Forget how the land rose to meet him when he touched her.
Ah…how foolish he had been.
“Jane,” said Noah softly. “Jane Orr.”
Thornton cursed himself and his jealousy, and cursed the night the sixteen-year-old Noah had first come to his room. Better ignorance of her, than knowing her, and knowing he could never have her love.
“Catling,” he said. “Please go to the innkeeper’s wife, and ask her for a bowl of warm water, with some mint steeped in it, and bring it to me. Your mother’s back needs to be washed.”
Catling nodded, rose, and left the room.
“I find it most strange,” Thornton said, “that I should issue such a request to a child only just turned a year old and watch her walk from this room as might a five- or six-year-old child. Woburn gossips, Noah, about what could have bred such a girl on you.”
“She had a most magical and powerful father,” Noah said. Her voice was very soft, and she still sat so that he could see little of her save her back and shoulders.
“Most apparently,” Thornton said. He hesitated, then added, “Who you love greatly…”
She twisted about to look him in the eye. “What do you want to hear, John?”
He sighed. “I do not want to hear…oh, Noah, I do not know what I want to hear.” Hesitating, he reached out a hand, slipping it inside her open bodice, caressing her breasts and belly.
“Don’t, John,” Noah said. “What do you want? To force such a sorely wounded woman to your will?”
He hissed, pulling his hand sharply away from her. “Where was your magical and powerful lover then, when you were so cruelly injured? Why cleave to him so faithfully, when it is I here with you now, and not he? Why love him so greatly, when it is apparent he has deserted you and your child?”
“You cannot understand,” Noah said, then stopped and began again. “I’m sorry for what I said. I was too tart.”
He gave a hollow laugh. “You have made it plain enough to me that what we once had is now gone, Noah. But as you see, I am a weak man.”
Noah took one of his hands in hers, waiting until it had relaxed before speaking again. “John, you promised to aid me if I should need it. Will you do so?”
Thornton bit back his almost instinctive response: Your lover is not here to aid you now. He sighed. “Aye, of course.”
“Accompany us to London, for we have sore need of your care. But—”
“Ah, that ‘but’.”
“Once we have arrived, then leave me, John. Where I go, you cannot follow.”
“You go to your lover.”
She gave a small, sad smile. “I wish that were so, but, no, I do not go to him. He is lost to me for a long time, I think.”
“I will accompany you to London, then, where I shall leave you. Noah…”
“I know,” she said, and gave his hand a squeeze.
“I am lost in you, Noah. I was lost that first night you came to me. Lost in you…”
Seven
Luton, Bedfordshire to Langley House, Hertfordshire
The next day at mid-morning they set out from Luton. Noah looked much better for sleeping well, and she had enjoyed the good food provided by the innkeeper’s wife. She appeared fit enough to ride, so Catling rode behind Thornton, while Noah kept her own horse. It was a fine day, although there was a strong westerly wind blowing, and for the most part Thornton let his worries abate. Noah’s back had looked much better in the morning, and he chose to believe that she was, indeed, visiting her friend Jane Orr in London, so that she might enjoy the festivities surrounding the king’s restoration.
Noah had meant to travel to London via Watford today, but Thornton persuaded her to a slightly different plan. He meant to stay this night with friends who lived close to the manor of Bushey Park, just north-east of Watford. Thomas and Leila Thanet would provide much more comfortable accommodation than a crowded public inn and, Thornton argued, better care for Noah should she need it.
Noah had not been sure of Thornton’s suggestion—how would John explain both her and Catling?—but acquiesced after only a short hesitation. Thornton had argued that it would be safer for her and Catling if they stayed at the Thanets’ Langley House, and to this Noah had no counter.
The way from Luton to the Watford region was gentle and easy. They passed between ranges of hills on either side during the morning and, in the early afternoon, stopped in the fields of St Albans, where they rested and partook of some food they carried with them.
“What shall you say to the Thanets about myself and Catling?” Noah asked as they stood up from their picnic, brushing down their clothes from the grass seeds and flowers which clung to them.
John Thornton shrugged slightly. “That you chose to accompany me to London to see your friend Jane Orr,” he said. “Perhaps following the death of your husband.” He looked significantly at Catling.
“I would prefer that you told them the truth,” said Noah.
“What? That you are the scandalous companion of Lady Anne that so much of the county has gossiped about?”
Noah flushed, and Thornton fought away a twinge of guilt.
“Noah,” he said, “it is best not to tell them all the truth. We need not speak of a deceased husband if you so wish—the Thanets shall merely assume it, and assume Catling is his child.”
Noah hesitated a moment longer, then nodded. Thornton aided her to her horse, lifted Catling to his own, and then himself mounted, leading the way back to the road and the way south.
From the fields of St Albans it was but a two-hour ride at a sedate walk to where the Thanets lived in their large red brick house. Thornton told Noah and Catling that Thomas’ great-grandfather had been a successful merchant during Queen Elizabeth’s later years. With the riches he’d made from his business he’d purchased an estate just to the north of Bushey Park, and built Langley House in the showy Elizabethan style. There the Thanets settled, selling their business and engaging, over the next two or three generations, in a gradual process of gentrification.
“Thomas’ father represented the county in the House of Commons,” Thornton said as they turned their mounts down the long drive towards the house. “Now Thomas hopes to do the same in Charles II’s new Parliament.”
“It shall be a grand new age,” Noah said, but something in her voice made Thornton look at her sharply.
“You don’t think so,” he said.
She gave a slight shrug. “So much can always go wrong.”
Thornton grunted. “You are a pessimist, indeed.”
“Indeed,” she said, and Thornton would have challenged her on that had not the front doors of the house opened that instant to reveal a well-dressed man and woman, presumably the Thanets, hurrying to meet the man, woman and child approaching the house.
“John!” Thomas Thanet exclaimed, catching at the reins of Thornton’s horse as Thornton dismounted. They shook hands enthusiastically, then Thornton stepped forward and kissed Leila Thanet’s hand. “I am so happy to see you well,” he said, glancing at her rounded six-month belly.
Flustered, Leila stepped back from Thornton and looked to Noah, as well as to the little girl still sitting on Thornton’s horse.
“John,” she said, her smile broadening, “you did not tell us you were bringing your new wife with you! What a wonderful surprise.” She looked over to Noah, who was staring at Leila with a shocked expression. “Welcome, my dear! You cannot know how happy we are to know that John has found his soul mate at last!”
Before Noah could open her mouth to protest, Thornton said, “She is my life, Leila. I cannot imagine existing without her.”
Noah was furious. She stood in the centre of the large and well appointed bedchamber to which Leila had led them (Catling, who Thornton had explained was Noah’s child from a previous marriage, had been taken to meet the Thanets’ children), her face flushed and her posture stiff.
“You did not tell me you had married your Sarah!”
“I thought you would be pleased for me.”
“I am! I am! But I would not have stayed with you in the manner I did if I had known you had married…and now the Thanets think I am your wife, and—”
“And if you tell them not, after having allowed Leila to show us to this private chamber, what shall she think? That I am disporting myself with some strumpet from Watford? Or a whore I picked up along the roadway?”
“This,” Noah waved her hand at the bed which took up almost half of the entire space of the chamber, “is a lie!”