“I should not do this,” he said, “I should not for your sake, and yet I have no strength to turn away.”
She took his hand and led him up the stairs to her bedroom. He waited while she closed the door behind them to keep out the cold. Then his arm went around her waist, and while he kissed her neck, his fingers found the buttons on the front of her dress and one by one he loosened them. He pulled the dress from her shoulders down to her waist. Her skin seemed to melt in the firelight.
“No shift,” he said appreciatively, and covered one breast with his right hand.
“I couldn’t find any,” she said.
He laughed then, the same vibrant laugh she had heard the day of her interrogation in the Bishop’s Palace.
“Laugh if you will.” She pressed against him and he held her close. “I wanted to dress like a woman for you. Like a lady. Now you shall think I am a wanton. I know the ladies here are more modest than where I am from. And you find me without a shift and”—she pressed harder against his groin—“wanting you desperately.”
He began to kiss a bare breast. “Indeed you are bold. In every way.”
“Is that bad or good?”
“It is very, very good!” His hands moved over her body. “You look me in the eye. You speak out, and sometimes out of turn.”
“I don’t speak out of turn! I simply say what’s on my mind. Why shouldn’t I?”
He kissed her neck. “I have been dreaming of a woman like you.”
“How can you be sure what sort of woman I am?”
“I have observed you, as you know, and I consider myself a good judge of women.”
“Are you indeed?”
“I am. I watched you fight for Mary, and I thought if I were so fortunate that you loved me, you might stand by me the same way.”
“I would fight for you,” she agreed.
“Your Uncle John thinks so. And how do you suppose I came by my little portrait of you?”
“Uncle John.”
“Oh, no!” he said with an air of triumph. “I have been to your time and your house and met your Aunt Lavinia.”
This surprised her so much she stepped away from him. And the sudden movement caused her gown, too large for her, to slip over her hips and fall to the floor.
“Oh,” she said, and stood naked before him, unsure of what to do.
Noah retreated to a chair and sat down, a broad smile on his face. “Let me watch you a moment,” he said. He began to pull off his boots, never taking his eyes off her.
She folded her arms self-consciously across her breasts and ducked her head, which increased his amusement. “Why don’t you turn around?” he suggested.
She did so, stealing a look back over her shoulder at him. Then her embarrassment overwhelmed her and she did the only thing she could think to do to extricate herself. She went to him and pulled him close to press his head against her belly. He dropped the boot he was holding and nuzzled her ribs with the tip of his nose, teased a nipple with his tongue.
Then she gasped and pulled away, backed up toward the bed, and held on to one of the bedposts.
“What?” he asked.
“I have just thought of something.” She took a deep breath. “Those awful things you said in your sermon. About women. Did you mean them?”
“My sermon? Of all things—”
“You said women were weak and silly. Did you mean it?”
He leaned back, and a look she had seen before crossed his face, a look she had once interpreted as an arrogant smirk at her expense. Only now she saw it for what it truly was, amusement mixed with admiration, and charged with the sheer vitality of Noah Fallam.
“Do you know the teachings of the Quakers?” he asked. “They hold with the equality of men and women before God, and that is one reason many consider them so scandalous. They even place women in positions of authority. Where women are concerned, I am of that persuasion.”
“Oh,” Lydde said in a small voice.
He stood up. “Indeed, there are weak and silly women in the world. But if that was what I wanted, I would not do what I am about to do.”
With that, he pulled his shirt over his head and tossed it in a corner. The Celtic cross glittered in the firelight. He went to her and pulled her close with one hand, while with the other he unbuttoned his breeches. Together they looked down at an erection Lydde judged more than pleasingly adequate. She touched him with the tips of two fingers.
“At home we have several names for it,” she said. “What do you call it here?”
“A cock,” he said, studying her face.
“You have a lovely cock,” she said. She held it like a quivering bird in the warm palm of her hand, then began to stroke him.
He closed his eyes and leaned against her. His hand moved from her breasts to between her thighs. Her head went back.
“Now,” she said urgently, “please, now.”
He pushed her back on the bed, kicking his breeches away with one motion, and climbed atop her. She gasped when he entered her, then eagerly answered his thrusts. His left arm supported her shoulders, but he pressed his right hand hard against her groin and kept it in place as they rocked so she thought she would go mad with pleasure. She cried his name over and over, and when she came he moaned in turn as she gripped him harder. Then he wrapped his right arm around her thighs and pushed himself even deeper into her. They thrashed and rocked, he pounding her so that the creaking of the rope bed mingled with their moans. When he gave a final cry, he collapsed so completely she thought she had killed him.
He lay without moving, his face turned away from her and his hair a wild tangle on the pillow. The beating of his heart reassured her. After a time he raised his head and pressed his face against her damp neck, the bristles on his chin scratching her soft skin.
“Stay inside me a little longer,” she whispered.
He kissed her cheek for answer and lay still, his breathing slower and more even.
“Am I crushing you?” he asked.
“Yes. And it’s wonderful.”
He laughed and so did she, and their sudden movement caused him to slip out of her, leaving a wet trail along the inside of her thigh. She sighed and he rolled off her, pulled her close. They were quiet for a time, hands exploring, pausing now and then for a gentle kiss. Amazing, Lydde thought, everything works the same way it does in the future. Then she started to laugh.
“What?” he said.
“This is so odd,” she said. “It is so very, very odd. I’m not even born yet. My great-great-great-great-grandmother isn’t even born yet. And here you have made love to me.”
“While in your time,” he said, “I will have made old bones.”
She stopped laughing and pulled him closer, squeezing her eyes tightly shut against the image of the tumbled skeleton. No, it was not the same as in the future, not the same as anything she had ever felt before. His back was soft and warm and she caressed it with her palms and fingertips, burrowed her nose into the flesh of his neck and felt the pulse of his lifeblood.
“You must not ever be dead,” she said fiercely. “You must not ever be.”
He placed his hand on her forehead. “You will keep me alive,” he said.
Then his stomach rumbled loudly.
“Are you hungry?” she asked.
“Starving,” he admitted.
“I almost forgot. There’s supper in the kitchen.”
They left the bed’s warmth and pulled on clothes, Lydde wrapping herself in the rose silk gown instead of the dress. They ran down the stairs, laughing like a pair of children. Bounder heard the commotion and scratched to be let in, jumped up to each in turn to have her head patted. The kitchen was too cold for lingering, so Noah found a knife and a pitcher of ale, while Lydde took a cold roast chicken, bread, and cheese from the larder. Back in the study, they set the food on the floor. Noah grabbed a pillow from a bench and tossed it in front of the hearth, then sank down onto the fur rug, drawing Lydde to his side.<
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He cut a drumstick from the chicken and handed it to Lydde. They sat cross-legged and ate, tearing the chicken with their fingers and teeth and taking turns sucking the grease from each other’s fingers. The bird was soon picked clean and they turned their attention to Mother Bunch’s good black bread and cheddar.
“I doubt I have ever enjoyed food more,” Noah said as he popped a yellow sliver of cheese into his mouth. He put his arm around Lydde and pulled her close, fed her a piece of cheese. She breathed in the good earthy smell of him as she chewed. Sated at last, they sank back onto the pillow, legs entwined. Noah pushed Lydde onto her back, pulled open her robe, and watched the firelight play across her skin.
“Now we must talk,” he said.
She felt a cold chill pass over her despite the fire’s heat. In her experience that line would be followed by a neat speech about not taking things too seriously, followed by her lover’s quick exit. She couldn’t tell Noah that, afraid to mention she had been with other men, had been deserted by other men. His next words caused her to sit up in alarm.
“I can’t make love to you again unless you promise me something,” he said.
“You—” She was unable to look at him. “You don’t want a relationship?”
“A relationship? What’s that?” He sat up. “Lydde, I want to marry you. I must marry you or I cannot make love to you.”
“Marry me!” She felt dizzy. “That’s an awfully big step. My God, I’ve spent my life running from marriage.”
“That’s because you hadn’t met me,” he said.
A glance confirmed that he was not teasing her.
“You’re asking me to forsake my own time and be with you,” she said.
“I am asking you to be with me,” he said, “for as long as you decide to stay in this time. Though there are risks you must consider. If I am in trouble, we might both decide it best for you to go. But I think”—here he pulled her back to the pillow, ran one hand over her body—“you want to live life as fully as you can while you possess it. I know I do. And that means joining our lives one to another. It could be a grand adventure. What do you say?”
“But you can’t make love to me again unless I marry you?”
“No. I spoke at length with your Aunt Lavinia. She told me much about you and about the way things are in your time.”
Gee, thanks, Aunt Lavinia, she thought, and closed her eyes. So he would know about her failed relationships anyway.
“Lydde, I know that in your time people make love without being married and think nothing of it. But I am a man of my time. And although I am an admitted fraud as a lieutenant major-general, I hope I remain a true pastor. In this time, if a man and woman make love and are not betrothed or married, we call it fornication. I have committed that sin before, I must confess, but I would not want to commit it with you. I don’t want that between us. So I should not make love to you again unless you agree to marry me.”
“You made love to me just now without us being betrothed or married.”
It was Noah’s turn to look embarrassed. “Yes,” he said. “I meant only to visit with you tonight. Well, I do not regret any of this, far from it. But I believe it is a sin, though sins of loving pale before others, I hope. I shall have to go down on my knees and ask forgiveness for it. Unless, that is, you agree to marry me.”
“I don’t want you to marry me just because you don’t want to sin,” she said.
He stared at her. “Do you really think that is why I want to marry you?”
“No,” she admitted, and felt ashamed. Damned twenty-first-century cynicism. She touched his cheek. “No. Forgive me.”
“You must trust me,” he said.
“I want to trust you,” she said. “But I don’t know you yet, only the parts you’ve been playing.” She took a deep breath as though preparing to plunge into deep water. “But I will tell you this. Whatever impression you may have gotten about women in my time, I don’t take lightly what just passed between us. I would never have done that unless I loved you, or at least loved who I think you are.”
He leaned over to kiss her and the cross on its chain slipped from beneath his shirt and lodged between her breasts. She gasped as the image came again of the skeleton in the cave, the chain tangled in its rib cage.
“I’m sorry,” he said, and started to lift the chain over his head, but she stopped him.
“No,” she said, “leave it on. The moment I saw it was the moment I knew our lives were entwined.”
He smiled. “Then it is my most precious possession.”
He lay back on the pillow. “I must go soon,” he said, “else I shall not be able to resist loving you again, and I am thinking it best if you do not give me an answer tonight. It is not fair to expect it as we are now. You should give your answer in the clear light of day, without the influence of my caresses. And you’re quite right, you must know more of me before you decide. What are your plans tomorrow?”
“I have none. Mother Bunch and Mary won’t be back until Monday and Uncle John will return tomorrow night.”
“We could ride out to Coombe Manor tomorrow. That is my ancestral home. Would you ride with me? You can see where I come from and I can tell you about my life. Then you can give me your answer.”
As he was gathering up his coat and hat, Noah said, “One thing I’m curious about. You must have been trying to guess who the Raven might be. Who had you thought?”
“Jacob Woodcock,” she said.
Noah gave a yelp of laughter.
As he was about to go out the door, she called him back. “Noah. I’m glad it turned out to be you.”
He smiled for answer and held her close. “You,” he said, “are becoming very precious to me. And you are a difficult woman to leave. But I must.”
He went out, closing the door behind him.
Back in her room, she huddled beneath her comforter in the now-cold bed, trying to pick up his scent in the bedclothes, listening to the last crackling of the fire. This was what life would be like without him. She imagined Noah moving alone in the dark along the path that followed the River Pye to the Bishop’s Palace. She imagined four centuries separating them. Then she could not imagine it.
Chapter 16
Coombe Manor
THE NEXT MORNING was cold with a bright blue sky. Lydde dressed in her boy’s clothes and warm coat, then pulled on a wide-brimmed hat and saddled Uncle John’s horse Lady. The Saturday market was stirring behind the jail in Priory Park, though it had grown smaller as the year waned. No longer did lines of farmers’ carts piled with produce wait to unload their goods. Butter and milk were still available, and rounds of yellow cheese, but most of the market was given over to herds of geese and pigs, squawking and squealing through piles of offal while ragged dogs nipped at their heels. The cold air had chapped the cheeks of men and women as ruddy as any painting by Brueghel, and they blew on their hands and beat their arms across their chests to keep warm. They were the same folk, Lydde considered, who had yesterday viewed a hanging as sport, though she remembered the undercurrent of protest when Noah had denounced the condemned man. Perhaps it had not been a game for them at all but a way of being alive while facing their own fearful deaths. Some men gossiped with their neighbors while they watched another neighbor killed. Noah Fallam hanged a man and then sought out a woman’s bed.
Lady kept her head as Lydde guided her into North Gate Street and on through North Gate. Noah was waiting on horseback and with him was Constable Baxter.
“See here, Constable,” Noah said at her approach. “Is this not a promising lad?”
“Indeed,” Baxter agreed. “The good doctor has done wonders for the boy. He has less and less of that frightened look about him.”
“And I shall do more,” Noah said. “For I propose to take this boy under my wing and educate him as I did Simon Cleyes. What do you think of that, Lewis?”
Lydde bowed her head, hoping the brim of her hat hid her face. “As you will, sir,”
she said.
“So, Lewis, will you live at the Bishop’s Palace?” Constable Baxter said kindly.
“As Pastor Fallam wishes,” she answered, and shot Noah a glance that said, Don’t push it. His dark eyes were gleaming with mischief.
“I am taking the lad with me to Coombe Manor today,” he told Baxter. “I want him to see what a rich estate may be guaranteed to the elect. And as I have observed Lewis, I believe he may be indeed one of us. For not many may be so directly attacked by the minions of Satan and yet escape unscathed.”
“A fortunate lad,” Constable Baxter agreed, and waved them on their way with a sweep of his hat.
They went on, their horses at a walk, until clear of the town, before Lydde dared steal a glance at Noah.
“What was that all about?” she said.
“I’ve thought of a way for us to marry. I’ll pretend to take over your guardianship from John Soane. I’ll be your benefactor, as I was to Simon. That way you can live at the Bishop’s Palace with me.”
“If I agree to marry you.”
He nodded and said nothing, but the expression on his face told her he had little doubt of her answer. She felt a twinge of irritation. It seemed the self-regard she’d seen in Noah Fallam before was not part of his disguise.
“So,” she said, more sharply than she meant, “do you believe that nonsense about the elect?”
“No. I used to.” The tone of her voice had caused him to glance at her. “Are you aware,” he said, “that women here are supposed to wait to be spoken to?”
“What! If you think—”
He raised a hand. “Put down your back, my lady cat. I only want to point out how much I tolerate in you, so that you might try to be equally patient with me.”
She looked away.
“Now,” he said. “Have I done something to anger you?”
“No. It’s just that in the cold light of day, last night seems a bit of a dream and this place seems too real.”
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