This Towering Passion

by Valerie Sherwood

  Lenore’s violet eyes widened. “I shall charge him with it!” she cried.

  Geoffrey took her by the shoulders. His voice was very stern. “We live here by Gilbert’s sufferance, Lenore— Gilbert’s and others like him. Oxford is a town full of turncoats, men of great words and little deeds. Gilbert is friendly with both sides, and a word from him can bring us to ruin.”

  “But he is your cousin and loyal to the King!” protested Lenore.

  “True he is my cousin, but loyal he has never been— to anyone. There was a maid at Lapham—”

  She turned unsteadily away. “I do not want to hear.”

  But now she felt uneasy about Gilbert, whose gaze in her direction had been much too hot, and who knew along with Ned that she was not truly Geoffrey’s wife. It would take getting used to, being in Oxford.

  The next day Lally called.

  She was not what Lenore had expected.

  Lally was very tall, reed slender, with a face that could not be called beautiful, though some might call it arresting. Her coloring was lovely—slate-blue eyes and pale ash-blond hair. She had a rich, low drawl, a determined walk, and a lighthearted attitude toward the world. She came striding into Lenore’s lodgings, handsomely dressed in plum-colored wool and carrying a dark forest-green cloak across her arm.

  “I’m Lally,” she said simply, extending a gloved hand. “And ’tis good to meet you, Lenore. Ned’s told me so much about Geoffrey, they’re such good friends—as I’m hoping we will be. Ned tells me you’ve been hotly pursued and could bring no luggage, so I brought you this cloak, for Oxford winters are cold indeed, and the wind will pierce you to the very bone!”

  Lenore was touched by this gift and hastened to make Lally welcome. As they talked, she felt herself observed by calm, worldly eyes. In this daughter of the regiment, she was instantly certain she had found a friend.

  “I’m not married to Ned,” Lally told her frankly over her second cup of chocolate. “Not even betrothed. He’s my protector, for ’twas my bad luck to lose both father and would-be husband at near the same time. But we don’t love each other, and Ned goes courting to Marston once a week—and sometimes twice!”

  Lenore was fascinated. “The young lady there, does she—?”

  “Know about me?” Lally laughed. “No, I doubt she does, for who would tell her? Not Ned, certainly. Ned presses his suit with her, and if her family does not object, they’ll be married in the spring.”

  “But then you... ?”

  “Will find a new protector.” Lally shrugged. “Though none so easygoing as Ned, I’ve no doubt.”

  “Don’t you worry?” wondered Lenore. “About the future, I mean?”

  Lally’s slate-blue eyes were suddenly empty. “I lost my future when the river swept my Kevin away before he could wed me. But”—her arm moved as if to sweep away cobwebs and she rose suddenly—“many merry days lie ahead, and I mean to enjoy them. Christmas is coming, remember!”

  “You mean they dare to celebrate Christmas here?-’ exclaimed Lenore in surprise, for celebrating Christmas was outlawed under the stern Puritan laws.

  Lally laughed and picked up her gloves. “Some of us will, you’ll see! Now don’t forget, tomorrow night you and Geoffrey are to sup with us. We’ve rooms across town—Geoffrey knows the way. No, I’ll let myself out, I want to say hello to Mistress Watts.”

  From the window, Lenore watched Lally’s plum-colored skirts sweep across the cobbles. Lally’s head was high. She had a determined walk, a determined look in her eye, a determined set to her firm jaw. Somehow Lenore thought Lally would pick up the pieces and straighten out her life someday.

  In the meantime—Lenore picked up the dark green cloak Lally had left, which was of warm wool and nearly new—in the meantime, she knew she had found a friend in Oxford.

  When Geoffrey returned, she made no mention of her earlier upset, nor did he. She told him instead of Lally’s invitation and showed him the green cloak, whirled around in it for his inspection.

  “It suits you well,” he approved. “Green becomes you.” And then he wrapped his arms about her, cloak and all. “Lenore,” he said, emotion deepening his voice, “you are my life. And all will honor our child.”

  Shame washed over Lenore. Geoffrey was caught in a trap as well as she. He loved her—and would marry her, was he but able!

  “I’m sorry,” she whispered against his deep chest, hearing the rhythmic throb of his heart. “Oh, Geoffrey, I do love you so.”

  He swept her up and bore her to the alcove with its big bed. They needed no supper that evening, for they feasted in their own garden of earthly delights. Arms wrapped around each other, they lay comfortably beneath the piled-up quilts in the big bed and laughed and made love and talked and again made love until warm exhaustion overcame them and they fell asleep with their legs companionably intertwined and their hair mingling on the pillow.

  Lenore woke after a bit to find her left leg grown numb and eased sleepily away from Geoffrey. As she moved she cast a look upward at the shaft of pale light that struck through the leaded panes. A white moon rode the sky, and Lenore smiled up at it.

  Marriage might be beyond her reach, but joy she would find in Oxford town....

  The next night she and Geoffrey dined with Ned and Lally at their lodgings, which consisted of three large rooms rather handsomely furnished. Besides brandy and cider, Lally—who was very up-to-date—served the new “China drink,” as tea was called, and Lenore had her first taste of it. “I think I do prefer it to the West India drink, don’t you?” smiled Lally, referring to chocolate.

  Lenore, ignorant of both until just now, nodded bright agreement. It was just coming to her that she was an unsophisticated village girl and this was Town.

  As the lamb pie and fritters and baked potatoes and pudding and jelly were served by an elderly serving woman in somber gray with a stiff-starched apron, Lenore found herself envying Lally—so self-assured in her rustling taffety dress of a becoming orangy shade that set off her pale hair. Lally must have spent two hours on that elaborate hairdo. Lenore was abruptly conscious of her own simple hair style. Her mouth set in a rather grim line. Geoffrey must not be ashamed of her—she'd have Lally teach her how to do her hair like that!

  She was distracted from these thoughts by the banter of the two other guests, both Oxford students with Royalist leanings. One was named Michael and one named Lewis, and she spent most of the evening returning their quips with banter of her own. They found her enchanting; both thought her astonishingly beautiful and went away to spread her fame abroad.

  The next day Michael, who had been especially smitten, showed up at Mistress Watts’s handsomely dressed in red (Lenore was to learn that he always wore red) with a bottle of good wine, smuggled from France, as a housewarming gift. And while he was still stammering in the doorway, Lewis showed up with fruitcake his mother had sent him. Lenore ushered both young men into her lodgings and made them welcome.

  Geoffrey was astonished to return home and find her laughing and entertaining as if their barren rooms were a brace of spacious withdrawing rooms equipped with liveried servants at her beck and call. That he approved this little tableau was obvious, for he stood a moment at gaze and then a faint smile spread over his countenance.

  “We are honored that you chose to visit us so soon,” he told the uneasy students, who looked abashed to be caught visiting his lady while he was out. They were nearer Lenore’s age than his, but he made them welcome by joining them in a glass of wine.

  Afternoon also brought his cousin Gilbert Marnock with his burnt sugar hair and meticulous grooming and glittering smile. Gilbert stayed all afternoon and offered to take Lenore sightseeing about Oxford in a sleigh as soon as it snowed.

  “I see we are not to be lonely,” laughed Geoffrey, when they had all gone and Lenore tripped down to supper in Mistress Watts’s common room beside him.

  And it was true. Soon their rooms were packed every day, with every chair taken a
nd some perching in the windowsills or standing about. Lally had made haste to introduce Lenore to Oxford’s Royalist sympathizers, and the beauteous “Mistress Daunt” became the fashion, the shabby lodgings off Magpie Lane humming with raillery and laughter.

  Lenore was glad of their company, and she felt Geoffrey was glad, too, to find her a social success. But sometimes when she was clearing away the tankards of the departed guests, crumbing the table and setting the chairs back in place, she thought of all that she had lost. Wistfully she remembered those long wonderful days with Geoffrey in the shadow of the high tors. And when the wind whipped in from the west, bringing with it the tang of sea salt, she remembered Tintagel and was saddened. Material comforts she had now—and she needed them, for next June her child would be born—but she’d have traded all the comforts in the world to have Geoffrey all to herself again ... the way it had been.

  Generally she had little time for such thoughts. Michael had volunteered to help her improve her penmanship, bringing over quills and ink and parchment, and she spent hours under his guidance with his cherubic face smiling down at her. Lewis had shyly brought over two of his precious books with worn leather bindings, which she read whenever Geoffrey was away overnight. Lighthearted Lally was teaching her clever new ways to arrange her shining red-gold hair. Gilbert had volunteered to teach her the newest dances from France. (“He learned them in brothels,” Lally leaned over to confide. She laughed. “He knows not if they be from France or Holland—or Spain, for that matter!”)

  Lenore was delighted to learn the new dances, and clad in the russet wool Mistress Watts had had made up for her at Geoffrey’s direction, she swung about the floor with Gilbert. The music was provided by a couple of students who played the viola da gamba, and the Daunts’ rooms rang with forbidden merriment as feet stamped and skirts whirled and Lally and Lenore, their faces flushed, danced the afternoons away.

  Sometimes Mistress Watts came up to caution them that the music was too loud, it could be heard clear around Magpie Lane, and they might get in trouble with the law—but mostly she let them alone. Mistress Watts's heart was with them; she had been young in Royalist England when dancing and games were a way of life, and she had no heart for this stern Puritan England that strove to quench all joy.

  By now Gilbert was almost a fixture in the Daunt establishment, lounging about with his long legs draped over a convenient chair, watching Lenore from lazy heavy-lidded eyes as she laughed and talked with Lally and Ned and their friends. Sometimes it made her nervous to look up and find him watching her, for Gilbert had a magnetic personal charm that had nothing to do with love. His mocking gaze reminded her that he was a man and she was a woman, young, desirable, and with Geoffrey gone, perhaps ... available.

  For Geoffrey was often gone overnight now and sometimes longer on mysterious tasks, and she was lonely without him. She suspected he had turned to dicing or betting on cockfights in nearby hamlets, but always he returned with enough money to keep them going. Gilbert knew of his frequent absences and would capitalize on it if he could. Relentlessly he pursued her as a dancing partner, and on those days when Geoffrey was gone, he was so conspicuous in his attentions that it embarrassed her.

  Finally one day when Geoffrey had ridden out, she decided she must do something to discourage Gilbert. Adroitly she managed to avoid dancing with him, always whirling away with another partner as he approached. She thought Gilbert had got the point at last when he turned with a shrug and asked Lally to dance, but when that dance was over, he headed in her direction once again. Ignoring his advance, she quickly turned to Michael and asked him if he thought her penmanship had improved—and when Gilbert joined them, she fled to the window.

  Gilbert sauntered across the room, following her. He would not have done that, she thought rebelliously, had Geoffrey been here. When Geoffrey was present, Gilbert treated her more circumspectly and the music was kept toned down sufficiently so that it could not be heard in Magpie Lane—but with Geoffrey gone, everything got out of hand.

  At the window she stood her ground and faced Gilbert, her face impassive though a little flushed. As usual, he was tremendously fashionable, setting the styles for Oxford’s hot young bloods. Today he was wearing one of the new “jackanapes” coats of heavily embroidered greenish-gold satin, cut so short as to expose half a hand-span of yellow silk shirt between his coat and his loose-fowing satin knee-breeches of a deeper hue. The pale lemony silk lining of the breeches was gathered at the knee into a band and garnished with forest-green ribands. Although the other young men present were wearing wide-topped boots with yellow-starched lace boothose, Gilbert—who had hired a sedan chair to avoid wading in mud—sported beneath his lemon silk stockings square-toed shoes with flat lemon satin bows and rather high lemon heels that made him even taller. At his neck was a carefully careless froth of Florentine lace. Even his buttons were distinctive: a stag rampant, green enameled on gold. He always wore buttons with a stag design. Geoffrey I had told her that Gilbert had designed that stag himself and had the buttons made up in dozen lots by a London firm-— always with the same stag design but enamelled in different colors, on a gold or silver ground, to match his costumes. They were a hallmark of his meticulous grooming. Now he leaned back against the wall like a resplendent peacock spreading his feathers. Extravagant he might be, and possibly but a few steps ahead of the bailiff for his tailor’s bills, but it was a very glittering picture he presented, she had to admit, lean and graceful, with his narrow, handsome face surrounded by long shining caramel curls.

  She steeled her heart against him.

  Those eyes considered her lazily, raking her delicious figure and settling on her slightly heaving bosom. Hot gaze never leaving her, he took out a gold snuffbox, the top enameled in a stag design that matched his buttons, and delicately took a pinch of snuff.

  “Geoffrey leaves ye too much alone these days, Mistress Lenore,” he murmured in a voice so low none but she could hear it. “Would ye not welcome a quiet supper at the Crown? I’d take a private room, so your presence there would not be remarked.”

  A private room ... his meaning could not have been more clear. Supper for two, some wine—and seduction. She yearned to give him a sharp rejoinder, yet ... she must not have a falling out with Gilbert; that might be dangerous.

  “In Lally’s company I would be glad to sup with you at the Crown,” she said, managing to keep her voice calm. “Whether in a private room or no. But I could not sup with you alone, Gilbert. As Geoffrey’s cousin, you must know that.”

  He sighed. “Aye, Geoffrey’s women were ever faithful to him.” The snuffbox closed with a snap.

  Geoffrey’s women! Lenore ground her teeth inwardly at that slap, but she kept a bland smile on her face. Obviously her rebuff had rankled.

  “Perhaps another day will find you in a warmer mood,” he said coldly and went over to where Lally was standing, engaged in conversation. Lenore stared after him. She was skating on very thin ice, for she had almost given him the scathing answer he deserved.

  She did not tell Geoffrey about the incident when he returned that night. She had noted how thoughtfully he looked after Gilbert these days. But after that she took great care not to offend Gilbert; she was scrupulously polite—but she took equal care not to brush his arm as she served him and her other friends glasses of wine. For Gilbert’s body seemed to send her a special message, and she felt a kind of uneasy shock when she brushed him. It disturbed her, for in spite of his shortcomings she found him attractive—as Lally plainly did—and there were nights with Geoffrey gone when her arms felt empty and she tossed restlessly, unable to sleep, wishing for arms to hold her. Geoffrey’s arms, of course—no matter how many nights he left her alone, she would not falter in that.

  But Gilbert’s treacherous smile told her daily that there would come a time when she would slip—and he would be waiting.

  “I see your admirers are writing sonnets to you now,” Geoffrey remarked dryly when he came home on
e day to find a bit of sealed parchment inscribed to “The Fair Lenore” slipped beneath the door.

  Lenore laughed. “They mean nothing by it—’tis something to do.”

  Deliberately he broke the seal and read aloud:

  So fair is she, so sweetly made

  That if Lenore were mine,

  I’d take her in a woodland glade

  And need no stronger wine.

  He studied it. “I’d say the writing is Gilbert’s.”

  “Nonsense.” She snatched the parchment from him. “ ’Tis more like to be some foolish lad who’s seen me shivering on my way down the High Street and is practicing his sonnets to win some blushing maid back home!”

  There was no laughter in Geoffrey’s searching gray gaze. “Gilbert was always good at sonnets . . . and other things.”

  Lenore flounced away from him. “There’s no need to be unpleasant. I’ve told you I don’t know who wrote it. Where were you last night?”

  He shrugged, and shook out some coins upon the table. “For your purse.”

  She scooped them up hesitantly. “I have never asked you how you come by these, Geoffrey.”

  “No, nor should you,” he said curtly, and went back and threw himself upon the bed. “I’m dead tired,” he said. “Should any of your admirers call, have the goodness to draw the curtains and let me sleep.”

  She frowned. Geoffrey had no reason to be jealous of Gilbert, for all that Gilbert made little effort to conceal his ardent pursuit of her. Nor could she, after Geoffrey's warning not to fall afoul of Gilbert, ignore him. She felt trapped between them.

  She said haltingly, “Geoffrey, about Gilbert, I—”