you should,” returned Bess hardily.
How dare he reproach her, how dare he? Her eyes flashed at him, as they locked with his, stare for stare. Not only their food, but the spectators were forgotten.
“Oh, indeed,” he sneered. “And that youth who was with you yesterday—is all seemly between you?” He had meant to save this for the privacy of their room, but the woman would tempt a saint to misbehave, for even as they wrangled he wanted to fall upon her and have his way with her; the way which he had been denied yestermorn.
For she was temptation itself. How could he be moved by one who was so unlike all the women whom he had favoured so far? She was black, not blonde, her eyes were dark, not blue, her complexion was pale, not rosy, she was not small, but was of a good height—and instead of being meek in speech she had a tongue like the Devil. Nor did she fail to use it at every turn.
By God, it would be a pleasure to master her, to ride her to the Devil who had blessed, nay, cursed her with that tongue. Aye, and beyond him to the lowest pit of Hell where only the demons lurked, forgotten even by their unsavoury Lord! The very thought of using her so was doing cruel and untoward things to his body.
Drew tried to calm himself. He must not let her catch him on the raw every time she spoke.
“I think you mistake a woman’s place, madam. It is to be quiet, to obey her lord, to be meek at all times…”
“I’d as lief be dead!” Bess could not help herself. The words flew out of her, interrupting him in his catalogue of what a good woman should be.
“I have no mind,” she exclaimed in ringing tones which the whole table could hear, “to be like patient Griselda in Master Chaucer’s poem, who pitifully thanks her husband for his mistreatment of her.”
“Nor am I minded to be the husband of a nagging wife, always determined to have the last word.” Drew roared this as though the demons he had conjured up were at his back, prodding him with their pitchforks.
Well, at least formality had flown out of the window and honesty had taken its place, thought Bess, stifling a smile at the sight of all the shocked faces around the table.
Worse, aunt Hamilton was quavering at her, “Oh, my niece, my dear niece, remember that your husband stands in the place of your God—to be obeyed at all times…This is no fashion in which to conduct yourself…and in a public place, too.”
Little though she cared to admit it, Bess knew that aunt Hamilton was right—at least as regards the place in which her differences with her husband ought to be aired.
She gave an abrupt laugh, and put her hand out towards Drew’s, saying, “How now, my lord, let us cry quits for this meal, at least—and shake hands on it. We are not players on a stage, paid to entertain an audience.”
His wife had spoken as frankly and freely as any boy, and her manner was smilingly confident as she did so. The moment—and the relationship between the pair of them—swung in the balance. Drew was aware that he could base his answer on his own masculinity and his consequent right to rule his wife, and thus reject her offer outright. All between them would then lie in ruins. Or, he could forget his husbandly rights, take her offered hand, cry truce—and let the game start again.
Even as he wavered Bess said, still frank and as though she had read his mind, “Come, m’lord, let us set the board out for a new game and forget the old one.”
As though of its own will, and not his, Drew’s hand thrust itself forward, and grasped her smaller one, enclosing it in his where it fitted so warm and sweetly, that he felt his anger leaching out of him.
“Quits,” he said. “But I cannot promise what will happen on another day.”
“No,” shot back Bess. “But then, no more can I!”
“A strange truce,” smiled Drew, determined not to lose his self-control again, “when the two principals who have agreed it are still at war!”
“I am not at war,” announced Bess, picking up one of Dame Margery’s chicken legs and throwing a sideways glance at Drew as she did so. “On the contrary, I am enjoying my dinner, and am consequently at peace.”
Her sideways glance nearly undid Drew, it was so full of fun and mischief. He gave a little groan, and then leaned forward to take the half-eaten chicken leg from her hand and to begin to eat it himself, his eyes on hers. “What does Dame Margery baste her meat with that it has one effect on you, madam, and quite another on me?”
Bess smiled crookedly at him. “Why, you must to the kitchens, sir, and ask her. Though whether she will have an answer to satisfy you, is quite another thing.” Her smile, unknowing to her, was provocation itself.
A witch! A very witch! Had there been a potion in the goblet which the eager page boy had handed to him as he sat down? Only that could explain why she was keeping his hot blood on the boil. Used to meek women, determined to please him, to meet one who met him with defiance—and smiled so sweetly at him in the doing—was having the strongest effect on Drew. He could not wait for the evening, to have her in the Great Bed which was sure to be in the master bedroom above him.
His wife was suffering from the same fever. The beautiful boy who had despised her had turned into a man who stared at her with eager eyes even as he reproved her. He waved his stolen chicken leg at her before eating it slowly, his blue eyes on her face exactly as though it were she whom he was devouring.
Well, Bess knew a game worth two of that! She leaned forward to take his wine glass, lifted it to her lips and drank it as slowly and sensuously as she could, her eyes on his, so slowly that Drew could have sworn he could see the crimson liquid staining her skin as it slid down her throat.
And then, glass in hand, she took his bread and its attendant cheese from the pewter platter which lay between them, and ate that, too. “Tit for tat, my lord,” she murmured. “Your bread, cheese and wine for my leg. A fair exchange? Say Yea—or Nay.”
Aware that his cousin Charles, eyes wide, was avidly watching this little scene, Drew hooded his own eyes, clasped the wrist of the hand which held the wine glass, now half empty, and putting his lips where hers had been, drank from it until all the wine was gone.
“Neither Yea nor Nay, madam, but half and half, and somehere in between. You shall not best me!”
“Nay, sir, but I must try. I am not Griselda.”
Oh, Bess knew that it was unwise to tease him so. But yet she must, and knowing little of the game of love, as yet untouched by a man’s hands or lips, for Tib and the others had worshipped her from afar, how was it that she knew how to drive a man to distraction?
For Bess had no doubt that that was what she was doing, and even as she led him on with one ploy her busy mind, obeying her body’s urgings, was driving her on to another. Some time in the future he would force a reckoning on her, she knew that, and her body throbbed at the very thought. But he was answering her and she must attend.
“Now, that I already know,” Drew murmured, “that you are not Griselda. But are you Mother Eve who has already tempted—and taken—a man to lie on your breast, so knowing are your arts?”
“I have no arts, husband, other than those which Mother Eve gave me when I was born. And no man has known me either. I am as untouched as Eve was when the Lord God took her from Adam’s side.”
