‘May I come in?’
‘I never said you couldn’t,’ she replied tartly. The words stung and yet a smile tugged at my face. I turned slightly away from her lest she see it. Now there was the Molly Redskirts I knew.
‘That’s true,’ I said quietly. ‘But I know that I hurt your feelings, badly, and if you wanted to avoid me for a time, I thought I should not intrude.’
‘Not intrude,’ she said quietly. ‘Fitz, are you certain you are not the one who has been avoiding me? For how many years have I awakened at night to find your side of the bed cool and empty? Slipping out of our bed in the dead of night, to hide away in your dusty little scroll-hole, scribbling until your fingers are all ink?’
I bowed my head to that. I had not realized she was aware of those times. I had been tempted to point out that she had left our bed for this nursery. I put that barb down. It was not time to begin a battle. I was inside her door now, and felt like the wolf the first time he had ventured inside a house. I wasn’t sure where I should stand or if I could sit. She sighed, and sat up on the divan where she had been reclining. She was in her nightrobe, but she moved a half-finished bit of embroidery to make room for me. ‘I suppose I do spend too many hours there,’ I apologized. I sat down beside her. Her scent reached me and I suddenly said, ‘Whenever I smell you, I always want to kiss you.’
She stared at me in astonishment, laughed and then said sadly, ‘Of late, I wondered if you even wanted to be near me at all any more. Old and wrinkly, and now you think me mad …’
I gathered her close before she could say more. I kissed her, the top of her head, the side of her face and then her mouth. ‘I will always want to kiss you,’ I said into her hair.
‘You don’t believe I’m pregnant.’
I didn’t let go of her. ‘You’ve been telling me for over two years that you are pregnant. What am I to think, Molly?’
‘I don’t understand it myself,’ she said. ‘But all I can tell you is that I must have somehow been mistaken at first. I must have thought I was pregnant before I was. Perhaps I knew, somehow, that I was going to be pregnant.’ She leaned her brow on my shoulder. ‘It has been hard for me, to have you gone for days at a time. I know that the maidservants giggle about me behind their hands. They know so little of us. They think it scandalous for a man as young and hale as you to be married to an old woman like me. They gossip that you married me for my money and position! They make me feel an old fool. Who do I have who understands who we are and what we have been to each other? Only you. And when you abandon me, when you think me as foolish as they do, then … Oh, Fitz, I know it’s hard for you to believe it. But I have believed much harder things for your sake and with only your word to go on.’
I felt as if the whole world went still around me. Yes. She had. I’d never stopped to see it from that perspective. I bent my head and kissed her salt-tear cheek. ‘You have.’ I took a breath. ‘I will believe you, Molly.’
She choked on a laugh. ‘Oh, Fitz. Please. No, you won’t. But I’m going to ask you to pretend that you do. Only when we are in here, together. And in return, when I am not in this room, I will pretend I am not pregnant, as best I can.’ She shook her head, her hair rubbing against my cheek. ‘I am sure that will be much easier for the servants. Except for Revel. Our steward seemed absolutely delighted to help me construct this nest.’
I thought of Revel, tall, almost gaunt in his thinness, always grave and correct with me. ‘Was he?’ It didn’t seem believable.
‘Oh, yes. He found the screens with the pansies on them, and had them cleaned before he even told me. I came in here one day, and they were set up around the cradle. And the lace over it, to keep insects away.’
Pansies. From Patience, I knew they were sometimes called heart’s ease. I owed Revel.
She stood, pulling herself out of my arms. She stepped away from me, and I looked at her. Her long nightgown was scarcely revealing, and she had always been a woman of curves. She went to the hearth and I saw that there was a tray set on a stand with tea things on it. I studied her profile. She looked little different to me than she had five years ago. Surely if she were pregnant, I’d be able to tell. I measured the slight swell of her belly, her ample hips and generous breasts and suddenly I was not thinking of babies at all.
She glanced over at me, asking, teapot in hand, ‘Would you like some?’ Then, as I stared at her, her eyes slowly widened and a wicked smile curved her mouth. It was a smile worthy of a naked girl wearing only a holly crown.
‘Oh, indeed I would,’ I replied. As I rose and went to her, she came to meet me. We were gentle and slow with one another, and that night we both slept in her bed in the nursery.
Winter found Withywoods the next day, with a fall of wet snow that brought down the remaining leaves on the birches and lined their graceful branches with white. The stillness that the first snowfall always brings settled like a mantle over the land. Within Withywoods Manor, it suddenly seemed a time for wood fires and hot soup and fresh bread at noon. I had returned to the manor’s study and a clear-flamed fire of apple wood was crackling on the hearth when there was a tap at the door.
‘Yes,’ I called, looking up from a missive from Web.
The door opened slowly and Revel entered. His fitted coat hugged his wide shoulders and narrow waist. He was always impeccably attired and correct in his manners. Decades younger than me, he had a bearing that made me feel like a boy with dirty hands and a stained tunic when he looked down at me. ‘You sent for me, Holder Badgerlock?’
‘I did.’ I set Web’s letter to one side. ‘I wanted to speak to you about Lady Molly’s chamber. The screens with the pansies on them …’
The expectation of my disapproval flickered in his eyes. He drew himself up to his full height and looked down on me with the dignity that a truly good house steward always radiates. ‘Sir. If you please. The screens have not seen use in decades, and yet they are lovely things worthy of display. I know I acted without direct authorization, but Lady Molly has seemed … dispirited of late. Before you departed, you had directed me to see to her needs. I did. As for the cradle, I came upon her sitting at the top of the stairs, all out of breath and near weeping. It is a heavy cradle, sir, and yet she had managed to move it that far on her own. I felt shamed that she had not come to me and simply told me what she wished me to do. And so, with the screens, I tried to anticipate what she would wish. She has always been kind to me.’
He stopped talking. Plainly he felt there was much more he could have said to someone as thick-witted and rock-hearted as I apparently was. I met his gaze and then spoke quietly.
‘As she has to me. I am grateful for your service to her and to the estate. Thank you.’ I had called him in to tell him that I had decided to double his wages. While the gesture still seemed correct, speaking aloud of it suddenly seemed a mercenary thing to do. He had not done this for money. He had repaid a kindness with a kindness. He would discover our largesse when he received his month’s wages, and he would know what it was for. But money was not what would matter to this man. I spoke quietly. ‘You’re an excellent steward, Revel, and we value you highly. I want to be sure you know that.’
He inclined his head slightly. It wasn’t a bow, it was an acceptance. ‘I do now, sir.’
‘Thank you, Revel.’
‘I’m sure you’re welcome, sir.’
And he left the room as quietly as he’d
