She was shaking her head, and he was surprised to see tears in her eyes. ‘I’m sorry, Josse!’ she cried, ‘I’m so sorry! I didn’t mean to hurt you, not when you’ve risked so much and done so much for me!’
He slackened his grip. ‘It’s all right, Joanna.’ He couldn’t prevent the coldness in his voice.
‘But it’s not all right!’ she protested. ‘You’re probably thinking I only slept with you to make you help me.’
It was exactly what he was thinking. He made no reply.
She was staring up at him. ‘You have to believe me when I say that’s not true,’ she said quietly. ‘I’ve had enough of sex for reasons of manipulation. I was raped, I was made to give myself to a husband I loathed and I wouldn’t even have considered bedding you as a means to any end at all. Even the safety of my son.’ She paused. ‘I wanted you, Josse,’ she went on softly. ‘Mag told me that one day I’d know what lovemaking really was and when I first met you, I felt the spark ignite. You gave me such joy, Josse. Such deep, wonderful pleasure.’ She reached out her hand and lightly touched his cheek. ‘However it ends between us, never forget that.’
Her hand fell.
For a moment, they stood facing one another. Then he reached out to brush the tears from her cheeks, and, holding her face in his hands, bent to kiss her very gently on the lips.
‘Very well,’ he said.
A swift smile crossed her face, there and gone. ‘Very well?’
‘I forgive you for not trusting me. And I’m honoured to have been the one who showed you what love could be.’
‘I-’ she began. Then she shook her head.
‘What?’
She met his eyes. ‘You speak of love, but I have to tell you that I cannot stay. Which is awkward, since you haven’t suggested I should.’
He took a deep breath. ‘Joanna, to meet your honesty with plain speaking of my own, it hadn’t occurred to me that you would stay. If you wish it, however, then I will marry you.’ That didn’t sound quite right. ‘I mean, I would be honoured if you would become my wife.’
There. It was said. He waited while she prepared her answer, and it seemed that his entire life hung in the balance.
She had half turned from him. Now, turning back to face him, she said, ‘Josse, my dearest love, I do not wish to marry. I have been married and, although I would not dream of speaking of you in the same breath as my late and unlamented husband, marriage is not a state which recommends itself to me. Not in the least.’
‘But-’
She smiled at him now, wholeheartedly, her face full of humour. ‘Sweetest, do not try to persuade me too hard, when I know full well that you are scarcely more keen to be married than I am.’
Was she right? He shook his head, not knowing how he felt.
‘Marriage is no good for women,’ she was saying. ‘At least, that’s what I think. I don’t want to be at a man’s beck and call, be his possession, bought and paid for, with no more say in my own destiny than one of his cows or his sheep.’
‘But-’
‘Oh, don’t interrupt, Josse — I’m telling you how I see it, which is, as far as I’m concerned, all that matters. No. I prefer to make my own way, answer to none but myself.’
‘And how do you propose to live?’ he asked.
She threw her head back. ‘I shall make out very well,’ she declared. ‘I have skills which are ever in demand.’
‘The skills Mag taught you?’
‘Yes. I know only a tiny part of all there is to know — it takes a lifetime, and Mag and I had so few months together. But there are others such as she. And I know where to find them. They will be willing to teach me, because of Mag.’
‘I see.’
She smiled again. ‘No, I don’t think you do. But it doesn’t matter.’
‘And where will you live?’
Her face lit with sudden radiance. ‘In the little manor house, when I’m not staying down in Mag’s shack in the woods.’
‘The manor house?’
‘Yes. It’s mine.’
‘But it can’t be, it belonged to…’
‘To my mother’s great-uncle and aunt, yes. They left it to my mother and, as my mother’s only surviving child, now it has come to me.’
He said, for want of anything else, ‘You can’t live in a place like that all on your own!’
And she said simply, ‘Yes I can.’
He turned away from her, returning to his chair to slump down, suddenly exhausted.
She followed him.
‘Poor Josse,’ she said, gently stroking the thick hair off his forehead, ‘so much to put up with. I will fetch food and drink for us in a little while, I promise — Ella has prepared what she says is your favourite meal — but first, there is one more thing I must ask of you.’
He looked up at her, managing a half-smile. ‘Why stop at one?’
She answered his smile. ‘I know, I’m sorry. But this isn’t for me, it’s for Ninian.’
‘Ask away.’
She crouched beside him. ‘The life I outlined is perfect, for me. It is exactly what I want. But it’s not right for him — I can’t take the decision to remove him from the mainstream of life and turn him into a wise woman’s son, condemned for ever to live on the fringes of life. Not when I know who he really is. Can I?’
‘No,’ he acknowledged. ‘I do see what you mean.’
‘Had Thorald lived,’ she went on, ‘which I thank God he didn’t — since we’re to trust each other with all our secrets, Josse, I ought to tell you that it was I who put the stone in his horse’s shoe that morning, in the fervent hope that it would result in a fatal trip, which happily it did — where was I? Oh, yes. Had Thorald lived, then Ninian would have been sent as page to join some other knightly household, and, in time, he would have become a squire. What I’m asking-’ She paused, and he saw tears in her eyes again. Blinking them back, she said, ‘Will you arrange that for Ninian? Put him into a good house somewhere, make sure he grows up as he should?’
Josse reached out and took her hands. ‘You will lose him,’ he said gently. ‘You do realise, don’t you?’
She nodded, the tears falling unchecked down her face.
‘Once he’s a squire, the next step will be to win his spurs,’ Josse went on. ‘He’ll be caught up in his own life, Joanna. A good life — and I ought to know — but one so different from yours that I doubt he’ll be able to bridge the gap.’
‘I know,’ she sobbed. ‘But it’s what he was born to. It would be a great sin for me to rob him of it, just to keep him with me.’ She raised her wet eyes to his. ‘Wouldn’t it?’
His heart breaking for her, slowly he nodded.
‘Will you do it?’ she persisted. ‘Will you give me your word to do your best for him?’
Reaching down, he lifted her up until she was kneeling before him. Then he wrapped his arms round her, and, pulling her face down against the bare skin of his neck so that he felt the moisture of her tears, he said, ‘Aye, Joanna. I promise.’
* * *
Later, when she was calm again, she did as she had said, and fetched the meal which Ella had prepared for them. But neither had much appetite.
She said anxiously, ‘Is your arm paining you? Is that why you don’t eat?’
‘No, the arm’s all right. I’m sorry, Joanna. The food is good, but I’m not hungry.’
She pushed a chicken leg around her plate, holding it delicately between finger and thumb. ‘Neither am I.’
‘We have come to grave decisions today, Joanna,’ he said. ‘Decisions which will affect both of us, for the rest of our lives.’
‘Yes,’ she murmured.
He watched her. Slowly, as if aware of his scrutiny, she raised her eyes and met his. Wordlessly he opened his arms, and she got up and hurried over to him. He sat her down on his lap, cradling her to him.
‘That’s nice,’ she murmured, as he began to stroke her back. ‘I had wondered if, having decided we are not to stay together, that might mean we could not bed one another again. But-’