Wintercombe, page 68
part #1 of Wintercombe Series
The kitten nestled in the warmth of his cupped hands, and the pink nose bumped against his fingers, seeking milk. He stroked the tiny body, conscious of a sense of wonder at this life so new, so recently conceived, and yet so perfect. When he looked up, Silence was watching him, and as before, when he had lain wounded in her bed, all her fortifications were down, and her soul stood there in her eyes. She took the kitten, still mewing, and replaced it in the basket, where it immediately sought out its food supply and began to suckle fiercely, while Pye lay, and purred, her green eyes slitted with happiness.
‘Do you want to sit?’ she asked Nick. ‘And if you do, on what? A stool?’
‘A chair well backed with cushions will be more comfortable, I think,’ he told her, and watched as she fetched an armful from one of the window-seats and piled them in her own chair, the one with the arms. Carefully, he lowered himself down, and leaned against the soft, feather-filled tapestry and damask. The relief to his back was so intense that he closed his eyes for a moment, almost dazed by the sudden freedom from pain.
‘You must be careful,’ Silence said, drawing up another chair and settling a cushion behind her own back. ‘You don’t want to overdo things and find you’ve re-opened your wounds. Ah. Mally, thank you — can you put it down over there?’
Mally placed the bottle of new elderflower wine, made a month or so before, on the cold hearth, with two pewter cups beside it. She stepped back, eyeing the two of them sitting companionably by the fire, and said politely, ‘Be ee better, Captain Hellier?’
‘I wouldn’t be here if I wasn’t,’ Nick said. ‘Yes, I thank you, Mally, I am much recovered. I shall be able to sit a horse before the next week’s out, I expect — due to your lady’s care, and your own.’
‘Thank ee, Captain,’ said the girl, bobbing a curtsey.
‘You may go to bed now, Mally,’ said Silence.
There was a pause. Her maid did not move, but her eyes flicked from the man to the woman, and back again. She said, her voice careful, ‘Do ee want I to busy myself elsewhere for a while, m’lady?’
Startled, Silence’s eyes flew to Nick. He was staring at Mally, a smile on his opened mouth, and then he glanced at her. Their gaze met; she saw the reckless look appear again, and almost imperceptibly he nodded. A wild surge of joy flooded through her, and she turned to Mally, her pale, oval face glowing as the maid had never seen it, a look almost of mischief as well as delight. ‘You do that, Mally,’ she said. ‘And…thank you.’
‘I’ll be back in an hour or so,’ said Mally, and so transparent was her lady’s expression that an answering grin spread across her own freckled face. She bobbed a curtsey, and left. They heard her shoes clattering cheerfully down the stairs, and die away into the distance.
Silence found that she was trembling. To hide her confusion, the turbulent mix within her of joy and apprehension, she bent and poured the wine. It splashed a little onto the stones as she lifted the two brimming cups, both rather more full than she had intended, and gave one to Nick.
‘Your Mally is very surprising,’ he said. ‘I thought she didn’t like me.’
‘She didn’t, but I think the demise of Ridgeley changed her mind.’ Silence sipped her wine, which tasted fragrantly of flowers and summer, and wondered whether she was shaking from fear, or from something else. She looked into Nick’s face over the top of the cup, and added, ‘She is loyal — I would stake my life on her loyalty. She may not have approved of you once, but I know she can be trusted.’
‘You are trembling,’ he said softly. ‘Why are you trembling?’
Silence finished her wine with a despairing gulp. Despite her earlier resolution, a traitor worm coiled serpentine within, and whispered adultery, and hellfire, and betrayal. She said, her voice low, ‘Because the moment is on me, and I cannot escape it.’
‘But you can.’ He leaned his head back, the wine cup resting in his hand on the arm of the chair, and his smile was very gentle. ‘The door is not locked, and you have only to give the word and I will leave you. I have said in the past, that I will only do to you what you want me to.’
‘But how can I?’ she said, despairing. ‘When I don’t know enough to know what I want — except that I love you, and when you sit so close I want you to touch me, and hold me, and kiss me — and yet all my teaching cries out at the evil of it, and my soul says something else entirely.’ She stopped, and fought successfully for control. Then she added, ‘I decided, when I saw you hurt, to — to indulge my feelings, because I think — I think the truth of them became too great for me to deny. And now…oh, Nick, I am so frightened!’
‘Of what? Of the deed itself, or its consequences?’
His calm, quiet voice did much to soothe her. She stared at him, seeing the face she loved, a strong face, changeable and apt to laughter, the lines of it already graven round his mouth and eyes, the cheekbones shadowed by illness and pain, the narrow eyes, warm and steady. It was a face that could be cold and hard and ruthless, and she had seen it as such too often; but now the love in it almost stopped her breath. She laced her hands together and said slowly, ‘Both. I — I’ve never even dreamed of doing this before — before you. I didn’t even think that it was something I’d ever want to do — I couldn’t imagine wanting to have any man in my bed.’
Those words told him what he had already suspected. He wondered at the man who had possessed her, and was too selfish, or ignorant, or thoughtless, or bigoted, to pay any heed to his wife’s needs and feelings as well as his own. Certainly, he would have no compunction whatsoever in cuckolding Sir George St. Barbe. He said, ‘But you do now — or you would, if you were not so confused and afraid. My sweet Silence, there is no need to be frightened. Mally will make sure that we are not disturbed — I will lock the door in a minute — and there is no chance that we will be discovered. And as for the other — well, don’t you think that I myself have excellent reasons for proceeding with great care and caution?’
He had made her laugh. She got up and walked the few paces to his chair, and stood looking down at him. There were tears on her face, but she was smiling. She said, ‘Will you teach me? You will have to be very patient.’
‘I am passing good at that — have I not put up with Deb bouncing on my bed all these days? Ah, lady, my lovely lady Silence, you can trust me — or have you not learned that yet?’
‘I have learned,’ said Silence. She knelt in front of him and took his hands in hers. ‘Almost all my lessons have been learned, but some better than others. And I love you, and you love me, I do not doubt you for I can see it in your face when you look at me — and if we have that, surely all the rest will follow?’
‘You have put my thoughts into words exactly,’ he said, and his hands came up to unfasten her cap, feeling her skin tremble at his touch. Underneath, most of her hair was pulled back plainly into a knot behind her head, the rest curling loose around her face. ‘Will you unfasten your hair for me?’
Her eyes on his, she reached up and pulled out the pins which held it in place. She shook her head to free it, and the heavy, waving, light brown locks fell about her face, giving her a wild look quite unlike the demure Puritan he knew so well. Her gaze was vast, trusting, loving, like a child’s, but there was also a note of desire that was entirely unchildlike.
‘Come with me,’ he said, and rose to his feet with an effort that he disguised quite successfully, though not from her. ‘Apart from anything else, I shall probably require your support.’
She gave it as he walked slowly and painfully to the door, and turned the key firmly in the lock. Then, carefully, he set his back to it, avoiding the hinges that studded one side, and pulled her against him. And this time, as he kissed her, she surrendered herself completely to the sensual pleasure of it, letting her desire and delight sweep her along with him, forgetting all scruples and anxieties. When his hands, warm and deft, unbuttoned the modest collar at her neck, letting it drop to the floor, and began to unlace her bodice, she no longer felt any urge to stop him. Ministering to injured soldiers, and sick children, had made her long familiar with the fastenings of a man’s doublet: with a sense of wonder at her own boldness, she unbuttoned it, and slid it carefully from his shoulders.
‘To the bed, I think,’ he said very softly, his lips nuzzling her ear, and his hands exploring her breasts, making them tingle hotly and sweetly with the force of her desire, and his. And together, entangled, discarding their clothes as they progressed, they made their way to it.
Silence stood there trembling, her eyes enormous, as he pulled the fine holland chemise over her head, further disarranging her hair, and admired her body. Suddenly self-conscious, she turned and dived beneath the bedclothes. Ruthlessly, Nick turned them back to expose her nakedness, and Silence, acutely aware that she was nearer to thirty than to twenty-nine, and that she had borne four children, stared up at him, a hot flush mottling her face and neck. Seeing her unease, he said softly, ‘What is wrong? Surely you are not ashamed?’
‘Like Eve,’ she said, with a reluctant smile. ‘I — I’m just not used to — to being looked at.’
‘Not even when it’s with considerable appreciation?’
‘Oh, no — you flatterer,’ said Silence, shaking her head on the pillow.
‘Flatterer? Why should I need to be, when I have you here already? Oh, my love, listen, listen — you are beautiful, all of you, from the top of your head to the end of your toes — and never more so than when you laugh.’
‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ Silence said, trying not to. ‘I am a very ordinary housewife, and mother, not some immaculate Court lady.’
‘I know that, don’t I — it’s Silence I want, no one else.’ Nick paused, and then pulled his face into a ludicrous expression of appeal and said timidly, ‘Please, can you help me off with my shirt?’
This time, she gave way to her laughter, and the feeling of joyous mischief bubbling up to defeat her embarrassment. Carefully, she knelt on the bed and unlaced the neck, then disentangled his arms from the sleeves and coaxed it over his head. Underneath, the dressings that she and Mally had changed every morning for twelve days were strapped firmly to his back, disguising the fine, pale skin and lean muscles of his body. There was a sharp line between his brown tanned face and the rest of him, and the hairs on his chest and belly were darker than those on his head. Silence, who had never seen her husband naked, nor any man save those whose hurts she had tended, kept her eyes on his face and hoped that he would not comment on her woeful lack of experience in love. For being an active, desiring partner seemed so much more difficult than just to lie there, acquiescent, and let George do with her exactly what he wished.
But Nick said nothing, only let his eyes wander up and down her white body, that had once been painfully thin and was now, after four children, pleasantly rounded, her hips plumper and her belly still gratifyingly flat, her breasts firm and full, though a little low. Then, overcome with desire, he reached for her.
In his arms, letting her own hands stray with increasing boldness, she discovered at last her own capacity for taking and giving pleasure, so that when he entered her, it was the natural culmination of what they had already enjoyed, rather than the forbidden act which she had resisted for so long. And the dizzying explosion of delight, making her cry out with joy, was followed almost immediately by his own.
It was suddenly very quiet, very peaceful. Silence, coming back to reality by slow degrees, lay with his warm weight on top of her and thought, ‘I am an adulteress.’
The idea was so remote that she almost laughed. What had wickedness to do with the marvellous feelings his hands and body had aroused in her?
‘It must be forbidden because it’s so delightful,’ she said dreamily, and felt his sudden shake of laughter.
‘Undoubtedly,’ he said, his voice slow and lazy. He moved a little, taking his weight on his elbows, and gazed down at her. To her surprise, there was an echo of her own wonder on his face. He added, ‘You are superb, my lady, did you know it? Superb. And I have remembered another quotation to add to our collection. “Silence is the perfectest herald of joy”. And I love you.’
‘I love you,’ she said, and the simple beauty and truth of those three words made her want to shout it from the windows. But she was not a fool, though in the relaxed and contented afterglow of lovemaking she cared for nothing at present save his closeness above and around and inside her, and the fact that, miraculously, wonderfully, he loved her as much as she loved him. Already, the absolute necessity of secrecy, and the complications this would involve, were looming menacingly on the horizon.
But that would come later: for now, she could surrender to the glories of these moments, and luxuriate in her bliss like Pye soaking up the fire’s heat. Her arms tightened about him, forgetting, and he gasped. Instantly contrite, she said, ‘Oh, I didn’t mean to — did I hurt you?’
‘Nothing that won’t mend,’ he assured her cheerfully. ‘But I am afraid, lady, that I have opened something. I can feel it bleeding.’ Very cautiously he slid from her and lay on his belly, while Silence, her earlier discomfort at her nakedness quite forgotten, gently explored his injuries. There was one small place where the scabs had cracked, letting the blood through to soak the folded lint: she had a good recipe to staunch that, a flour and honey paste, if it did not stop of its own accord.
‘You’ll do,’ she said, smiling, thinking of his lovemaking, which had been considerate and gentle and characterised by none of the undignified gaspings and thrashings of her husband. The image of George did not make her feel guilty, though she suspected that might come later. With a sigh of remembered pleasure, she lay down beside Nick, her face turned to his, and her fingers linked with his hand. For a long, wordless time they gazed at each other, drinking in the small, subtle details of face and hair and eye. Then at last Nick said softly, ‘I hate to bring us back to life, but Mally will probably be back soon, and I should go.’
‘I know,’ Silence said. ‘I’ve been trying not to think of it.’ She rolled over and sat up, the bedclothes drawn up around her waist, her arms crossed on her raised knees. Her hair was impossibly and luxuriantly tangled, and her face was subtly altered, softer and with a genuine serenity, the mask discarded and the lines of strain and worry utterly vanished. Suddenly she laughed, the sound throaty and genuinely amused. Nick, watching her intently, thought she looked more beautiful than he had ever seen her, transformed by love. He said softly, ‘What is it?’
‘I was just thinking…’ Silence said, and turned towards him a face of delighted mischief. ‘Now I understand Bessie Lyteman!’
Amid their laughter, they kissed and rose from the bed. Finding and putting on their scattered clothes was a task accomplished with much merriment, especially since Nick found it well-nigh impossible to bend his back. Eventually, however, each fastening the other’s laces and buttons like a pair of children, they achieved a measure of respectability. Only Silence’s hair, wild and tangled, betrayed how the last hour had been spent, and Nick offered to brush it, a task which for years only Mally had performed for her.
She sat at the table, looking into the little rosewood mirror, feeling the bristles stroke again and again at her hair, teasing out the tangles with a patience and dexterity that told her that he had done this task before, for someone else. She felt no jealousy: the past was gone, the future far away, only the present mattered for the moment.
The face that looked back at her was her own, and yet not her own, the features unchanged but the bruised mouth, the flushed skin, the dreaming, languorous eyes speaking of another, sensual Silence who had lain entirely unsuspected beneath that despised and dowdy exterior. Experimentally, she smiled at herself, and saw Nick’s face reflected, like a Hallows’ Eve prophecy, smiling back.
Mally, returning a few minutes later from the still-room, where she had been making up more salves, was able to view them with the satisfaction of a matchmaker. The doubts she had had about Nick Hellier — and, it had to be admitted, they had been legion — had vanished the night of her escape with the children, when she had known for certain that he would not betray them, and her opinion had swung round to positive approval after the death of Ridgeley, Like many of the villagers, Mally was a person of practical rather than moral persuasion. She did not know Sir George St. Barbe well, but she did not care for the little she had seen of him. Silence she respected and liked as a friend as well as a mistress, and her loyalty to her was unshakable. She deserved better than Sir George, Mally had always thought, and now along had come this personable, amusing and above all young man — a man her own age, not one old enough to be her father — who was obviously head-over-ears in love with her. Why not take advantage of this opportunity, and snatch at happiness? She would do so herself, in the same situation, and so would most of the wives she knew in the village. And so Mally, being no hypocrite, had decided to help her lady, if that was what she wanted, to commit adultery.
And by the look of it, she had succeeded. There were the lovers, smiling at each other, still lost in the circle of delight that surrounded them. She said quietly, ‘’Tis late, m’lady.’
‘I know,’ said Silence, turning her glowing, fulfilled face to her maid. Thank you, Mally — thank you so much.’
‘I be main glad to help,’ said the girl. ‘And I d’want ee both to know — I’ll do the same again, any time that you want, m’lady.’
Silence and Nick looked at each other, and again there was that long, wordless moment of communication. Mally thought of the young men she knew, none of whom had ever looked at her like that, and was conscious of a wistful sliver of envy. She sternly suppressed it.
‘I think that would be most welcome,’ said Silence. She glanced again at her lover, and then added, ‘But it must be very discreet, Mally — you know how important that is. If anyone should find out…’
‘I d’know that as well as do any,’ Mally assured her. ‘M’lady, you d’know as how I’d never tell, not if they offered to slit my throat. And I’ll make sure that none of them find out. Master Nat, though, he d’know, I be certain of it.’
