The Greatest Lover in All England by Christina Dodd Page A

mean a fortnight, a moon…he thought of Rosie lying upstairs in his bed, and smiled. A twelvemonth.
    â€œGood morrow, all! Shall we feast while our appetite is keen?” Oblivious to the undercurrents, Ann stood in the doorway and beamed on the company.
    â€œWe shall indeed,” Tony agreed. “And my appetite, I find, is most keen.”
    Although not for food. He thirsted after knowledge, and would not Rosie be the best way to obtain that knowledge? Wouldn’t he, in his own best interests, have to interrogate the one he suspected of being the pivot of this whole plot? And if she proved impervious to subtle interrogation, might he not have to torture the truth from her?
    Oh, not literally, of course. He didn’t physically torture women. He persuaded them with the weapons he had on hand. And in this case, the best weapon he had on hand might be…his hands.
    He looked down at his fingers, and again they were cupped in the memorable shape of Rosie’s breast.

8
    There’s rosemary, that’s for remembrance
    â€”H AMLET , IV, v, 174
    â€œ I don’t understand Ophelia. She’s a pitiful woman.” Rosie crossed one arm over her belly and held it as if she eaten too many green apples. “I want to do Laertes.”
    â€œLaertes is an important role in Hamlet , but Ophelia is a pivotal role. The troupe needs you to be Ophelia, just as you’ve been Beatrice and Hermia.” The warm sunshine caressed Sir Danny and his student as they sat on the terrace, but his explanation didn’t ease Rosie’s defensive posture, and Sir Danny corrected himself. “We need you to perform with more passion than you did with Beatrice and Hermia. ’Tis easy to convince an audience that you’re a woman when you are a woman in truth. ’Tis even easy to elucidate correctly, to make the grand gestures and capture theirattention, but you say you want to make them laugh and cry.”
    â€œSo I do.”
    â€œThey’ll cry for Ophelia. The prince she believed loves her rejects her most brutally, then kills her father. Feel her emotions—despair, anguish, uncertainty.”
    She stared at him solemnly, listening, trying to absorb his knowledge of acting, yet resisting the very root of its lore. It frustrated him, like trying to pour his wisdom into a closed container.
    Moving closer so their knees bumped, he cupped Rosie’s face. “It’s so easy, Rosie, for you of all people. Don’t you remember when I rescued you from—”
    â€œNay!” Rosie jerked her head away from his hands.
    â€œâ€”from that pestilent carriage wherein—”
    â€œNay!” Rosie jumped and strode to the edge of the terrace. Her arm remained in a sling, but she clasped the rail with her free hand and stared out across the fields. Most of Rycliffe’s guests had slipped away in the past three weeks, propelled by the rumors Danny himself had started, and the quiet was almost oppressive.
    He could hear the rustle of each leaf as it dropped to the ground, and the birds as they mourned its downfall. Rosie mourned, too, he thought. Mourned a way of life that was now ending. She knew it, although she didn’t admit it, and only Sir Danny, the great, the magnificent, understood how that change would take place.
    He hated to hurt her. He’d always hated to hurt her, and that’s why he’d let her slide along all these years, having nightmares while he pretended he didn’t know what caused them. He’d thought they would get better as time went on, and they had, but they still existed for her, hovering on the edges of her memory, creating shadows in her eyes. Returning sometimes with such intensity she screamed out.
    They’d been coming more often lately, ever since the troupe had arrived at Odyssey Manor. Her acting had worsened, too, as if she feared the demons in her mind might take over her life.
    He’d come to think that maybe,