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she did not
take straight away, perhaps because she feared he would guess she was alarmed,
but he could tell that already by the draining of color from her cheeks and lips.
    She knows someone among those womenfolk and fears
being recognized, but why? They are all maids, drab as sparrows. There is a
mystery here, but it will keep until I know her better.
    “Your husband was Richard?” he prompted, aware she had
told him that earlier but wanting to keep conversation flowing and intrigued
with what she might say. So far she had steered talk away from herself onto
him.
    “That's right. I married him at twelve.” She tucked
her narrow hand through his arm and seemed as deliberately blithe as a skylark.
“A most trying age, I am told.”
    “Seems too young to me,” he growled, sensing her
comment had been used too often against her.
    She colored a delicate rose. “My husband, I
mean Richard… he did wait until I was thirteen.”
       Thirteen. My God . Poor little lass. What
kind of man climbs into a maiden’s bed when she is only thirteen? “My
Cecilia was closer to nineteen when we were wed.” He had been nineteen, a
stripling, lanky as a young birch tree despite his labour in the forges, but
merry then as a lark himself. “We were together ten years.”
    “And content as any couple taking home the Dunmore
flitch,” Isabella observed shrewdly, referring to the custom in Essex of
awarding a couple who had lived together a year without quarrelling a side or
flitch of bacon.
    “Aye, aye, we would have won that, had it been a
custom of Kent,” he admitted, lost anew in memories until he heard her say
quietly, “We were not like that, Richard and me.”
    One of the watermen of the river yelled something so
coarse that, had the fellow been rowing closer, Stephen would have dragged him
from his boat and thumped him. It had the virtue of making her laugh, at least.
    “Was she very lovely?” she asked, and then shook her
head, looking away from him to the barges on the river. “Forgive me, I am wrong
to pry.”
    “Hush! She was beautiful and you worry too much.” He
took her hand in his, glad he had removed his glove, and swung it as they
walked. Her token, the small gold flower, was still snug in his other glove.
     “Please, you must take me home. I shall be missed,”
was all she said.
    ****
    They moved swiftly then, to Isabella's relief. She had
been disconcerted to see her mother's maid by the riverbank, but fortunately
the maid had not approached her and Stephen seemed to have forgotten the entire
incident. As he put her before him on his horse which, as Amice had said, truly
was old, he was humming a tune.
    “Yes, Ulysses is an antique, but nothing worries him,”
he said, catching her looking. “He is very good in processions and the like.
Just as well,” he added innocently.
    He mounted behind her and she could not think of a
pert reply. Being cradled in his arms had been a floating, warm sensation, like
a wonderful bath, and she had felt safe and protected. With him pressed against
her—or was she against him?—she was conscious of him as a man. He was longer
and harder in the body than Richard had been. She liked that, but despised the
way she felt breathless, like a true maiden.
    You cannot be stunned by his tanned good looks or the
feel of his warm strong limbs. You must do enough, be available, or you will
never see your son again.
    “Shall I—” She broke off before she uttered the fatal
words see you , thereby betraying too desperate an interest. “I mean, may
I light a candle of thanks for your patron saint in my church? For your saving
me,” she blundered on, wishing she could see his expression but not daring to
turn for that would mean her thigh would brush along his. Each time Ulysses
wandered into a pothole and his harness jangled, her body jangled lightly
against Stephen’s and she almost forgot to breathe.
    She felt his breath stir the top of her head. “Nay, I
shall be lighting