by Barbara Kyle
He did not have to. Honor knew, as everyone knew, the regimen that the Church inflicted on a suicide’s corpse. It was foul with unabsolved sin, the Church taught, and its ghost would never rest unless a stake was driven through its heart. That was the law.
Honor bowed her head. If she had lacked feelings before for Ellen Thornleigh, she made up for it now with a swell of pity. But, she told herself, what was done was done. Her real sympathy was with the living.
She leaned close to Thornleigh and lay her arm across his shoulders. “Richard,” she murmured.
He looked at her hand on his shoulder. He rested his cheek against it and closed his eyes. His eyelids trembled. Honor sensed a battle going on inside him. A battle not to weep? It tugged forth her pity again, but with tenfold the tenderness she felt for the sad, dead woman. She stroked his hair, his cheek. She said his name quietly, over and over.
He kissed her hand. He turned his face to hers. His pain moved her more than she could say. She nudged closer and brushed her lips over his, softly. She had meant only to give comfort, but the touch of him immediately kindled her. She craved more. She pressed her lips on his.
His response was instant. His hand cupped the back of her head, holding her to him. He kissed her again, harder, longer. She felt his need.
She pulled free only long enough to stand and move in front of him, between his legs. He looked up at her, his breathing becoming ragged. She bent and kissed the warm skin at his throat. Her fingers pulled at the lacings of his shirt, opening it so that her mouth could move down to his chest. He groaned. His arms went around her waist and he pulled her to him, making her arch her back. He pressed his face against her breasts.
She wanted more. She slid down against him and knelt between his legs. She kissed his forehead, his cheek—her mouth burned by the rough stubble—his mouth. He held her shoulders tightly, and his kisses covered her throat, then the exposed skin of her breasts.
“Richard,” she breathed. “Marry me.”
He stopped. He looked bewildered. “What?”
“There’s nothing to keep us apart now,” she said eagerly.
He blinked at her as if trying to comprehend. His breathing was still uneven. “But—”
“You want me, don’t you?”
“God, yes.”
“Well, now we can be together. Marry me.”
He shook his head as if to clear it. He looked at her, his expression eloquent with desire and uncertainty in equal parts. “My wife’s been dead only two days, and you—”
“That’s right,” she broke in. “Your wife is dead. And I’m alive.”
His hands lay motionless on her hips. “Honor, you don’t understand what’s happened here. I—”
“Of course I do, and I’m sorry. It’s tragic. But it’s done. It can’t be changed.” She was reaching for him again, longing for him. “And I can’t change how I feel for you.”
His arms stiffened, holding her at arms’ length. “No. You don’t see it,” he said sternly. “I killed her. As surely as if I’d tightened the noose. I killed her.”
“That’s nonsense, Richard. She was unstable. Sam, told me. She was that way when you married her, he said. It had nothing to do with you.”
“It had everything to do with me. I was never home. Couldn’t stand being here. Her endless melancholia. I left her alone. All the time. And then, when she needed me most—”
“You can’t blame yourself. There was nothing you could do for her.”
He shook his head. “Maybe there was.” He stared again into the fire as if facing an inquisitor there. “Children. She loved babies. Maybe if I’d…” He paused.
“She had Adam,” Honor offered weakly.
But Thornleigh was dealing now only with the interrogator within the glowing coals. “We had a baby daughter. Ellen…neglected her. The baby…died.”
“I know, Richard. Sam told me. Don’t torture yourself.”
“After that,” he went on bleakly, “I wouldn’t…be a husband to Ellen. I couldn’t trust her, you see? I’d think of her abandoning another child, so I didn’t…I wouldn’t…take her to bed.”
Honor said nothing. When he looked back into her eyes, she was afraid he could read the surprise there. She did not want to show it, did not want to hurt him more than he already had been hurt. But she saw that it was too late.
With a groan of humiliation he twisted away from her. He got up and walked quickly to the door. He half turned to her, avoiding her eyes. “I’m needed at Aylsham for the shearing. Stay if you want.”
He left the hall. Within moments she heard his horse’s hooves clatter out of the courtyard.
“Careful, Master Thornleigh,” a shearer called. “That ewe can nip right smart.”
Thornleigh’s mind had been straying. He bent again to apply the shears to the ewe’s leg. Already, he was up to his knees in fleece. He finished the job, let the ewe go, and straightened. He wiped the sweat from his face with his sleeve, and looked around. The shed, hot and dusty, was full of bleating sheep and grunting shearers, the men’s blades flying over the animals’ backs.
The shearers were an itinerant band; once they’d got through Thornleigh’s flock here at Aylsham they’d set out for his neighbor’s pens. They were skilled laborers, and he knew they did not need his help; he could not match the speed of even the least experienced of them. But he had thrown himself into the work to keep his mind occupied. Ellen’s awful death he had accepted. He hoped her spirit might now find peace. But for the two days he’d been here he’d been able to think of nothing but Honor.
He stepped out of the shed, rubbing at a knot in the muscles of his back. A child ran to him with a foaming tankard from her mother’s nearby table, a makeshift alehouse set up for the shearers. Thornleigh gave the child a penny for the ale and quickly quaffed it down.
Wiping the foam from his lip, he walked across the dusty path to a field and stopped to watch the activity. This was his tenting yard. A half-dozen men and women were busy spreading wide swaths of cloth, wet from the fuller’s, over two twenty-foot wooden frames. The broadcloth, stretched on tenterhooks across these frames, would be left in the sun to dry.
Thornleigh was pleased with the success of setting up the tenting yard next to his shearing shed. With them close together, and with his new fulling mill operating on the stream nearby—he could faintly hear the men’s mallets pummeling the cloth there—he’d been able to reduce the time he used to spend riding the shire to supervise the various craftsmen with whom he dealt.
Still, he thought ruefully as he stretched his back to ease the stubborn muscle knot, the amount of work for him in overseeing the enterprise seemed to end up the same, if not more. Every important decision remained his.
He shook his head at the conundrum: there wasn’t enough work to keep his mind off Honor, but too much to let him get away and ride back to her. He ached to see her.
What an idiot he’d been. What a blinkered, self-wallowing, fog-brained fool. He’d been groping in the darkness of self-blame for so long, had thought of himself as cold-blooded for so long, that when the woman whose love he wanted most in the world had knelt and offered herself to him—offered him a chance at genuine happiness—what had he done? Refused her. Shrank away like some addle-brained wretch let out after years in prison and frightened by the sunlight. Refused her. Fool!
But her—she was magnificent. Bold and obstinate and generous. Unbending in her purposes. Yielding in his arms. God in heaven, he loved the woman.
Restless, thinking of her, he watched the tenting. All was going smoothly here. And the fulling mill was operating trouble-free. And the shearers certainly didn’t need his clumsy pair of hands. Could he leave now? Go to her? Was there any point? Would she still be there? Would she understand that he was ready to put his many failures with Ellen behind him, and be happy?
“Master Thornleigh!” a man’s voice called from the office near the shearing shed. “Can you come, sir? There’s a Yarmo
uth waggoner in confusion about which bales of worsted he’s to take. And the dyer’s asking payment for his woad.”
Thornleigh closed his eyes, hoping to savor in his mind, for one last moment, the image of Honor smiling up at him. Did he have any right on God’s green earth to expect that she’d still care? No. In his mind she was sadly turning from him. He had missed his chance. With a feeling of loss more hollow than he had ever known, he let her slip away.
He walked back to work.
In the stable, Honor stood stroking her mare’s nose, lost in thought as the groom finished buckling the saddle.
“All set, mistress,” the lad said shyly.
Honor looked up from her reverie. “I’ll walk her out myself, Harry. Thank you. Now, off with you to the hall. They won’t wait dinner for you, you know.” She gave him a coin.
“Thank you, mistress!” he said with a grin. “Safe journey.” He touched his cap to her and hurried away.
Honor took the bridle and led the mare out through the open stable doors. She walked slowly. She was in no hurry to leave Great Ashwold. She had come to like the manor very much. But she had stretched out her time here as long as she reasonably could. Three days of walking the grounds, talking to the tenants, introducing herself to Thornleigh’s sister, Joan, and her new husband, Giles, at their house in the village, exploring on horseback the summer countryside, visiting the steward’s lodging to discuss the wool trade—just as if she truly were Thornleigh’s business partner. Or wife. Waiting. Hoping he would come back. But he had not come back. Now, her excuses to tarry had run out. She must leave.
The mare’s hooves clacked on the courtyard cobbles. It was noon, hot and still. Honor passed a maid on her way to join the household at dinner, though the girl was ambling, apparently in no hurry to get there. Harry, the groom, had stopped near the front door of the house. Red-faced, he went to the maid and they fell into whispered conversation. Honor smiled. So that was why the girl was in no hurry to rush inside. Her horse moved on lazily toward the open main gate. When it began to wander toward some tufts of sweet grass growing by the fleece shed, Honor allowed it to go there, to stop, and nibble. She stroked its neck and thought of Thornleigh.
Why had she acted like such a fool? Barging in on his sorrow. Demanding a return of the love that had overpowered her. She blushed to recall her impetuous behavior. Three days here had cooled her brain, at least, if not her heart. Her feelings for him had not changed. But she saw that her declaration had been wretchedly ill-timed. He had been shocked. And who could blame him? What a selfish creature she had been. What a brazen performance. What a fool.
She sighed and rested her forehead on the horse’s warm, smooth neck. And she wondered again, as she had for the past three days, where she would go. To London, of course. But which of her limited options there was preferable? Which would allow the most scope to carry on her work? For nothing, nothing in the world, would keep her from fighting Sir Thomas. The Marchioness of Exeter would be glad to see her, and have her stay. But Honor’s heart sank at the thought of the marchioness and her idle, gabbling, heartless friends. What a barren life. Besides, might not the work be jeopardized there? Could she safely operate from such a household, so open to public scrutiny? But if not to the Marchioness’s, where? Go to the wizened old Yorkshire baron at his townhouse? Accept his proposal of marriage? The horse’s neck shuddered to shift a fly, and Honor had to smile—a shudder was exactly her own response to any thought of the doddering old baron.
Beyond the barrier of horseflesh she heard a cart horse clatter through the gate. For the last two days carts had been arriving from Aylsham, Thornleigh’s other manor, bringing sacks of the overflow of the fleece here for storage. Honor sighed. Aylsham, where Thornleigh was. London, where she must go. She straightened, resolved to wish away no more of this fine afternoon. The marchioness it would be. And now, she and her mare could dawdle no longer.
She reached down to the mare’s cheek to tug the bridle. Munching grass, the horse stubbornly refused to budge. “Come on, old thing,” Honor coaxed. “Time for us to go.”
The clack of hooves on cobbles came nearer. Honor looked around. It was Thornleigh on horseback. He alone had come through the gate.
Their eyes met. He seemed surprised. “You’re still here,” he said.
Honor looked down, her cheeks on fire. He could tell she had stayed for him…it was so clear on his face. He thought her wanton. She should have left hours ago, days ago—fool!
Thornleigh dismounted. Honor looked up. He was holding the reins distractedly, looking at her, and his horse made the most of the loose tether, dropping its head to join Honor’s mare at nibbling the grass.
Honor swallowed. “I was just leaving.”
“I see.”
“I stayed…to see Adam,” she said idiotically. “He seems very happy at your sister’s.”
“You met Joan, then.”
“Yes.”
He nodded, his thoughts obviously elsewhere, though he was watching her intently. “Good.”
She dragged her eyes from the sun-coppered skin at his throat where he had loosened his doublet and shirt in the heat. “Well…I’d best be going.” She bent to reach for the bridle.
“Honor, I know I have no right, but…” He did not finish the thought.
She looked up. His face was clouded with uncertainty. “No right?” she asked quietly. At her heart, hope was clamoring to be let in.
He took a deep breath. “To ask you to stay. The other day, when you came…” Again, he stopped himself. He frowned and looked down. “God, I was a blockhead to leave you.”
Honor felt happiness flood her. “But you’ve…come back.”
He looked up quickly. Seeing her smile, he let out an astonished breath. He caught her hand. “Honor—” Suddenly, he was aware of the groom and the maid watching them from the house doorway. “Can’t talk out here,” he muttered. He glanced at the fleece shed beside the horses. Its door stood open. “Come,” he said, pulling her.
The shed was packed with huge, stuffed sacks of fleece—some stacked almost to the roof, some piled on either side of the door to form soft pillars, some mounded up around the small window like a pillowy casement. Honor moved to the center of the small available space. Thornleigh closed the door. They were alone.
She turned. He came to her. Looking into her eyes, he still seemed hesitant, as though not sure he had interpreted her smile outside aright. But Honor was sure. She could barely keep herself from flinging her arms around his neck. She touched his lips with her fingertips. She could not stop her fingers from caressing his cheek, and then again his mouth. Abruptly, he took hold of her shoulders. There was amazement on his face. “My God, you really are mine, aren’t you?”
She smiled. “I’ve been yours since the first time you held me—in the Cardinal’s garden, in the snow.”
Outside, a farmer on a donkey clomped by the window and the man peered in as he passed. Instinctively, both Honor and Thornleigh ducked and went down on their knees. They were facing each other, their bodies just inches apart. He had kept hold of her shoulders as though to pull her down from the farmer’s curious eyes, and now his grip on her tightened. All his former hesitancy had vanished. The look in his eyes was pure desire.
He reached for the band that held back her loose hair, lifted it and dropped it on the floor. He took her face between his hands and kissed her. He brought his body closer to hers. Trembling, she held onto his arms, reveling in his tautness, his unmistakable strength. Still kissing her he unfastened the front lacing of her bodice and spread it to reveal the loose fabric of her chemise. His mouth traveled down to her throat. She felt her tumbled hair catch at his lips. His breathing had become rough. Kissing her neck again and again he undid the chemise tie between her breasts and started to tug the fabric down. Honor froze. She pulled back. Suddenly, she was the one who was hesitant, unsure. She had never lain with a man. The dark memory of Hugh Tyrell’s violent penetration brought a pa
ng of confusion. “I’ve…I’ve never…” she stammered.
He stopped. He looked into her eyes, his breathing still ragged. But a small smile of understanding crept to his lips, and with both hands he gently smoothed back her hair from her forehead in a gesture of pure tenderness. It quite disarmed her. She smiled too.
Suddenly he let go of her. He pulled his dagger from its sheath. He leaned sideways toward a bulging, ram-sized sack of fleece and plunged the blade in and wrenched it down, ripping open the sack. Fleece tumbled out, spilling around their legs in a pillowy snowdrift that reached halfway to their hips. Honor laughed in delight. Thornleigh grinned. His arms went around her and he pulled her over with him into the downy bed.
On her back she let herself sink into the fleece’s soft embrace as it frothed over her shoulders. Lying beside her, Thornleigh leaned over and kissed her gently. His hand slipped into the froth and slowly spread open her chemise. His kiss became insistent. His palm smoothed over her naked breasts. Wanting him, her mouth opened under his. She fumbled with his doublet, wanting to feel his skin. He wrestled out of the doublet and wrenched off his shirt, then pressed his body against hers. She felt his warmth, his hardness, his need. His mouth went to her breast, his tongue to her nipple. She could barely catch her breath as he slid her skirt up, beneath the fleece. His hand molded up her thigh, and as his fingers touched the warm, wet cleft she gasped at the startling pulses of heat his touch ignited inside her. He groaned and wrenched aside his codpiece and pushed her legs apart. He hesitated. She sensed he was afraid of hurting her. She pulled him on top of her and held him tightly. “Yes,” she breathed. He entered her, and when she moaned with pleasure he plunged. Again and again. The pulses of heat became waves. She was a wave, cresting in ecstasy. He exploded inside her. Her back arched. She was the wave…she was the heat…she was him…
She lay with her head on his chest, loving the way the rise and fall of his chest matched her own recovering breaths. She thought: From this moment forward, I am changed. The world is changed.