ‘Her Majesty must have approved of your performance at the masque enough to invite you to go up to Kenilworth with me on Wednesday. I shall have to go with the Wardrobe, even though his lordship is doing his own entertainments, but I shall need all the help I can get with the robes. Are you interested?’

No, she thought, Sir Nicholas will be there. Travelling with us, too. I must stay well away from him now. Far better if I remain here, beyond his reach. But the Queen’s invitation was not something one could decline. It was a royal command. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Of course I am, Father.’

‘Good,’ he said, picking up a handful of the petals and smelling at them. ‘You must take Maybelle and Hester, too. Seton will be there with the players to put on a couple of performances at his lordship’s request, so now we only have to remind your mother that you’re twenty years old instead of fourteen. Eh?’ He laughed, replacing the petals in the wrong bowl. ‘Perhaps if I tell her that Sir Nicholas will be sure to keep an eye on you, she’ll feel easier about it.’

Adorna scooped up the petals and replaced them with the rest. ‘Father,’ she said, ‘I don’t want her to get any ideas about a connection simply because he’s escorted me home a few times. It was not looked for, I assure you. It’s no more than a coincidence.’

‘Ideas about Sir Nicholas, love? Too late, she’s already got them. Look,’ he said, removing her hands from the bowl and taking them in his own, ‘stop worrying about it. I shall be there, too, with hundreds of others. Safety in numbers. So why not go in and start packing? If you and Hester need some extra gowns, I’ll borrow some from the Wardrobe for you. Now, go in and tell your mother and Hester.’

‘Is the earl’s household to go up to Kenilworth with us at the same time?’ She tried to sound only mildly interested.

‘Ah no, lass. They’ve gone. Early this morning.’

‘What—all of them?’

Sir Thomas looked intently at her expression of surprise. ‘Well, the earl is the host at Kenilworth, you know, and he’ll be escorting the Queen. But his men have had to take the horses up ahead of them. Didn’t Sir Nicholas tell you?’

For all she knew, he might have done while she, once again, had been in no position to remember much of what he’d said, though she found it strange that the memory of his hands upon her was sharp enough to send waves of weakness into her legs. ‘No, he didn’t,’ she said. ‘But it doesn’t matter.’ By the time I arrive, she thought, he’ll have found others to keep his mind off me. Yet the picture she painted did not give her the satisfaction she had expected it to, nor did Hester’s controlled enthusiasm for the venture convince her that this was the right course to follow.

One who did come to make a more specific farewell was Master Peter Fowler, who felt it to be his duty whilst barely concealing his dismay at the part she had played at the masque. He had little time, for his party was ready to move off, and there were many venues where the locks on the doors must be changed, en route, for Her Majesty’s security.

As kindly as she could, Adorna reminded him that she was free to choose her own companions and that to meet them however she wished was of no concern to anyone but herself.

‘And presumably Sir Nicholas Rayne’s?’ he said, coldly, before immediately relenting. He took her arm. ‘Can we talk reasonably for a moment? I have to join the party before we cross the river. Will you walk with me?’

Adorna lifted her golden-yellow skirts, placing her fingers briefly over his. ‘Peter,’ she said, ‘we must not quarrel over this. I’m not responsible for what Sir Nicholas says to me. He probably says exactly the same things to many other women. But nor am I answerable to anyone except my parents for what I do or don’t do. If you cannot accept that, then I shall be sorry for it, after being your friend since Easter.’

He trapped her hand over his sober grey sleeve. ‘I had hoped to be allowed more of a place in your life than merely a friend of three months, Adorna, but I suppose I shall have to either accept your terms or lose you altogether. I’m prepared to wait. It’s too soon, I see that now.’

‘Yes, Peter. Much too soon. Despite what you believe, I am no nearer committing myself to a man than I was when we first met.’

‘Yet you appeared to be approaching some kind of relationship with Sir Nicholas after Lady Marion’s dinner party,’ he said softly. ‘Or was that my imagination, too? And again at the masque. Does he know of your attitude towards non-commitment?’

She removed her hand. ‘You have no right to ask me that, Peter. Sir Nicholas knows of my friendship with you and yes, if you must know, he has been told that I am not available. But I’m having as hard a time convincing him of it as I am you.’

‘From what I’ve heard, Adorna, his purpose in pursuing a woman is not the same as mine. He is not best known for his fidelity with women, you know. Perhaps it’s as well that he’ll be away from you for a few weeks, too.’

‘Neither of you will, Peter. I go up to Kenilworth with my father on Wednesday.’

He stopped abruptly, leaning one hand on the gateway to the courtyard. ‘You…you’re going?’ he blinked. ‘Oh, I had no idea.’

‘I’ve only just found out myself. Will you look out for me? I shall be glad of an escort.’

‘Of course I will. So Sir Nicholas doesn’t expect you?’

‘No,’ she said, airily, already seeing the handsome figure leading the Queen’s horses, glancing in her direction, keeping company with her father, no doubt.

When Peter had departed, however, she felt a pang of regret that she would not have the pleasure of his company on the journey, for it would have been a comfort to her. Not only that, but the effect of arriving at Kenilworth with Peter would have gone some way towards getting her own back on the one who had, apparently, taken some kind of liberty with her and then left her to think about it while he went off to enjoy the company of other women for several weeks. And if that was what she had secretly predicted, dreaded, and warned herself of, she had only herself to blame for allowing it.