Barbara DENVIL - Blessop's Wife

For a moment he said nothing. Then, very slowly, he began to smile. The smile started in the little tuck at the corners of his mouth, then stretched outwards, and flicked up into his eyes. Where they had been cold and black, expression suddenly danced again. He gazed at her a moment in clearing perplexity and said, ‘Am I to believe, little one, that you turned me down for my sake?’

‘Of course,’ she said crossly. ‘Why else would I? Like you said, the duke fills up your life. You don’t have time for anything else except tumbling into bed when you – well, with those desires you talked about. And I keep getting into trouble and you keep having to rescue me, which must get very irritating.’ She drew a deep breath before rushing on. ‘I love you so very much and I want you so very much, but after Borin I’d so very much like a husband who sat beside me in the evenings, and just held my hand, and kissed my cheek and said sweet things. To walk in the sun together sometimes, just for idle pleasure, and talk about what to make for dinner, and what’s fresh in the market. So, I’d always want what you wouldn’t want, and I’d get in your way.’

Andrew’s amusement settled into a contented patience across his face. ‘As it happens, despite my concerns for your safety, I thoroughly enjoy rescuing you, my love, and would miss it if life became too tame.’ He relaxed, and regarded her fondly. ‘But I have not the faintest idea what may be fresh in the market,’ he told her. ‘And as for what to make for dinner, perhaps we should leave such matters to the cook.’

‘What cook?’

‘The one I intend to employ in the new house.’

Confusion made her cross. ‘What house, Drew?’

His smile had deepened. ‘The house of Lord Leays, my love.’

‘You’re not making any sense,’ she told him. ‘That’s where we live now.’

Andrew shook his head. ‘No, little one, not this house. This dilapidated ruin once belonged to my father, but he is not the Lord Leays I refer to.’

Increasingly puzzled, Tyballis insisted, ‘I don’t know which lord you’re talking about, Drew. And I love this horrid old house and all its strange rambling passages, and the bits that fall down, and the places all full of holes. I even love the dust. It’s where I found myself, and then friends, and then you, and fell in love. Crosby’s is so much more beautiful, but it’s intimidating and it’s not ours. Here, I’m at home. I belong.’

He let her talk, smiling patiently. Then suddenly he sat forward and, both hands to her shoulders, pulled her against him. ‘Yet you do know the new Lord Leays very well, my sweet. I am speaking of myself, once the Duke of Gloucester is crowned king. He insists I should wear a title of some sort, and he is not a man to accept arguments.’

‘King? King Richard?’

‘I admit,’ Andrew informed her, ‘it is the middle of the night. You are assuredly tired, and our lovemaking was, let us say, energetic – and now I have amazed you with unexpected pleas for marriage. But you are rarely so slow to grasp the point, beloved, and are usually considerably more intelligent than this.’

She wriggled, trying to emerge from his embrace. ‘Honestly, Drew,’ she complained, ‘if you’d just make sense for a change.’

Andrew released her so abruptly that she squeaked. He regarded her for one breath, then slowly swung his legs from the bed and walked naked to the cushioned seat by the window. Lifting its lid, he took something, and walked across to the hearth. He held two tall beeswax tapers, pressed them into their silver sticks, and lit them from the fire’s ashes. The flames sprang tiny, then leapt huge. He set them both on the small table, came back to the bed and sat looking at her. For the very first time since she had known him, Tyballis had watched Andrew light candles. The light danced golden, as though with newborn pleasure.

‘First of all,’ he told her placidly, ‘let me inform you that due to the late king’s sons’ proven bastardy, Gloucester is now heir to the throne. He chooses to accept the crown only in accordance with the will of the people, which will surely be settled after public explanations at St. Paul’s Cross and elsewhere. But the council has already drawn up the official request for parliament to approve, and our new king’s coronation will probably take place sometime next month. Yes, he will be King Richard III, and I believe he will be a great leader. The Woodvilles and the Lancastrian traitors will creep off to hide in their Breton cellars, France will sniff and curse with whispers of merde and turn its back, and England will thrive and grow strong in the sunshine.’

Tyballis sat straight against her pillows, her face limpid in the candlelight. But it was not kings she was interested in. She said, ‘You’ve never done that before.’

Andrew paused for a moment before he said, ‘Speak of politics?’

She shook her head. ‘Light candles.’

‘Ah,’ and Andrew took her back into his embrace, cradling her face against the warmth of his breast. ‘I have been a man too long in the shadows, my love, too fond of my secrets, hiding perhaps even from myself. I will no longer deny the light of disclosure. I follow a man who will be a wise king, and he chooses to offer me a title.’ He smiled down into her wide-eyed astonishment. ‘So, will you marry me, little one?’

She mumbled into the warm hollow of his collarbone, ‘You think I’ll say yes just because you’ll be a lord and I’ll want to be a lady?’

‘No.’ He pulled her tightly against him, one hand firm across her breasts. ‘You’ll accept me because I desire you with every inch of my body. Because missing you is like losing my arms, and I can neither eat nor sleep. And because when I do sleep, I wish for a bed where your body nestles tight to mine; when I do eat, I wish to do so in your company; and when I drink, I wish to fill your cup before my own. And I intend to protect you, little one, even though in many ways I consider you my protection. It must therefore be, I presume, what the minstrels call love. And to that I choose to surrender entirely. So, will you surrender to me, my beloved, and marry me, for pity, for the title, or for any other reason you please?’

Tyballis no longer pulled away. Her toes curled as she tugged him down into the bed and stretched against him, though his height was much greater and her head remained at his shoulder while her toes prickled his ankles. She wrapped her legs around his, with her groin hard against his thighs and her knees pressed up to his buttocks. Her toes curled again, and she whispered several things, with her face quite squashed by the muscles of his chest and her breath tickling his nipples. Outside there was sudden thunder and the broken window shutters rattled noisily again in the wind. Andrew could not actually hear a word she said, but it no longer seemed to matter.

It was, eventually, a different bed and a different chamber.

No dust trails drifted from the ceiling beams, no frayed threads hung from the silken bed curtains and no tapestry had faded in the sunbeams. The pillows were feather-soft and the counterpane was silver damask, lined and trimmed in squirrel. The shutters did not rattle and no slats were missing. The floorboards were polished, the Turkey rugs were thick, and the walls were heavy with embroidered arras. But there was no fire built across the great hearth, for a blazing summer warmed each corner, and two tall candles graced their sconces. It was a grand chamber in a grand house, and it had recently been refurbished to its owners’ design.