Martin Stephen - The galleon's grave

‘I'm sorry,' Gresham said, i find this really difficult.' He had never said that to anyone. He finally dared to look at her. She was still the most beautiful thing he had ever seen. He took a deep breath, i'm truly sorry,' he said. 'I've wronged you. You've been… great. I hated you because you made my life more complicated and because you forced me to have to think of someone else because your mother swore me to a vow. And because you were beautiful I decided to hate you, because all the beautiful women I know have used their beauty to ensnare and entrap men. Yet you're not like them. And…'

I think I may have fallen in love with you. That was what he was about to say. And if it had been said at that moment, who knows that it might not have altered both of their lives? Instead it was interrupted. There was a clatter of horses outside, the sound of men shouting, the great gate being opened. Normal traffic in a great house? Had the Queen changed her mind, and sent her soldiers? Perhaps a collection of poets come to read their latest work to Gresham and to flirt with Anna. Who knew? A servant knocked on the door of what had become a private sanctum, and Gresham called him in. He bent low to whisper something in his ear, clearly not wishing the others to hear. Gresham's face went pale. He whispered something to the servant, sent him out of the room. He stood up from the ornately carved, high-backed oak chair, walked over to Anna who was seated in only slightly less splendour. She looked up at him, excited yet perplexed, sensing something in him.

'Someone that I think you will need to meet has come. He announces himself as Jacques Henri. A French merchant.'

Anna's eyes stayed open wide for a few seconds, then her face seemed to collapse. She stood so hurriedly as to knock the chair back, retreated to the comer of the room, as if seeking to hide in the dark.

'Look,' said Gresham desperately, 'I know you gave your word to your mother. But things change… if this thing is too horrible for you, then we must change it…' He was stumbling, almost incoherent.

'Did you break your word to Walsingham?' she asked in the smallest of voices.

There was a clatter of boots and stirrups from outside, and another knock on the door.

'Sir Henry, may I present Monsieur Jacques Henri?'

A startlingly handsome young man in his mid-twenties stepped through the door, stepped under it, a giant of a man over six foot tall, with dark brown hair and wide-set eyes of striking honesty. He was dressed for riding, but the mud and dust on his boots and cloak could not hide the expense of his dress, nor the lean muscularity of his walk.

'Sir Henry!' He had not seen Anna, hidden in the shadows, was not expecting her perhaps. 'I am so sorry! Word came to me from Lisbon and then from Flanders, yet each time 1 was too late…' The accent was French, but only very slight. 'I have led you… how do you say it… a merry dance, and I am devastated.'

He bowed low. Gresham returned the compliment.

'You… you are not as we were led to expect,' said Gresham, eyeing the young, muscled body and the overwhelming sense of youthful energy. 'We understood Monsieur Jacques Henri to be… rather older,' said Gresham limply. And ratter, he thought to himself.

'Ah!' said the young man horror struck. 'You have not heard? My father died last year. His caravan was taken by brigands, and though they fought bravely and he with them he died of his wounds. The young lady has not heard? We sent messages to Goa immediately, and to Spain.'

'The young lady has not yet heard,' said Gresham. 'The messages to Goa would find her gone, and those to Spain would cause no interest in the uncaring remnants of her family there, I guess.'

'I come to say that the young lady is, of course, absolved of any duties to my family. Our circumstances have changed. My father was a wealthy man, and I have decided the life of a merchant is over for me. I have an estate, in France… that will now be my major concern.'

'And you have a wife to share that estate with you?' asked Gresham.

Jacques Henri blushed. It made him look strangely vulnerable.

'My life has been one of travel, with my father,' he said rather lamely, and with some evident sadness. 'It has allowed me little time for matters of the heart, to my regret.'

Gresham turned to look into the corner. Anna was standing there, gazing levelly at Jacques Henri.

'May I introduce…' Gresham started.

Anna advanced into the room like dawn. Up rose the sun, and up rose Anna. She had not taken her eyes off Jacques Henri since he had entered the library. He turned slightly, started to bow and then stopped the bow ludicrously, a few inches down, his mouth open. The two young things looked at each other for a very, very long time.

‘I am sure, Monsieur Henri…' he started to say. Then he said it again, much louder.

I am sure, monsieur Henri I..' The young man jolted as if a shock had gone through him, remembered himself, finished the bow without taking his eyes off Anna, and then turned red-faced to Gresham.

'I am sure that my ward here will wish to hear all the details of the sad loss of your father, for whom I know she felt great affection. Perhaps if I sent refreshments to the Long Gallery you might spare the time to regale her with the necessary details. But first, perhaps 1 might be allowed a few words with my ward?'

Jacques Henri nodded, unable to speak. He backed out of the room, as if leaving royalty, and collided with the door. As they finally shut the door on his retreating frame, he was still looking at Anna. There was a long silence. It was broken by Mannion.

'Well, I feel a real urge. To be somewhere else.' He looked glumly at the young couple, and left.

'He is a real baby, Jacques Henri, is he not?' said Anna, the slightest of smiles on her lips.*You saw how he could not take his eyes off me, and backed into the door.'

'I'm not a baby,' said Henry Gresham. Then things went out of control.

They were in each other's arms before either realised that they had moved. They held each other as if there was no tomorrow, their lips meeting in a hungry exchange. They both felt the rising tide of excitement, the sweeping urge to throw away all caution, to give in. In some way that neither understood, Jacques Henri's arrival had broken the flood gate, released the tidal wave of emotions and physical attraction that had been building up for so long now. Now. It had to be now. They had both waited too long. There was no chaperone there, merely two young bodies.

And they both pulled back from the embrace. 'I'm sorry,' Gresham said, 'I…' 'I'm sorry,' Anna said, 'I…'

Then they laughed, the two young voices together, a peal of laughter. Gresham bowed to Anna, stepping back but not releasing her arms.

'I think I fell in love with you the first moment I saw you,' she said. 'On the deck of the ship, when I thought I was being so brave. And you stood up, among all those other men, and you were so young and so handsome and you took control…'

'Control!' said Gresham years of care falling from him, 'You were the one in control. You were fighting. Against all the odds. You dominated Drake and the whole English fleet! And while I thought I hated you for being so much in control and so beautiful, all the time I was falling in love with you.'

They kissed each other then, slowly, lingeringly.

He wanted her more than he had ever wanted any girl. The bedraggled figure emerging half dead from a barrel, the girl who had fought Drake, fought him, met a Queen. Good God! She had even sailed with the Armada!

'I put myself in that barrel, for you, you know,' she said, disengaging after what seemed a wonderfully long time. She was so beautiful, her hair in disarray now, stirred by his hands. 'I wanted to be with you. Silly. Stupid.'