The Greatest Lover in All England Read Free Page A

asked.
    â€œYou never come unless you want something.”
    â€œSuspicious bastard,” Sir Danny said.
    â€œPernicious knave,” Uncle Will replied, and reached out to ruffle Rosie’s hair. “At the risk of being called a worm, I must say you are more bedraggled than usual, my lad. Isn’t this reprobate treating you well?”
    â€œThis reprobate almost did get his throat cut.” Rosie cupped her hand under Sir Danny’s elbow as if he were about to faint and wished someone was doing the same for her. “We’ve got to bandage him.”
    Sir Danny snatched his elbow away from her, clearly offended. “It’s nothing, I tell you! And you werenigh onto choked yourself.” He pushed her collar aside. “The bruises stain your skin like wine stains an ivory cup, and your youth would be more mourned than this old carcass. When next I tell you to escape, do so.”
    â€œI didn’t understand you.”
    He shook her slightly. “When I tell you to escape, do so.”
    â€œNot without you,” she said stubbornly.
    â€œWhen I tell you to escape—”
    â€œI can’t!” She pulled away and turned her back to him. New pain and old panic mixed, and she fought to control them, pressing her hands before her face in an attitude of prayer. “I can’t let you go again, Dada.”
    Sir Danny rubbed her back. “Look at me and listen, Rosencrantz.”
    â€œNay. You’re not going to look at me with those big eyes and wipe my fears away as you do when one of the troupe comes to you with a toothache or a gallstone. No tricks with me, Sir Danny. I’d rather die with you than to live alone.”
    â€œAnd I don’t understand that,” he said softly.
    Sometimes even she didn’t understand the terrors that captured her with clammy fingers, yanking her from the real world into a terrain stony with menace. Usually the specters broke through only at night, but occasionally the phantasms confronted her in broad daylight.
    Like today. Swinging sharply away from his touch, she muttered, “I will not listen, Dada, and I will not let you go.”
    A moment of silence, then Sir Danny cleared his throat. “Modern youth is insolent, is it not, Uncle Will?”
    â€œI would my son still lived to be so loyal to me,” Uncle Will said.
    Rosie rubbed her arms, up and down, up and down, trying to disperse the fear that chilled her.
    Uncle Will studied her, then guessed, “You’re in trouble again?”
    â€œAye,” said Rosie.
    â€œNay,” said Danny.
    â€œAye, then,” Uncle Will decided.
    â€œSome cowardly folk might say, ‘Aye.’” Sir Danny looked severely at Rosie, then muttered in an undertone to Uncle Will, “But send a message to Ludovic.”
    Uncle Will shuddered. “Ludovic? Better to call him Lazarus. He moves like one raised from the dead.”
    Sir Danny pressed a perfumed handkerchief to his nose. “But he has been ever loyal to me since I engaged him seven years ago.”
    â€œAs I remember,” Rosie said, “he made that decision.”
    â€œHe is a forceful man,” Sir Danny admitted. “There are times when I would have dismissed him, but for the suspicion he’d refuse to leave.”
    â€œYou!” Uncle Will pointed at one of the stagehands. “Seek you Sir Danny’s manager and instruct him to bring Sir Danny’s troupe, wagons and all.” To Sir Danny, he said, “You can ride inside the wagons to escape the city. Come into the box office. We can be private there.”
    Still not totally convinced of Sir Danny’s good health, Rosie followed close behind the men to the tiny room where the receipts were kept. What seemed to be rivalry and distrust between Sir Danny and Uncle Will rested on a solid foundation of friendship. Not for the first time, she thought they resembled David and Goliath. In wit they were well