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“Good.” He kisses my brow. “I’m not thinking of you as such. You are so much more to me.”

He kisses my eyelids. As I lie there, nestled in his warmness, it occurs to me that I am failing in my initial aim. I wanted the Poet for sport, to have us be enthralled with each other for a moment, and then to leave slightly melancholy but content. The truth is my stupid heart has laid itself bare for him without me even noticing. I have accidentally fallen in true love with him, while he has not yet fallen in love with me. But why? What blocks him? What is creating the armor around his heart?

I run my fingers across his chest up to the fluff of his armpit. “So, there is no one you love, other than me and your wife?”

The Poet stares at the ceiling. I see a thought pass over his eyes. He lowers his voice. “There are others.”

“Who?” I ask, trying to keep my voice intrigued but not accusing. “It would please me to know.”

“Naturally, I love most of my actors.”

“You know I mean those you love with passion.”

“I do love my actors passionately. I love Burbage as a friend, for example, but sometimes when I’m writing a speech of love to a character he’s playing I think I might be physically in love with him as well. Some of the apprentices I’ve loved from time to time, for they play the women whom I love the most, so many based on women I have loved before—even you.”

“Me?” I ask, laughing. “Which characters have you based on me?”

“You’ll need to wait and see.”

“Unfair,” I curl my lips petulantly, and then another figure appears in my mind, and I see the real reason for my question. “And young Hughes, the sharp-tongued apprentice who spoke to me rudely then later watched us on the beach? You looked upset that night and stopped our sport. After, when I wanted to speak of it, you wouldn’t.”

“I felt bothered for the youth,” he says. He appears earnest—perhaps too earnest. He gestures as if he is a vicar emphasizing a quote from the gospel. “To see me, a sharer and his superior, at sport. It must have been upsetting.”

“Was that it?” I struggle to hide my displeasure, and there is sting to my tone. “He’s a man, not a boy, after all.”

“True,” he says. “But still, I feel protective of him.”

I can hold it in no longer. “Was Hughes the youth you had me portray in our game?”

He laughs awkwardly. “What? That’s absurd. No. Not at all. It was merely a game that reminded me of my Latin grammar years.”

“So, you don’t love Hughes?”

He hesitates and searches for words. When he speaks, his voice is near a whisper. “I think I may love young Hughes most of all.”

The quill pen of his tongue pierces my heart. I turn my face from him, which he notices.

“Not the way you think,” he protests. “Hughes is the only apprentice who fills my ladies exactly the way I had hoped, and even further than I could imagine, showing me who they really are.” His face has grown pink as he enumerates the qualities of his young actor. “By imbuing my lady characters with his own heart, he shows me what I truly mean or could mean if I did it better. I rewrite all the time based on how he plays a role. The funny thing is, he sees me changing his words and thinks he has nothing to do with it.” His expression borders on reverence. “But he has everything to do with it.”

I smile through half-gritted teeth and offer my own best performance of a proud river fish who refuses to admit he is in the process of being gutted.

“You must feel very lucky to have a muse like him in your company.”

“I do. Very lucky. In more ways than one. When he premieres in this newest play, all will be talking of him. You must admit, he is radiant even without his dress and wig. He’s … just exquisite, don’t you think?”

“If one likes that sort of thing,” I say. “I find blue eyes weak, and that sort of pale tender skin ages brutally in the sun.” Then, feeling threatened, I go to a place I did not think I would, but I must. “Darling, I am loath to ask this, but have you ever, you know …” I raise my eyebrow salaciously. “With Hughes?”

He blushes and moves away from me. “Of course, not—”

“There is no shame,” I say. “He’s of a respectable age. Besides, I’ve several friends who indulge in the passion of the Greeks, and—”

“Enough!” He looks aggrieved. “I don’t want Hughes that way. He is my muse, that is all …” He climbs on top of me, pinning my arms down. “I know what I want, lass.”

He begins to kiss my neck, my breasts, then further down. I want to give in, but my mind is too occupied. I accept that he does not bed his muse, but still, I feel jealous, which I despise.

“Stop,” I say, pulling myself from him abruptly. “I must leave you now, sir.”

I began to dress again, in my woman’s clothes.