“Do you want a few more slippery, unscented lilies, then?” he asked. “We shall give them to Mistress Whitman and call it a night. I think we are both exhausted.”
She pulled two more from their watery beds. They went into The Golden Gull’s deserted common hall and tiptoed quietly upstairs to their room.
When he turned her back to him and began to unlace her as he had often done before lovemaking, she did not protest. She seemed to be better protected from his power while she kept her quiet calm, but the kiss of a few minutes ago still lingered on her lips. She stepped out of the dress, shivering as she did so, but he had turned away, stripped off his shirt, and poured himself a goblet of wine from the table.
“Wine, Mary?”
“No, thank you.”
He tilted back his head and downed it. The bed covers had already been turned back for them. Nancy or Mistress Whitman? They were all thinking of her sleeping with him tonight; they would all believe it of her. But if she could only get through the night without throwing herself into his arms, maybe her sinful failure to be a good wife to Will could be forgiven. She would beg him not to touch her if he broke his word.
He blew out the cresset lamp, but the room seemed almost flooded by daylight. His boots hit the floor, and he padded over to the bed and lifted the covers. “Will you sleep next to the wall? I have no intention of lying on the hard floor nor of bedding with Stephen. Do not be afraid. There is plenty of room. You do not wish me to touch you, so I will not.”
She stared up at him. So easily accomplished? Then she hated herself for wishing he would force her. She got in, quickly pulling her chemise down to cover her knees while he watched, seemingly impassive. When he got in, the bed sagged and she almost spilled toward him.
“Goodnight, my love,” he said. “When you are in your bed safe and alone at Hever, I hope you will not have to curse these wasted hours as much as I shall and do. But if you need the time untouched, so be it.”
They lay there in the awkward silence, weary, quietly breathing. Her limbs began to ache anew from being tensed up on the narrow strip of mattress where she held herself rigidly away from him. The moonlight from the window traced its print across the bed onto the wall and still she did not doze though his deep breathing told her that he was asleep at last. Her rampant thoughts would not let her relax. The memories that tortured her were not of Will or his accusing words in his delirium, but of the passions she had felt with Staff and the hours she had treasured in bed with him, in his arms, anywhere, the past six months. An unfulfilled fire burned low and torturing in the pit of her stomach. She had only to touch him, to say his name, and awaken him, she knew, and all this terrible agony would be over. But she would never be free then, free to know that she loved him and could control her own life. The rectangle of moonlight continued its relentless path up the wall next to her. Watching it through her tears in the quiet of the inn, she fell asleep.
Staff was gone when she woke in the morning, and she was sprawled on her stomach half on his side of the mattress. She sat up, immediately wondering if she had moved this far over when he was still abed. No, surely that would have awakened her. Sunlight flooded the room making the moonlight of last night a pale memory. She quickly dressed and went to find Nancy to tie her laces. The door to the girl’s room stood ajar as did that where Stephen had slept. They could not be on the road already!
“Yer friends are gone an hour already, my lady,” came Mistress Whitman’s voice from Stephen’s room. Mary peeked around the door to see her making one of the two narrow beds in the room. “’Tis best they be early on their way, for the bands of thieves around Oxted prey on later travelers. May I help you dress, then? Your lord be having breakfast with my John. They be always talking old times on the Mary Rose, though I know yer lord was not a sailor. Sailors are very easy to spot in a crowd.” She laughed sweetly as she finished the laces.
“He is not my lord,” Mary thought to say, but she only thanked the kind woman and descended the narrow steps holding to the ship’s rigging with its intricate knots they had strung for a makeshift banister.
Staff’s eyes lit to see her. He was in a good enough mood and did not seem to hold the past night against her. Ashamed of her ravenous appetite, she nevertheless ate hot porridge, stuffed partridge and fruit, and washed it all down with ale. That amused John Whitman, and he joked that she ate like a seaman who has just come back to land. She was surprised to learn that it was nearly mid morning and scolded Staff for not waking her earlier.
“Why did you let me sleep so late?” she asked again as they went for a walk toward the heart of the little village.