Barbara DENVIL - Blessop's Wife

‘No clandestine marriage then, my friend?’

‘A lesson learned from my betters,’ Andrew smiled. ‘I shall therefore stand at the church porch, and cheerfully take my oath before the priest.’

‘In which case most men procure a ring for the priest to bless. You have already obtained a ring for your bride?’ The duke began to walk from the battlements towards the open doorway leading to the winding stair and the chambers below. ‘Very well. I shall supply it. You must not expect to be an impoverished lord of my realm, my friend. Nor continue to dress in the clothes I doubt your steward would choose to wear, once you employ one.’

Andrew looked down at himself in some surprise, then strode into the sudden black of the stairwell behind the duke. The draught followed them as their footsteps echoed down the steps. ‘I have never been much interested in such matters, my lord, unless they serve my work.’

The duke’s amusement floated back, his voice hollow in the chill. ‘Then no doubt your wife will advise you, sir. A nobleman must remember his appearance as a statement of his wealth and position. And I intend arranging your business accordingly.’

It was late when Andrew returned to Cobham Hall, but he was elated rather than tired. He poured wine, and took his woman to bed. Tyballis kissed his ear. ‘So, after tomorrow when Felicia and the children leave, there’s just Ralph and Elizabeth and Casper living here with us. And Luke?’ she whispered. ‘Will he stay?’

‘No.’ Andrew’s voice was lazy as his hands wandered her body. ‘The attack on the house further weakened his wits. He can no longer cope alone. I shall find him a comfortable home with my mother. A larger cottage where they can play at independence, but within the Bedlam compound. And I shall leave this place in Ralph’s care. No doubt Nat will return at some time, and together they can run a boarding house on the premises. They’ll still be useful to me sometimes, in my work.’

‘Casper, and that little boy, too?’

‘I shall find places for them both in my own household.’

‘And me?’ She blinked up into his half-closed eyes.

‘I’m taking you away, beloved,’ he murmured. ‘If you’ll come.’

She was just a little disappointed. ‘Oh. Back to Crosby’s, then? My old house has never sold, you know, so we could go there if you like. It’s only small, and not terribly comfortable – well, not like here – but I can build big fires for you every day.’

He waited for her to finish, watching her carefully. Then he spoke softly, as though hesitant. ‘I must tell you, little one, although I think you know already, I am not what you might call a good man.’ She began to remonstrate but he did not let her interrupt. ‘My work over many years has led me into dark places. My contempt for mankind has made that easy. I’ve never taken pleasure in killing, but nor have I ever regretted it. Yet too much association with the dark can leave a man discovering the same shadows within himself. I have killed too often, and those shadows are part of me now.’

This time she interrupted. ‘For a man who hates to answer questions, this is different. Why are you saying such things?’

‘Truth can prove an uncomfortable foundation. But I use lies as a tool, not as a cloak, and I have never chosen to lie to myself. So, I would tell you the truth.’

He frowned and suddenly Tyballis thought she knew. Her skin prickled and all the sleepy warmth fled. The sounds of the rain beat heavier and a whistle of wind blew down the chimney, belching out smoke. The fire’s warmth no longer reached her and Andrew’s naked body became suddenly ice. She whispered, ‘So, you’re warning me. And that’s why you’re sending me away from this house. And telling me you’re not a good person, as if I won’t be losing anything worth having. Because you’re leaving me.’

He stared at her in surprise, then answered slowly, ‘No, my love. I am asking you to marry me.’

The pause stretched. His words made no sense to her. Very small-voiced, she said, ‘Marry? You don’t … do you think you have to? That you owe me?’

Andrew shifted uneasily back, moving a little further from her against the heaped pillows. He said, as if the truth of his explanation concerned him, ‘Perhaps, in part. But in fact I rarely feel obliged, or hold myself to duty. Do you believe duty has a place between us? My life has always been urgent with secrets. Personal needs have rarely absorbed me, not through virtue but through focus. That same narrow vision also enabled me to ignore the needs of others. Except with you.’

‘The duke,’ she murmured.

‘When I met him,’ Andrew said, ‘my life was all empty space. The duke filled a void I had no other way of filling. With you, it is entirely different.’

Tyballis scrambled abruptly to face him, sitting with her back to the guttering fire, the great embroidered eiderdown wrapped around her knees. The palliasse beneath the mattress creaked. ‘I’m not different,’ she said, frowning at him. ‘I’m just the woman you lie with. Before me there was Elizabeth. And before her – I expect there was always someone. You say you never thought about your own personal needs, but this is filling your needs, isn’t it? And that’s all I am to you.’

‘I’ve fulfilled those desires when convenient. But I never before thought of using the word love.’

‘I’m struggling to understand you.’ She was trying to read his face but his eyes were cold black through the dissipating swirls of smoke. ‘I’m struggling to understand why you ask me to marry you,’ she said, ‘when a wife is surely the very, very last thing you want.’

Andrew sighed. ‘Desire. Love.’

‘Desire doesn’t matter,’ she said. ‘I’ll sleep with you anyway, if you want me to. But I can’t marry you, beloved. I couldn’t – not to do – that – to you.’

Her words seemed swallowed by thickening smoke, tasting sooty as the rain pelted down outside. Andrew barely moved, though his fingers snapped to his palms and his knuckles tightened. This time the pause was imperceptible. He said, ‘How wise, my love. No doubt I should make as bad a husband as I do a man of trust. One day you will find better. You would certainly be safer with your Constable Webb.’

Tyballis blinked. ‘How do you know about?’

‘I am who I am, my sweet.’ Andrew closed his eyes. ‘Which is why I have brought you too often into danger. And why you will be better off without me.’

Her belly seemed full of stones and she swallowed back tears. Again she tried to read his expression. It occurred to her that his voice had changed, and his face had changed, and now he was speaking to her as he spoke to others, devoid of warmth. Something – some hope, the comfort of trusting intimacy – had left him. Then she realised something else she had not expected. In sudden panic her words tumbled over each other. ‘You understand – why I said – and you know what I mean, don’t you? Please tell me you understand. Even if I’m not sure I do. That is, you always understand me and see through me and know best. So, you know you don’t want to marry me, and you know that I know. Say you know.’

His large-boned face, the heavy twist of his nose and hooded eyes all seemed to soften and he watched her with a gentle sympathy. ‘At the moment, my love, I seem to understand very little. But I know you’d be most unwise to accept me. You have made your choice, but I must also make mine. So, even without the commitment of marriage, will you stay with me, little one – for at least as long as it brings you comfort?’

He was leaning back now against the headboard and the pillows, one leg bent and his knee supporting his wrist. His naked body was patterned in a flickering flush of rosy reflections. His shins were badly marked, great black swirls of bruising from Jon’s wooden-soled boots. Earlier that evening, as Tyballis had lain in Andrew’s arms before making love, she had kissed his legs, and cried. Now she sat and glared at him. ‘You’re refusing to understand me,’ she accused him.