She looked at him with eyes wide open – lustrous eyes of sapphire in a face of ivory. A faint smile parted her lips, the reflection of the thought in her mind that had she, indeed, been eager for his death she would not be with him at this moment; had she desired it, how easy would her course have been.
“You do me wrong to bid me hope for that,” she answered him, her tones level. “I do not wish the death of any man, unless…” She paused; her truthfulness urged her too far.
“Unless?” said he, brows raised, polite interest on his face.
“Unless it be His Grace of Monmouth.”
He considered her with suddenly narrowed eyes. “You have not by chance sought me to talk politics?” said he. “Or…” and he suddenly caught his breath, his nostrils dilating with rage at the bare thought that leapt into his mind. Had Monmouth, the notorious libertine, been to Lupton House and persecuted her with his addresses? “Is it that you are acquainted with His Grace?” he asked.
“I have never spoken to him!” she answered, with no suspicion of what was in his thoughts.
In his relief he laughed, remembering now that Monmouth’s affairs were too absorbing just at present to leave him room for dalliance.
“But you are standing,” said he, and he advanced a chair. “I deplore that I have no better hospitality to offer you. I doubt if I ever shall again. I am told that Albemarle did me the honour to stable his knackers in my hall at Zoyland.”
She took the chair he offered her, sinking to it like one physically weary, a thing he was quick to notice. He watched her, his body eager, his soul trammelling it with a steely restraint. “Tell me, now,” said he, “in what you need me.”
She was silent a moment, pondering, hesitation and confusion seeming to envelop her. A pink flush rose to colour the beautiful pillar of neck and overspread the delicate half-averted face. He watched it, wondering.
“How long,” she asked him, her whole intent at present being to delay him and gain time. “How long have you been in Bridgwater?”
“Two hours at most,” said he.
“Two hours! And yet you never came to… to me. I heard of your presence, and I feared you might intend to abstain from seeking me.”
He almost held his breath while she spoke, caught in amazement. He was standing close beside her chair, his right hand rested upon its tall back.
“Did you so intend?” she asked him.
“I told you even now,” he answered with hard-won calm, “that I had made you a sort of promise.”
“I … I would not have you keep it,” she murmured. She heard his sharply indrawn breath, felt him leaning over her, and was filled with an unaccountable fear.
“Was it to tell me this you came?” he asked her, his voice reduced to a whisper.
“No… yes,” she answered, an agony in her mind, which groped for some means to keep him by her side until his danger should be overpast. That much she owed him in honour if in nothing else.
“No – yes?” he echoed, and he had drawn himself erect again. “What is’t you mean, Ruth?”
“I mean that it was that, yet not quite only that.”
“Ah!” Disappointment vibrated faintly in his clamation. “What else?”
“I would have you abandon Monmouth’s following,” she told him.
He stared a moment, moved away and round where he could confront her. The flush had now faded from her face. This he observed and the heave of her bosom in its low bodice. He knit his brows, perplexed. Here was surely more than at first might seem.
“Why so?” he asked.
“For your own safety’s sake,” she answered him.
“You are oddly concerned for that, Ruth.”
“Concerned – not oddly.” She paused an instant, swallowed hard, and then continued. “I am concerned too for your honour, and there is no honour in following his banner. He has crowned himself King, and so proved himself a self-seeker who came dissembled as the champion of a cause that he might delude poor ignorant folk into flocking to his standard and helping him to his ambitious ends.”
“You are wondrously well schooled,” said he. “Whose teachings do you recite me? Sir Rowland Blake’s?”
At another time the sneer might have cut her. At the moment she was too intent upon gaining time. The means to it mattered little. The more she talked to no purpose, the more at random was their discourse, the better would her ends be served.
“Sir Rowland Blake?” she cried. “What is he to me?”
“Ah, what? Let me set you the question rather.”
“Less than nothing,” she assured him, and for some moments afterwards it was this Sir Rowland who served them as a topic for their odd interview. On the overmantel the pulse of time beat on from a little wooden clock. His eyes strayed to it; it marked the three-quarters. He bethought him suddenly of his engagement. Trenchard, below-stairs, supremely indifferent whether Wilding went to Newlington’s or not, smoked on, entirely unconcerned by the flight of time.
“Mistress,” said Wilding suddenly, “you have not yet told me in what you seek my service. Indeed, we seem to have talked to little purpose. My time is very short.”
“Where are you going?” she asked him, and fearfully she shot a sidelong glance at the timepiece. It was still too soon, by at least five minutes.
He smiled, but his smile was singular. He began to suspect at last that her only purpose – to what end he could not guess – was to detain him.
“`Tis a singularly sudden interest in my doings, this,” said he quietly. “What is’t you seek of me?” He reached for the hat he had cast upon the table when they had entered. “Tell me briefly. I may stay no longer.”
She rose, her agitation suddenly increasing, afraid that after all he would escape her. “Where are you going?” she asked. “Answer me that, and I will tell you why I came.”
“I am to sup at Mr. Newlington’s in His Majesty’s company.
“His Majesty’s?”
“King Monmouth’s,” he explained impatiently. “Come, Ruth. Already I am late.”
“If I were to ask you not to go,” she said slowly, and she held out her hands to him, her glance most piteous – and that was not acting – as she raised it to meet his own, “would you not stay to pleasure me?”
He considered her from under frowning eyes. “Ruth,” he said, and he took her hands, “there is here something that I do not understand. What is’t you mean?”
“Promise me that you will not go to Newlington’s, and I will tell you.”
“But what has Newlington to do with… ? Nay, I am pledged already to go.”
She drew closer to him, her hands upon his shoulders. “Yet if I ask you – I, your wife?” she pleaded, and almost won him to her will.
But suddenly he remembered another occasion on which, for purposes of her own, she had so pleaded. He laughed softly, mockingly.
“Do you woo me, Ruth, who, when I wooed you, would have none of me?”
She drew back from him, crimsoning. “I think I had better go,” said she. “You have nothing but mockery for me. It was ever so. Who knows?” she sighed as she took up her mantle. “Had you but observed more gentle ways, you… you…” She paused, needing to say no more. “Good-night!” she ended, and made shift to leave. He watched her, deeply mystified. She had gained the door when suddenly he moved.
“Wait!” he cried. She paused, and turned to look over her shoulder, her hand apparently upon the latch. “You shall not go until you have told me why you besought me to keep away from Newlington’s. What is it?” he asked, and paused suddenly, a flood of light breaking in upon his mind. “Is there some treachery afoot?” he asked her, and his eye went wildly to the clock. A harsh, grating sound rang through the room. “What are you doing?” he cried. “Why have you locked the door?” She was tugging and fumbling desperately to extract the key, her hands all clumsy in her nervous haste. He leapt at her, but in that moment the key came away in her hand. She wheeled round to face him, erect, defiant almost.
“Here is some devilry!” he cried. “Give me that key.”
He had no need for further questions. Here was a proof more eloquent than words to his ready wit. Sir Rowland or Richard, or both, were in some plot for the Duke’s ruin – perhaps assassination. Had not her very words shown that she herself was out of all sympathy with Monmouth? He was out of sympathy himself. But not to the extent of standing by to see his throat cut. She would have the plot succeed – whatever it might be and yet that he himself be spared. There his thoughts paused; but only for a moment. He saw suddenly in this, not a proof of concern born of love but of duty towards him who had imperilled himself once – and for all time, indeed – that he might save her brother and Sir Rowland.