Historical Romance – The Best Of The Year. Кэрол Мортимер
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‘But you saw it. You told me so when we were in Canterbury.’
‘I was there. I did not see it,’ he said, realising it was the truth. He had stood before it, walked inside it, even waited behind the King as the treaty was hammered out and signed, but he could no more summon up a vision of it than of any of the countless other buildings he had seen in France.
‘Show me Ely, Anne. Show me so I will know I was here.’
‘Just look,’ she said, as if impatient with a balky student. ‘How many towers has it?’
‘One.’
‘Yes. Only one. Most churches have two.’
He nodded. Something else he had seen without ever really seeing.
‘Now look, there.’ She pointed at the top of the arches lining the nave. ‘You see the carvings up there?’
Not until she had shown them to them.
‘They are of the saint, Etheldreda.’
He squinted to see the place where the columns met the arches. Had he ever noticed anything other than how many men could sleep in a castle’s hall and whether the list he had given matched the food delivered?
So many things that he had not seen. Excited, she did not wait for him to catch up. ‘And the windows, you see? Angels playing music.’
He tried to make out the image. Once he opened his eyes, once he tried to see it all, there was too much to take in.
But already she was pointing out something new. ‘Now look up. Have you ever seen anything like that?’
Above him stretched eight arches, meeting to support a higher structure, floating above the floor. It must have been the dome-like structure they had seen before they even reached the city. It looked as celestial and far above the world as if God had made it and put it in the heavens. Standing directly beneath it, he was dizzy.
Yes, he would remember Ely Cathedral now.
What would the rest of the world look like, through Anne’s eyes? Something to be savoured, rather than endured. To be lingered over instead of passed over. Every place he planned to visit would be different if she were there, if he were travelling slowly enough to notice...
He was still thinking of that, with a moment’s pang for the Canterbury badge he had dropped, at day’s end when they had returned to the inn.
Through supper, Anne told Eustace and Agatha of everything they had seen until the young people finally made their escape. Alone with Nicholas, having re-examined it all, she fell silent as he tossed one of his juggling balls from one hand to the other. Finally, by mutual consent, they rose and he carried a candle to light her way as she took the stairs, one at a time.
In front of her door, she paused. ‘Etheldreda was from Northumberland, you know,’ she said.
He shook his head. ‘No. I didn’t.’
‘I wonder if she missed it.’ Anne was whispering now, barely talking to him at all.
He had no answers for her. From what he had heard, Northumberland was a cold, windswept, barren land, best left to the quarrelling Borderers who lived there.
Italy, at least, would be warm.
But Anne was looking at him now, with an intensity that spoke of the rest of her life. ‘She also died a virgin.’
He looked around, grateful that they were alone. He cleared his throat. ‘Really?’
‘She had two husbands and she died a virgin. I won’t have even one, but I don’t want...’ Looking right at him now. ‘Would you...?’
Of all the questions she had asked him, this was the easiest one to answer. He had longed to hold her once more since the night of the royal wedding.
Yet without his intention, his gaze drifted to all that was hidden beneath her skirt.
The edge of her mouth ticked upwards. ‘It is only my foot. Besides that, I am like other women.’
Embarrassed, he realised she knew what he had been thinking. ‘But you haven’t, you don’t mean—?’
‘No! I have not... I am not a woman who has attracted men that way. But once, I would like just once...’
That, he could give her.
They could not run. Here. It must be here. Now. If they waited until it was easy or convenient, he, both of them might come to their senses. And for once, that was not what he wanted.
He opened the door to her room, and held out his hand.
I must remember everything, Anne thought, as the door closed behind them. Every moment so that I can relive it later.
Until Nicholas, she had known nothing of loving or kisses. Yet she had spent a lifetime near a woman who loved men. Lady Joan had borne Thomas five children. Some nights, Anne had heard them, through the door. The panting, the groans, the screams. And with the Prince, it was the same.
But for herself, beyond the kisses she had shared with Nicholas, there was only the mystery of want.
He put the candle down beside the bed and she looked at the straw mattress, hesitant to take that step. Now. It must be now.
Suddenly, he scooped her into his arms and carried her there and all her awkwardness fell away.
Tonight, she would be the Anne she was inside.
Nicholas sat beside her on the bed and looked at her, head to toe, without speaking. The silence lengthened, her cheeks grew hot and she looked away, unaccustomed to being examined instead of overlooked.
He reached for the fall of her hair and lifted it behind her shoulder to reveal her face.
Her breathing quickened. ‘What are you doing?’
A gentle smile in answer. No need to be urgent this night.
‘Looking at your hair,’ he said. ‘It is one of my favourite parts of you.’
Foolish flattery. ‘Red hair is frowned on.’
He furrowed his brow and skewed his lips into mock consideration. ‘Then I will not call it red. Shall I name it sanguine? Or gules? What shall I call it?’
‘Call it nothing at all. Don’t look at it at all.’
‘You’ve taught me to see.’ His fingers played with her hair, a gesture as intimate as if he was stroking her skin. ‘Yet you do not want to be seen?’
No. She did not. She wanted to close her eyes and disappear into him, consumed by this mysterious thing between men and women.
‘You have always seen me more clearly than others do.’ Be brave. Look at him. But she could not.
‘That’s what I want to do. I want to spend this night looking at you, from head to—’
‘No! You must promise me.’ She bent her knees, drawing up her legs hiding her foot, still in its red hose, safely beneath her skirt. ‘Don’t look...’
And of course, he did. ‘I’ve already seen it. You don’t have to hide.’
But she did, she had to hide so many things. ‘Don’t look at me at all.’ She leaned over and, with one breath, the candle went dark.
Outside, the sun had set. Fading light still smudged the room, but she felt safer now. More hidden. Less Anne.
He inhaled, as if to argue, and then her lips took his and there were no more words.
He broke the kiss and pulled off his tunic and hose. In the near dark, she was brave enough