The dance separated them into their own figures and Carey concentrated on lifting the solidly built lady who came into his arms as the partners changed without rupturing himself or hurting his back. His whole body was alive with the dance and the music, he felt like thistledown himself and his feet flung themselves through the complicated steps without any need for his conscious direction. He could look across the expanse of whirling courtiers and find Signora Bonnetti watching him. Perhaps? Please God, he prayed profanely, thinking about Catholic countries where the possibilities were so pleasingly endless and forgiveable.
At last the dance brought her back, whirling breathlessly into his arms and once again he held her delectably tight arse instead of her stays and flipped her up. Although he believed he had done it properly, he thought he must have mistaken the balance. She came down heavily and seemed to twist her ankle. Immediately contrite he held her up and as the measure finished, he supported her to the bench at the side of the hall.
‘Signora, I am sorry,’ he said. ‘How embarrassing for you to have such a clumsy partner...’
‘Yes,’ she said, not looking at all annoyed with him. ‘My ankle is sore and I am very hot indeed. Please take me into the garden to cool myself.’
He held his arm out to her and she wove her hand into the crook of the elbow and squeezed eloquently. ‘Monsieur le Deputé, you are very gallant.’
‘Signora Bonnetti, you are very beautiful, but too formal. Will you not call me Robin, as the Queen of England does?’
Another squeeze and the brush of her hip against his told him she was pleased.
‘Why then, Robin, you may call me Emilia as my husband does—though he is no longer so gallant, alas.’
Carey bowed his head. ‘How can I help paying court to Emilia, the fairest jewel in Scotland?’ Hackneyed, he knew; whatever had happened to his tongue?
She tossed her head and limped assiduously as he led her out towards the bowling alley, past the crowd of lords and ladies predating on the delicacies of the banquet, and through the door into the garden, where their feet crunched on gravel paths between herb beds and her ankle seemed much better already. She led him through hedges into a rose garden, from the scent, and sat them both down on a stone bench.
‘For the crime of hurting my ankle with your wickedness,’ said Emilia Bonnetti in a whisper, ‘you must now forfeit a kiss.’ She proffered her cheek and shut her eyes.
Just for a moment, uncharacteristically, Carey hesitated. Somewhere inside him came a plaintive cry, protesting that this was the wrong woman, that what he needed to do was go back into the hall, kill Sir Henry Widdrington and bring Elizabeth out to the rose garden instead... And then the unregenerate old Adam arose and pointed out that wrong or not, this was a woman and an extremely juicy one at that and... God knew, he needed a woman.
She was still holding up her cheek to be kissed. He bent towards her, touched her very gently with his lips below the feather fringe of her mask, then took her shoulders and turned her so that her mouth came under his. Then he kissed her properly.
After that there was another, more ancient dance than the volta, only marginally complicated by her farthingale and his padded hose, which ended inevitably with her sitting astride his lap giggling as he bucked and gasped into the white-hot little death and bit her quite carefully on her creamy shoulder, just below the line of her gown.
She squeaked, nibbled his ear and lifted the hand that was under his doublet and shirt to tweak his nipple. They stayed like that for a while.
‘We should go back,’ she whispered, and sighed.
‘Just a minute, Emilia my heart,’ he temporised, happier than he had been in months, sliding his hands under her thighs again. God, they were beautiful to feel; why did women hide their beautiful plump smooth arses under acres of silk and linen, it was a miraculous treasure that they kept there and he wanted more...
She squeaked again, differently, and laughed. ‘Mon Dieu,’ she said flatteringly. ‘I had heard Englishmen were cold-hearted.’
‘Not me,’ he managed to pant, his heart building up to a gallop once more, Jesus God, it had been so long... ‘Kiss me.’
‘Tut tut. At least it’s true that Englishmen are greedy...’ She was thoughtful, or her top half was, while her rump rocked gently to and fro and made him feel he was going to burst again.
‘I admit it,’ he muttered. ‘I admit it, I’m greedy, only kiss me again.’
She slid her arms out of the front of his doublet and held him round the neck so he could do it more thoroughly. She twisted her fingers in his hair and grasped in a way that would normally have hurt him while he directed her honeypot and let himself quite slowly drown in it. This time both of them cried out dangerously in the empty rose garden, and Carey crushed her against his chest as her faced relaxed like a baby’s.
The night had darkened while they were dancing, and now the first few spots of rain began to fall. Emilia Bonnetti gasped with dismay as the specks of cold touched her neck and shoulders and lifted her head.
‘Blessed Virgin, my gown will be ruined,’ she cried in Italian, hopping off him to his own near ruin and rummaging under the silks to rearrange her underskirts. Carey thought wistfully about taking a nap, but he didn’t want his black velvet to spot and run either. He stood with a few creaks and winces as the hardness of the bench told on him at last, and made himself decent. She used the edge of a petticoat to wipe her facepaint off his face, an intimacy that made them both smile, and they trotted down the path back to the bowling alley and the torches.
A few steps from the door, Emilia began limping again.
‘Am I respectable?’ she asked, looking him over critically before they joined the surprising throng of dalliers in the garden.
Carey bowed with more than usual extravagance. ‘Positively virginal,’ he said, naughtily. ‘But you were limping on the other foot before.’
She wrinkled her nose at him. ‘You have done your doublet buttons up unevenly,’ she told him, turning to go in.
‘Wait. When can we meet again?’
‘I am lodging with my husband at the sign of the Thistle near the Fish Cross, very expensive and not at all clean. Will you come and attend me there tomorrow morning, Robin, and entertain me? I shall be very bored and in a bad mood, I’m afraid.’
‘With the greatest possible pleasure, ma belle.’
She went in ahead of him, looking plump and pleased with herself, straightening her mask. He waited for a count of thirty and followed her, still happily glowing.
The King was on the point of going to bed, barely held up by Lord Spynie who was not much better off, hiccupping and laughing at the invisible jokes of alcohol. It was an odd thing to see a monarch so drunk he could hardly stand, Carey thought. The mere idea of the Queen of England so unguarded smacked of sacrilege. The company stood and bowed or curtseyed as the trumpets blew discordantly, while King James with his surrounding company withdrew to take horse back to the Mayor’s house.
The Signora went with the courtiers, studiously and cautiously ignoring him. He took care not to do more than glance at her, thinking fondly about stroking the secret places between her thighs and...
Elizabeth Widdrington was staring at him, looking as if she was reading his mind. Guilt and a schoolboy sullenness brought the blood into his face involuntarily. Black velvet masks made for an exciting and illusory anonymity, but it was also harder to read people’s expressions. He hoped she couldn’t see him flush, he couldn’t work out what she was thinking at all, if she could tell, if she minded (of course she minded). She linked hands distantly with her rightful husband, turned and left, young Henry yawning at her other shoulder.
Just for a moment he felt truculent. Am I supposed to spend my life yearning after her like some goddamned troubadour, he thought rebelliously. I’ll marry her the instant Sir Henry’s safely buried, but until then, what am I supposed to do? Live like a goddamned Papist monk? It didn’t matter. Sadness and weariness set in and more than ever he wished it had been Elizabeth straddling his crotch in the rose garden, Elizabeth moaning and collapsing against him at last, Elizabeth telling him to do his doublet buttons up straight... He sighed and went over to where Dodd was sitting on a bench near the curled-up and sleeping Hutchin, nibbling at some shards of sugar plate.
Dodd’s miserable face cheered him up a little, it was so full of the plainest envy.
‘What now, sir?’ asked Dodd, dolefully.
‘Bed. Let’s wake the boy, I’m not carrying him up those stairs.’
Hutchin was not easy to wake and smelled of wine fumes. He was a fast learner, Carey thought with amusement; he had already learned the pageboy’s trick of toping a quick mouthful out of every drink he poured for his master. Carey himself was much less drunk than he had been earlier and Dodd looked exactly the same as always.
