Philippa Gregory - Meridon

He kissed my hand, and then, at his mother’s nod, drew me closer and kissed my cheek gently. His touch was cool, my cheek was hot.

‘Why the hurry?’ I asked.

He grinned roguishly. ‘Come now,’ he said. ‘You know that yourself. I was all out of credit at the start of this week and now they are falling over themselves to lend to me.’ He beamed. ‘And the cream of the jest is that I don’t need the money now!’

I kept the false smile pinned on my face and I nodded as if he were telling me excellent news.

‘I’m finished with gaming anyway,’ he said. ‘We’ll marry as soon as the banns are called – in a fortnight – and then we’ll go down to the country and live like fat old squires. As you wish, Sarah. Just as you wish.’

If half a dozen curious people had not been watching us I think I would have wept. I was so tired from my sleepless night and my throat was so tight. And the memory of Will riding from me in a rage, riding back to Becky and that safe little cottage made my head throb.

‘Good,’ I said. I would never live in a cottage with Will Tyacke. I would never love him as his Becky did. I would never lie in his arms at night. But I had learned how to love a man and some of that love I could give to Perry. We were young, we would find many good things to do together. And if we could farm the land well, and make Wideacre and Havering good places to live and work, we would have done something more than any squires or lords before us had ever done.

‘Don’t play piquet,’ I said.

Perry shook his head. ‘Not a card,’ he replied. ‘You look tired, Sarah, and you are all hot. Why don’t I take you home?’

I shook my head. ‘I can’t,’ I said. ‘Your mama…’

Perry smiled at me. ‘I am your engaged husband-to-be,’ he said with a joking little play at dignity. ‘I think you should come home and rest. You are to be out tonight, are you not? And you hardly slept at all last night! Come on. I shall tell Mama that you must rest.’

I was about to tell him ‘no’ but the truth indeed was that I was tired, and I longed to be away from that bright room with the tinkling chandelier above the hard laughing faces. I thought I would see Perry try his paces. It was the first time I had ever seen him go against his mama’s wishes. I wanted to see if he could do it.

He walked up to the table and leaned over her shoulder. Lady Clara’s look was impatient but the dowagers who were playing cards with her all leaned forward to hear the exchange between her and her son and I saw her glacial social smile smooth away her irritation. She nodded sweetly enough, and then she waved her hand to me. Perry threaded his way back towards me and offered me his arm with a cheeky grin.

‘Tally ho!’ he said. ‘We’re away!’

I smiled back at him though my eyelids felt heavy. ‘You stood up to your mama,’ I said.

Perry smoothed both lapels with a braggart’s gesture. ‘I’m the fiancé of one of the richest women in London!’ he said with a flourish. ‘I’d like to see anyone get in my way.’

I laughed at that, despite my throbbing head. And I took his arm and we went to bid our farewells to the princess. Sir Richard was bending over her chair as we came up and he smiled at me under his arched eyebrows.

‘Rushing off to snatch a few moments together alone?’ he asked acidly.

The princess laughed and tapped him over the knuckles with her fan. Her jowls wobbled, her little eyes sparkled. ‘Now, Sir Richard!’ she said in her deep fruity voice. ‘Don’t tease the young people. Shall I see you at Court tomorrow night my dear?’ she asked me.

I curtseyed to what I thought was the right depth. ‘No, your highness,’ I said. ‘We don’t go. I am going at the end of this month.’

‘As the new Lady Havering!’ Sir Richard said. ‘How ravishing you will look in the Havering diamonds!’

My stomach lurched as guiltily as if it had been me who had taken them and my face fell, but Perry let us down altogether. He exploded into giggles and had to whip out his monogrammed handkerchief and turn it into a cough. We shuffled away from the princess in disarray and got ourselves out of the door to where we could collapse in the hall out of earshot.

‘How did he know?’ I demanded.

Perry leaned against the blue silk-lined wall until he could catch his breath. ‘Oh, Lord knows!’ he said carelessly. ‘It’s the sort of thing that gets around. Just as well I got them back though, Sarah!’

‘Just as well,’ I said faintly.

Our coach was ready at the door and Perry helped me in. I dug my hands deep inside my fur muff and lifted it up to my face to sniff the warm smell of the pelt.

‘Have a nip of this,’ Perry offered, pulling his hip-flask out of his pocket.

I sipped it cautiously. It hit the back of my throat and burned like fire.

‘What is it?’ I said, my eyes watering.

‘Hollands gin and brandy,’ Perry said, swigging at the flask. ‘All the rage. We call it Dutch and French. Takes your head off, don’t it?’

‘Yes,’ I said.

The carriage swayed forward, the wheels sliding without gripping on the ice between the cobbles.

I nodded and laid my head back against the cushions of the coach. I shut my eyes and dozed. When the carriage pulled up I had to lean on Perry’s arm to get up the stairs into the house and then Sewell, my maid, was waiting to help me change into an afternoon gown.

‘I’m not driving,’ I said. My throat had tightened even more and I was hoarse.

She looked at me. ‘You look unwell, Miss Sarah,’ she said. ‘Shall I fetch you a posset? Should you like a rest?’

I paused for a moment, looking at the bed with the clean white sheets. The girl I had been could walk all day behind a wagon and then ride horses for a living all evening. Now I was tired in my body and weary deep into my very soul.

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Undo the buttons at the back here, and I’ll take a nap, I’m not promised anywhere until this evening.’

I climbed between the cool sheets and sat up and sipped the posset she brought me. I slept at once but jerked awake when she came to stoke my fire.

‘It’s five o’clock, Miss Sarah,’ she said. ‘Her ladyship has come in and changed and gone out again. She said you and Lord Peregrine could follow her in the second carriage. I told her you were lying down.’

I nodded. I pushed back the sheets but they seemed heavy, my arms were weak. I put my feet down to the floorboards and the very wood seemed to sway beneath me.

‘I have a fever, Sewell,’ I said stupidly. ‘I’m not well enough to go. Ask Lord Peregrine to take my apologies. I shall stay in bed tonight and be well tomorrow.’

My eyelids were hot. I fell back against the pillows.

‘Will you dine up here?’ she asked indifferently.

‘No,’ I said. Poor little hungry wretch that I had been. I felt now that I never wanted to eat again. ‘No. Bring me some lemonade and then leave me to sleep please.’

I heard her rattle the fire irons in the grate and then I heard the floorboard creak as she crossed the room for the door. I dimly heard her voice speaking to Perry and then the sound came and went in my ears like the sound of the sea, like the sounds of the waves that last day at Selsey.

Then I fell asleep again and I dreamed that I was not in London at all. It was a dream of the fever all fractured and short with strange frightening ideas lost in the darkness as I struggled awake and was rid of them, then they came back when I was drowsy again. I thought I was back in the wagon and I was calling and calling for her to bring me a mug of water. My throat was parched and I was so afraid it was the typhus and I was going to die. In the dream I could see her humped back and hear my thin child’s voice begging her to wake and fetch me a mug. I was disturbed because I was feverish. I did not know myself. In the fever dream I thought that I was angry that she had not wakened for me, and I called out to her: ‘I’ve waked for you often enough, you lazy slut!’ And I thought of all the times I had waked for her and served her, and how she had repaid me with a smile and perhaps a touch, but often with nothing at all. And, though it was like the tines of a rake over my heart, I thought that there were many and many times when she had taken much from me and given nothing in return. That she was a selfish young silly tart, and if she had listened to me she would not have gone up the ladder that day. If she had listened to me she would not have tried to trap a lad who was not fit to wed. If she had had anything in her head but vanity and wind she would have seen that she was sailing gaily down the wrong road, the worst road of all. And if she had listened she would not be dead now, and I would not be ill now, ill and lonely and so out of joint with myself that I was all wrong.