I looked over, noticing the sudden pause. To my surprise, Gwendolyn was—blushing, I would have sworn, hard as that was to imagine.
“Although what?”
She shook her head. “Nothing.”
My curiosity was aroused. “Tell me!”
She looked at me, smiling oddly. “All right, if you insist. One of the legends is that once The Roach—each new one, that is—puts on The Boots, they never take them off again until they die. Not even in bed.” She looked straight ahead. “I happen to know that isn’t true.”
I started laughing uproariously. “Good God, I should hope it isn’t true! Those monstrous hobnailed things? You’d be scarred for life!”
When we both stopped laughing, we were grinning at each other.
“I’m sorry about last night,” she said. “I hadn’t expected to meet The Roach in the Mutt. Then, when he showed up—well, anyway, I’m sorry.”
“There’s no need.”
“No, I am. That must have caused you pain.”
I shrugged. “Yes, it did. But I’m actually not all that fragile. And, in any event, it wasn’t—how shall I put this? It wasn’t the fact itself, it was that it seemed so—”
“Unfeeling.”
“Yes, I suppose.” I fumbled for words. “Gwendolyn, I had no right—that is, I had no claim or reason, or—”
“Of course you didn’t. But that’s all beside the point. This isn’t about rights or claims or reasons. People are not property. But they’re still people, and pain hurts. And I hurt you, and I don’t feel good about it.”
I sighed. “Thank you. But now that I understand the situation, I’m—well, I’m not sure what else you could have done.”
“That’s just what I told that insufferable self-righteous bastard this morning!” she cried. “Would you believe, that pig-headed puritan accused me of using him to put you off?”
I looked uncomfortable. Gwendolyn spotted it right away.
“That’s what he was talking to you about in the courtyard, wasn’t it?” she demanded.
“Well—”
“That slob! That peacock! It’s just like him!”
“It wasn’t actually—”
“That puffed up baboon! I can just see it! The gentleman, His Roachness, informing the other gentleman that he’ll have no part of the scheming wench’s slatternly maneuvers. And you! Probably sat there, nodding sagely—”
“Will you let me get a word in?”
She took a deep breath, let it out slowly, and nodded.
“All right. Tell me what he said.”
As we resumed our journey, I conveyed to her the substance of The Roach’s conversation. Actually, upon Gwendolyn’s insistence, I gave it to her word for word, as best as I remembered.
When I was done, she shook her head.
“He’s flat wrong,” she said forcefully. “Benvenuti, if I—when I—whatever, the day comes I don’t want you around I’ll let you know. Directly, mind, not through some scheme.”
“And?”
“And what?”
“Confounded woman! Do you want me around?”
“I—yes, I suppose. Yes.” She sighed. “When you left the table last night, I felt a great sadness. Well, that’s that, I said to myself.”
A strange sound. I looked over, saw that Gwendolyn was trying to suppress laughter.
“What’s so funny?”
She started laughing aloud. A rich, deep laugh, she had, which warmed my heart even though—I admit—I was a bit irritated.
“Oh, you were such the proper gentleman about it all! The stiff lip, the straight back. God, what an upbringing you must have had!”
Her laughter was so infectious that I could not help joining in. “My uncles have firm opinions on this matter, which they instilled in me at an early age. ‘You can’t get through life without playing the fool now and then,’ they say, ‘but that’s no reason to audition for the part.'”
We started our horses up again and rode along in a companionable silence.
“You never speak of your father and mother,” she said, some time later.
“My father is not known. My mother never disclosed his identity, and she died in childbirth. So I was raised by her brothers. The bar sinister figures frequently and prominently in my family tree—my branch of the clan, that is, the most of the Sfondrati-Piccolominis are quite the proper sorts—so no issue was made of it.”
More silence followed, until I screwed up my courage. I reined in my horse again. Gwendolyn stopped.