The Tavern in the Morning (19 page)

‘I am not a sadist,’ he murmured, ‘and I hope I’m not selfish.’

She smiled. ‘I don’t believe you are either. I think, as I thought in the woods by Mag’s house, that you were the one she spoke of.’

‘Mag spoke of me?’ Despite all the other sensations racing through his body, he felt the slight atavistic chill up the spine that comes from a brush with the powers beyond.

‘Don’t worry, she meant you no harm.’ Joanna’s voice was a caress. ‘She did not mention your name – I don’t think she knew it. She just told me, when I was raging against men, marriage, and sexual subservience, that, one day, somebody would show me there was another way. And, when I was scornful, she said, wait and see, my girl. I read it in you, and in this place. One day, you’ll understand.’

‘And then you came across me, right there in Mag’s clearing,’ he said wonderingly, ‘and we both felt that fierce attraction, and I kissed you—’

‘
I
kissed
you,
’ she corrected him. Lifting herself up towards him, she did so again.

And, as if Mag Hobson’s prediction had just been shouted again, out loud, as if the old woman’s benediction hovered over them, the full passion that had been hinted at that time in the woods came roaring back. Moaning, he wrapped his arms around her, pulling her fiercely to him, crushing her breasts to his chest, feeling the firm thighs against his legs.

She was reaching for the cords that laced up her gown, pulling at them impatiently. Helping her, he felt the cord tangle into a knot; he tugged hard, and the cord broke. She laughed huskily and, lifting herself, swept her gown and her loosely-fastened undergarments away in one wide gesture.

Kneeling up, swiftly undoing his tunic, pulling his shirt over his head and removing his hose and breeches, he stared at her, lying naked on the rugs and furs. The firelight lit up the curves of breasts, hip bones, the muscles on her thighs. She was strong, aye, he could see that – fleetingly, as from another world, he recalled her saying that she had recently developed muscles she hadn’t known she had – but yet she retained her woman’s shape. Narrow waist, full breasts, belly curving down to that dark, inviting place …

She, too, was studying him. Staring, steadily, at his erect penis, reaching out, touching.

He said, ‘I will not hurt you, I swear.’

‘I know,’ she said. ‘I feel – for the first time, I know what it is to
want.
’ She put her hands on his shoulders, pulling him down towards her. ‘Please,’ she murmured, ‘please … I don’t know what – don’t know how—’

He lowered himself down on top of her, gently, supporting himself so as not to crush her. Putting one arm behind her head, his face nuzzling against hers as he dropped little kisses on her cheeks, her nose, finally, lingeringly, her mouth, he let his other hand move slowly and steadily right down her body. Caressing her neck, the deep hollows above her collarbones, her breast, her nipple, her waist, her belly.

‘It’s all right, Joanna my sweet,’ he said. ‘I know how.’

*   *   *

They lay exhaused on their bed of rugs and furs. Josse, drowsy, slipping in and out of sweet dreams, felt the sweat begin to cool on his naked body. Lifting his head, he looked around him, and found the end of one of the furs. Pulling it towards him, he draped it over himself and Joanna.

Joanna.

She lay cradled on his chest, breathing deeply, and he thought she was asleep. Oh, but she had every right to sleep, after that great explosion of energy! Great saints, he’d never known anything like it – it had been as if seven years of dammed-up sexual response had been released in one vast, shattering orgasm.

Her first.

And, penetrating her deeply, he had felt every spasm of it with her, holding her as she cried with the joy and the ecstacy of it, sobbing and laughing at the same time as, finally, she knew what it was her body had been saving up for her.

His own ejaculation had been almost as earth-shattering; it was a long time since he had bedded a woman, but, more than that, he didn’t think he had ever been aroused to the extent she had aroused him. That combination of innocence and natural, untapped, eager sexuality had raised him to heights he hadn’t known himself capable of …

Amazingly, he found himself becoming firm again. So soon? Ah, but she’s asleep, I mustn’t disturb her.

Think about something else. Think about … Joanna.

No! Think about the frost outside, the icy ponds and puddles, the dark, the chill wind …

He felt her move, stretching out her legs then twining them in his, one thigh thrusting in between his, and she reached down under the covers and enclosed his penis in her hand, gently at first, then, as she felt him stiffen, with plainer intent.

‘Do you think,’ she said, rolling over on to him and kissing him, ‘we might do that again?’

And, kissing her back, wanting to laugh and, oddly, half wanting to cry, he said, ‘I don’t see any reason why not.’

Chapter Thirteen

He was awake before her.

In the pale early light, he studied her face. Asleep, she looked younger; her habitual expression of wariness put strain in her features, giving her a false maturity. But now …

How old would she be? he wondered. Her son was seven, and Joanna said she had been sixteen when he was conceived, so that made her twenty-three. At that moment, she didn’t look it. She looked about eighteen.

She was sleeping with her head on his shoulder, his arm around her. Leaning against him as she was, he could feel the soft warmth of her breasts. He was very tempted to caress them, gently to wake her, arouse her—

No. Let her sleep. Poor lass, this was probably the first night in a long time that she’d allowed herself to relax into deep, healing sleep. With him there – he hoped he wasn’t flattering himself – at last she could let her vigilance slip a little and take the proper rest she must so sorely have needed.

To take his mind and his body off thoughts of making love to her, he looked around the bedchamber. He had noticed almost nothing about it last night save for the wide wooden-framed bed, with its thick woollen hangings and its pile of covers. Now, easing himself up a little so as to be able to view the whole room, he studied the rest of it.

It must surely have been the old people’s chamber – Joanna’s mother’s great-uncle and his wife – he decided, for it had an air of long use about it. Not that it was dirty – far from it. Joanna must be maintaining Mag Hobson’s exacting standards, Josse thought, for, throughout the house, there was an air of freshness, so that the visitor received the impression that the rushes on the floor had been newly replaced, the dark corners swept clean of dusty cobwebs, the bedclothes taken outside into the sunshine, hung on a line and given a good beating.

He was dozing now, drifting in and out of light sleep, and in a half-waking, half-sleeping vision, he thought he saw Mag, as she must have been in life, a sturdy and vigorous woman, ever on the move, sharp eyes ever observant to the smallest detail. Here she was now, in Josse’s dream, coming up the narrow stair into the bedchamber with a besom in her hand, saying, ‘Joanna! Come along, my girl, no time to lie idle! Just you stir yourself, now, and get this room swept out, you don’t want your company thinking you can’t keep a clean house, do you?’

He saw her stand over the bed, and there was a sudden softening of her stern features as she looked down at Joanna lying in his arms. ‘Aye, that’s right,’ she said gently. ‘You sleep, child. Sleep, and, when you wake, let him bear a little of your burden.’

With a start, Josse opened his eyes. The dream had been so vivid that he was quite surprised to find that he and Joanna were the only occupants of the room.

*   *   *

She finally awoke around mid-morning. Josse had slipped out of bed, collected his clothes and tiptoed out of the chamber and down the stair into the hall below, finding his way to the kitchen to build up the fire and heat water for a sketchy wash. Dressed, he returned to the bedroom to find her awake, lying propped up on an elbow and blinking in the soft sunshine coming through the narrow window.

‘You let me sleep!’ she greeted him, a faint note of accusation in her tone.

‘Aye. You needed your rest.’

She smiled at him, a wide, happy grin. ‘I did indeed. You rode me hard, sir knight, and fair wore me out.’

He came to sit on the edge of the bed, taking her outstretched hands and turning them over to drop a kiss in each palm. She smelt arousingly of sex …

Turning his mind from thoughts of their lovemaking – which took a great deal of effort – he said, ‘I wasn’t referring to that. I meant that, for once, you had no need to sleep with one ear cocked for danger.’ No. That sounded self-congratulatory. ‘That is, there were two of us to listen for untoward sounds, and—’

She was laughing, and he found himself joining in, despite the fact that he was pretty sure she was laughing at him.

‘Ah, yes,’ she said teasingly, ‘I can just picture it. There we are, deep in the throes of our passionate embraces, and suddenly you say, “Hark! What was that, my lady? A rattle of the barn door? A warning whinny from one of the horses?”’

‘Oh, very well,’ he acknowledged. He gave her a rueful look. ‘I only meant to help you.’

‘Oh, Josse, I know that!’ She sat up and flung her arms round him, the violent gesture throwing off the bedcovers so that her upper body was naked. Nuzzling her face up to his cheek, she murmured, ‘Are you coming back to bed?’

‘Joanna, we should be thinking about—’

But she had slid her hand up his thigh to his crotch, and the teasing fingertips were already fluttering up and down his erection. Whatever they ought to have been thinking about flew right out of his mind as, ripping off his clothes, he slid into bed and gave himself up to the delight of Joanna.

*   *   *

Soon after noon, they were up, dressed, and downstairs in the kitchen, where Joanna was preparing food.

Josse was thinking about the Abbess Helewise’s suggestion that he take Joanna to his own house, and hide her away at New Winnowlands until whatever danger Denys de Courtenay represented to her was past. He was musing over how best to put the idea to her when she said, ‘You’ve gone quiet, Josse. What is it?’

He looked up at her. Having decided that, for someone like her, the best approach was probably the direct one, he said, ‘I have a house, Joanna. Not far from here – a short morning’s ride, perhaps, certainly no more – and I have a staff of two. My manservant, Will, and his woman, Ella. Both discreet, trustworthy people, and each most capable at their own skills. My house has been newly renovated and it is comfortable. If you would accept, I can think of no safer place for you. For one thing, you would not be alone – even when I am from home, Will and Ella are always there. For another, nobody would ever think of looking for you in my house, because they don’t know that you know me. Whereas it is more likely known that you had a connection with Mag Hobson, and, in addition, with this house. I fear that it is only a matter of time before the deduction is made that you are here. If you agree, then New Winnow-lands is at your disposal, for as long as you want or need a refuge.’

She had heard him out without interrupting. The silence continued after he had stopped speaking, and he was just beginning to think that he must have offended her when she said, ‘Josse, I thank you. You have thought this out well.’ A slight frown crossed her face, as though she were weighing up the advantages of accepting his offer. Preparing himself for an enquiry or two – she might want to know what sort of accommodation he could offer her, for instance, or whether the house was warm and draught-free, that sort of thing – but, when she finally spoke, her question was quite surprising.

‘A short morning’s ride away, you said?’

‘Aye.’ He could not immediately see the relevance.

‘And – your house – New Winnowlands – is easy to find? It’s not so deep in some rural backwater that nobody knows it is there?’

What on earth was she driving at? Unable to work it out, he answered as honestly as he could. ‘New Winnowlands is, as I said, a modest ride from here. It stands quite close to a reasonably well-used road, and we are visited by the occasional passer-by – in fact, as I recall, we had a tinker push his barrow into the courtyard not a fortnight ago. But, Joanna, what would it matter that we are not hidden away at the back of beyond, when nobody knows you are there?’

‘But somebody determined could find it if they really wanted to?’

He was puzzled by her insistence. ‘Aye, of course, but—’

She came over to him, putting her hands on his shoulders, silencing him with a kiss. When the kiss was finished, she said, ‘I accept, and with deep gratitude. Please, Josse, take me to your house.’

*   *   *

He helped her fasten her pack on to the back of Ninian’s pony – she did not seem to want to take much with her, but perhaps she did not possess many belongings – and, in the early afternoon, they set out.

He rode ahead, leading the pony, and she followed behind. He looked back at her once or twice as they left the secret manor – she had been very particular over leaving it neat and tidy, and over securing it thoroughly – and, each time, he saw that she was craning round in the saddle, eyes fixed to the house as if trying to impress every detail in her memory.

‘We’ll be back,’ he said when, the house now hidden from view, she kicked her mare into a trot and came alongside him. ‘When this time of troubles is over, you can return, if you wish to.’

‘I shall,’ she said quietly. ‘It – this house and the little dwelling in the woods are where I can sense Mag most strongly.’

Her recalled his dream of the morning. ‘Aye,’ he said. ‘That I can understand.’

There was so much he wanted to know, so many questions that kept rising insistently into his head. Tentatively he said, ‘When you were young, did you—’

But she interrupted him. As if she hadn’t even registered the beginning of his own question, she asked one of her own. ‘Do you know what they did with Mag’s body?’

He recalled Sheriff Pelham’s words:
we’d better see about taking this here into town for disposal.
Was there a kind way of telling Joanna that? ‘Er – the Sheriffs men took her back to Tonbridge. She would have been buried there, I think. That was what the Sheriff appeared to have in mind.’ He wondered if, like him, she was imagining some hurried interment in an unmarked grave. ‘We can enquire, if you wish. We can—’