The Passage

by Irina Shapiro

  “There’s always one last frost before the winter gives way to spring,” Peter said wisely as he led my horse to the mounting block. The thought of spending another day in the saddle was paramount to torture, but I mounted the horse and hung on for dear life as it picked its way toward the gates and the road beyond.

  Sir Benedict had invited us to stay for another day, but Hugo politely refused, telling him we had some business to complete before returning home for Easter. At least now I knew when he planned to go back to Cranley, information that gave me that tiny bit of control over an untenable situation. Easter was in three weeks; so it was three weeks until I had a chance at escape, and three weeks of cohabitating with Hugo Everly.

  A sneaky wind managed to get beneath my skirts and into the folds of my cloak, filling the fabric with air and making me look like a ship in full sail, a fact that the men remarked on with glee, eliciting a hearty laugh from Jem. I tried to pull the cloak tighter around me, but there was nothing to fasten it with other than the clasp at the throat. The wind kept blowing the hood off my head, leaving my ears red and numb with cold. My back and legs were sore from riding; my head ached, and my eyes wept salty tears from the bitter gusts. How I wished I could be at home, on the sofa in front of the telly with a hot cup of tea and a few of my favorite chocolate biscuits.

  “Neve?”

  I looked up at the sound of my name, suddenly realizing that I’d been wallowing in my trance of misery for some time and probably hadn’t heard him calling me before.

  “Are you all right?” Hugo asked, a look of concern on his face. “You don’t look at all well.”

  “I’m very cold… and achy, and hungry,” I admitted. I wasn’t normally a complainer, but I was feeling sorry for myself, and it was all Hugo’s fault anyway, so I felt no need to spare his feelings.

  “There should be an inn at the next village. We’ll stop there,” he promised and gave me a weak smile. “Come, ride next to me. Conversation helps pass the time, and you look lonely.”

  I was. I’d never felt so alone in my life. I enjoyed occasional solitude, but I always knew that friends were just a phone call or a tube ride away. Now I was in a place where I knew no one and no one knew me. There was no one to call; no one to turn to for help. If I died here, no one would know or care. I would simply vanish off the face of the earth as if I never existed, leaving nothing behind in my modern life but some books, clothes, and a handful of people who would mourn me for a time – or not. I had no husband, no children, and no extended family. There was no one I felt tethered to or who would feel the loss of me in any kind of deep emotional way. People would briefly wonder what happened to me and then get on with their own lives, pushing the memory of me away, as human beings tended to do with unpleasant and unresolved things.

  I wished I could tell Hugo all that, but I had to keep silent for my own safety. Instead, I pulled my horse closer to his and rode in silence for a few moments while I composed myself. I smiled in surprise as Hugo held out an oat cake to me.

  “It’s all I’ve got, but it might tide you over until the village. I always bring a few cakes for Ronan when we go on long rides. He likes to feel appreciated.” Hugo’s horse gave me a resentful stare as I bit into the cake, but I ignored it and chewed gratefully. It wasn’t very tasty, but better than the horrible porridge of this morning.

  “Were you able to enlist Sir Benedict’s support?” I asked as I finished the cake and licked the crumbs off my fingers. Hugo smiled at me indulgently as if I were an adorable child and shook his head.

  “Sir Benedict is a shrewd man who will not commit to anything unless he’s sure of its success. He professed support for Monmouth, but once a rebellion is under way he will see which way the wind is blowing before declaring his support publicly. If Monmouth is sure to win, Benedict will say the duke had his support all along. If he looks to be losing, Benedict will very loudly exalt the king and condemn the bastard upstart. He did, however, make a contribution to Monmouth’s coffers, which is the most I can hope for at this time.”

  “Is that the feeling of most people, that Monmouth is a bastard upstart?” I asked.

  “No. There are those who are openly in support of Monmouth and will take up arms and risk all to see him succeed. Most people, however, will wait to declare their allegiance. They have too much to lose.”

  “And you? Don’t you have anything to lose?” I was curious about this man and what drove him. I could understand a desire for religious freedom, but I sensed there was more to his resolve – something more personal.

  “I have nothing to lose,” Hugo replied flatly.

  “How come you never married?” I suppose it was a rude and prying question, but I wanted to know. He had to be in his mid-thirties, and a man of that age in the seventeenth century would most certainly have a family, unless they died and he was the only survivor, and even then he’d be likely to remarry very quickly.

  “I have,” Hugo replied. I could see the tensing of his jaw and the grim set of his mouth, but I was too curious to desist.

  “And is your wife…?” I let the sentence trail off unsure of how to phrase what I wanted to ask. It seemed callous to just ask if she were dead; besides, had he been married it would have shown up in the family records, but Max said that Hugo hadn’t been wed.

  “Alive and well,” he replied as he skewered me with his gaze, “and married to someone else.”

  “But you are Catholic; you don’t believe in divorce, do you?”

  “No, I don’t, which is why I still consider myself married,” Hugo said with a shrug. I could see the bitterness in his face, but now that I knew, he felt the need to explain.

  “Catherine and I met at Court while my father was still alive. She was hardly more than a child then, but I’d got it into my head that I was going to marry her. She was so lovely and so pure. The fact that her family was one of the oldest Catholic families in England also contributed to my decision. I wanted my wife to share my faith and raise our children in the Church. My father kept our religion a secret, convinced that one day the tolerant attitude of the king would be tested and criticized. He was right, of course. His wish was that I marry a Protestant, but then again, his faith was never very strong. My father worshiped power and freedom and was willing to bow to whatever God happened to be in fashion at the time. He thought it would be politically beneficial to play both sides.”

  “Your father sounds a hard man,” I said, trying to picture a young, lovesick Hugo and the man who wanted to use his marriage to further his own ambitions.

  “He could be harsh, but he knew what he was about, and there were many times after his death that I realized that he had been right all along. We argued incessantly, him and I, and he went to his grave thinking that I didn’t love or respect him, a fact I have to live with.”

  “So you married your Catherine anyway?”

  “Catherine and I married in secret after my father died. Had I married before, he would have disinherited me and I’d have had nothing to offer her. Like my own father, her father was against the marriage. He had someone else in mind for her and the marriage negotiations were already under way, so I had to act fast. I finally convinced her to marry me. I was sure that once we were wed her father would accept me and everything would turn out well, especially since her family would want to avoid a taint on Catherine’s reputation at all cost.”

  “What happened?” I asked. It seemed like Hugo had thought things through, but the marriage obviously fell apart.

  “Two weeks after we were married, Catherine’s father had the marriage annulled and had her married off to the man of his choice.” I could hear the anger in Hugo’s voice. He was still hurt after all these years.

  “On what grounds?”

  “Non-consummation,” he spat out.

  “Did you not…?” I let the sentence hang, suddenly uncomfortable about prying into his personal life.

  “Oh, I did,” he retorted. “Many times, but Catherine’s
father, Lord Wessex, bribed a physician to proclaim my wife virgo intacta after subjecting her to the humiliation of an examination. Not only was she not a virgin, she was already with child, but of course, it was too soon to tell.”

  “I’m sorry, Hugo. Did she not resist her father?”

  “She thought that her father would accept me once we married, but she wasn’t ready for a rift with her family. Her father wouldn’t even hear of accepting the marriage. Catherine’s betrothed was a duke, a man with vast estates bordering her father’s to the north. Her father wanted to procure a better title for his only daughter and consolidate the estates after his death, making Catherine and her husband one of the richest and most influential couples in Christendom. Had he had a son to inherit, we might have stood a chance.”

  “What of the child?” I asked, feeling a surge of pity for him.

  “The baby died in infancy. A girl. I never even saw her. Catherine bore her husband four healthy sons since,” Hugo replied bitterly.

  “Do you still love her?” I asked softly, watching the emotions shift in his face.

  “No. Yes. No. I don’t know.”

  “So, which is it?”

  “I don’t love the woman she is today. I love the girl she was when she married me. She was so beautiful and sweet. I’d have done anything to make her happy, but she never gave me a chance. She went off with her father like an obedient puppy, without a backward glance. She could have defied him; she could have trusted me to love her. He’d have come around in time; I’m sure of it.” Hugo turned to me, and it broke my heart to see the sadness in his eyes. Not only did this girl break his heart, but she destroyed his chances of marrying again. The annulment wasn’t valid due to the fact that the marriage had been consummated, so in Hugo’s mind he was married until one of them died.

  “And what about you?” he asked. “What of your family?” I knew this question would come sooner or later. A woman of my age would almost certainly be married or widowed, and would have borne children. Hugo was too tactful to ask me outright, but he wanted to know more about the woman who had the power to destroy him. I wondered what he would say if he knew that I’d lived with a man without the benefit of marriage, and then miscarried a baby whom he hadn’t wanted. Would he think less of me? Why did I care anyway? I asked myself angrily.

  “No, there’s no one,” I replied instead.

  “Had you never married?” Hugo asked.

  “No, no one ever asked.” Which was the truth. I expected Hugo to make some caustic remark, but he just gazed at me with a look of such sympathy that I nearly burst into tears. I was glad to see the chimneys of the village come into view. I was no longer hungry, but I felt frozen, mostly inside.

  Chapter 24

  Hugo poked up the fire and threw on another log, watching the shifting shadows of the leaping flames cast a golden glow on Neve’s face. She was curled up in bed, the coverlet all the way up to her chin, her fair hair fanned on the lumpy pillow. The inn had only one private room left, the only other accommodation available in public rooms where travelers shared a bed with strangers, packed together like mackerel in a barrel. The men had no problem sleeping six to a bed, since it was still warmer and softer than bedding down in the stables. Even Jem chose to sleep in the communal bed rather than make up a pallet in the private room, eager for the warmth and camaraderie of his companions.

  The bed was hardly big enough for two people, so Hugo tried to make himself comfortable on the hard wooden chair, which squeaked pitifully every time he so much as shifted his weight. It had to be past midnight since the inn had grown quiet about two hours ago. The last patrons had departed, and the owners quickly tidied up and went to seek their own bed, knowing that they had a limited amount of time to rest before they got up at dawn and their daily routine began anew. The inn was shabby but clean, and the food had been palatable, which is more than he could say for many places he’d stayed at. The innkeeper and his wife did their best, and it showed. He’d have to give them an extra coin come morning, just to show his appreciation.

  Hugo was physically tired, but couldn’t sleep, partly due to discomfort and partly to the ghosts that seemed to surround him; those of the dead and the living. He felt his father’s presence, the old man staring at him with contempt, disgusted that he had allowed an insipid girl to prevent him from fulfilling his duty and producing an heir for Everly.

  “Have I taught you nothing, boy?” his father’s voice demanded in his head. “Your marriage was annulled, so according to the church you were never married. The record of your nuptials has been expunged, just as you have been expunged from your wife’s heart. You’ve wasted twelve years on self-pity and righteous recriminations. Do your duty!” his father roared.

  “What of my conscience, Father?” Hugo demanded of the angry ghost.

  “To hell with your conscience! You are not the first or the last to have to bargain with yourself and the Almighty. He has more important things to concern himself with than one failed marriage. Your wife is dead to you, so find another. And what is this plot you’ve got yourself involved in? You’ll end up with your head on a spike for your pains. What difference does it make who sits on the throne as long as we prosper? Put your idealism aside, learn to play the game, and produce a boy for God’s sake.”

  Hugo sat up straighter in his chair, his eyes fixed on the dancing flames, his back rigid as the chair let out a moan of protest. He hated to admit it, but his father was right to a degree. Catherine was dead to him, if not physically dead. All these years he’d lived with the memory of a precious young girl, but had she really been what he believed her to be or a product of his own over-romanticized imagination?

  Catherine loved the idea of courtly love. She devoured his romantic declarations and kept the poems he’d written her under her pillow. She loved legends, casting herself as Guinevere and him her devoted knight, but what had she known of real love? She had been frightened of his ardor, shocked by the physical love she’d known nothing about. He’d been too young and foolish to realize that Catherine had been completely unprepared for the force of his desire, and he’d terrified her with his emotional and physical demands. He’d allowed himself to believe that the look he saw on her face as Lord Guilford led her away was one of regret, when in truth, it was likely relief. A life with him was too frightening, too intimate.

  Hugo knew Catherine’s husband well. The Duke spent most of his time at Court, leaving his wife and children at home in the country. He only brought them to town on special occasions such as a Christmas pageant or the coronation of the new king. He’d enjoyed several affairs with other men’s wives and rarely went home to his own, but perhaps that’s a life Catherine had wanted since her husband demanded very little of her, especially now that she had produced several heirs and was past her prime.

  And what had possessed him to talk to Neve Ashley of his father and Catherine, the two people who still haunted him on a daily basis? Why did he feel the need to confide in her when he’d kept his regrets to himself for so long? And why was he suddenly unsure of his path, a path he’d chosen a long time ago and had followed without deviation, steadfast in his moral conviction and bound by duty?

  “I can feel you brooding from across the room,” Neve suddenly said, raising her head from the pillow. “Come to bed.”

  “I didn’t wish to inconvenience you,” Hugo replied, desperately wanting to just lie down next to her and escape his unpleasant thoughts.

  “You inconvenienced me by forcing me to accompany you. “Now, lie down and go to sleep. You are driving me crazy with your fidgeting.”

  “You really are a most perplexing woman, you know that?” Hugo asked as he began to pull off his boots. Neve had been irate to find him holding her only that morning, but now she was inviting him into her bed, a bed that was a third in size of the one they’d shared. Surely she knew that some physical contact would ensue.

  “So I’ve been told,” Neve replied and gave him an impish smile be
fore snuggling under the covers again. Hugo hastily undressed and got into bed, stretching out next to Neve and sighing with relief. He hadn’t realized how much his back ached until now. He was no longer used to spending days in the saddle the way he had in his youth.

  “Good night, Mistress Ashley,” he whispered.

  “Hmm.” Neve was already asleep, her breathing even and her mouth partially open. She moaned softly in her sleep and rolled onto her back, her face illuminated by the feeble light of the fire. Hugo tried not to stare, but couldn’t help himself. When awake, she looked guarded and at times frightened, but now she looked like a little girl, trusting and sweet, and heartbreakingly defenseless. He’d refrained from asking her too many questions, seeing her stiffen every time he so much as brought up her past, so he left her alone in an effort to build trust. Sooner or later people revealed everything he needed to know on their own, once they felt less threatened, but he couldn’t figure this woman out.

  She said she came from London, which might be true, but her appearance and demeanor did not fit into any category he could think of. She was clearly educated and cultured, but she didn’t have the manners or bearing of a gentlewoman. She moved and spoke freely, meeting his gaze head on with no wiles or attempt at being coy. Perhaps that’s why she never married; she’d intimidate any prospective husband with her brazen manner and speech. However, Neve Ashley clearly didn’t come from the lower orders either. Her hands were soft and smooth, her complexion unblemished, and her teeth straight and white when she smiled that charming smile of hers. This was not a woman who’d known hunger or disease, nor had she ever been subjected to hard physical work.

  Perhaps she was the daughter of some wealthy merchant or scholar, one who’d had the financial freedom and unconventional enough thinking to educate a girl and use her talents in his shop, for lack of a son. That could explain the absence of a husband as well. She might have had to care for her father and help him in his business, making her unable to marry at the proper age. What was her age? Hugo wondered, looking at Neve more closely. She had to be past twenty, but he couldn’t tell by how much. Her gaze was all too knowing for a young maid, but her physical appearance spoke of one much younger than thirty. Most women of his acquaintance, even those who enjoyed wealth and privilege, began to lose their bloom shortly after marriage. Numerous pregnancies, births, and the physical demands of life took their toll, making them appear older than they really were. Even Jane, who’d only had one child, looked like a woman in her middle years when she was still relatively young.