each other as well. You must move to another room. One with a proper ceiling.'
You did not need to say it twice with Jane. The gratitude for forgiveness was as clear in her sparkling eyes as it was absent from her words.
'Another version of me,' she said, 'would point out that a fine handkerchief like this was never meant to be used at all, never mind on a snot-nosed girl.'
'How many versions of you are there?' asked Gresham.
'Rather too many for comfort,' Jane replied. 'But isn't that true of everyone?'
It was certainly true of Essex, and of George, now Gresham came to think of it. And perhaps of Gresham himself.
'Well,' he said after a moment, 'let that stupid piece of cloth be in place of my thanks, the words I can't speak.'
She smiled at him and held the handkerchief tight.
'One of the other versions — the one who fights and argues a lot — ought to point out that it isn't usually this way round,' she said, still feeling her way. He was seeing a vivacious, fun creature now, someone who could enjoy the fencing dalliance of witty conversation, someone whose brain moved as quickly as her words. 'The lady gives her knight her favour, which he then wears in his helmet.'
'I see what you mean,' said Gresham. 'It does bring it down to earth a bit if the knight gives his lady a soiled handkerchief to wear in her nose.'
'Which I shall treasure,' she said, and he found himself strangely touched. 'As well as use to wipe my nose on.' And, as elegantly as one can in the confines of a small room, she did so.
Suddenly he made his mind up. For the first time in months he felt a real certainty in his head. He took one of the rings off his finger, an exquisite ruby set in a cluster of small but perfect diamonds.
'Please take this,' he said. 'You risked your life to come to Scotland. You saved my life in Ireland, and may have saved it again by having the courage to tell me what I didn't want to hear, and still don't. I would like you to accept this, as my gift, in place of the words I can't find.' He held out his hand. The ring glittered in his fingers, catching the shaft of light that came in through the unshuttered window.
The girl became very still.
'It's too much,' she said finally. 'I'd feel a traitor myself if I took something so valuable in exchange for doing what I wanted to do, what I decided to do freely and of my own will.'
Gresham was not discomfited. 'It's a thing of rare beauty, isn't it?' he said. 'Let me tell you its history. It was given to me by a very great Court lady, a widow as it happens. We comforted each other after her husband died, and I was still recovering from wounds. In a stupid way I thought there was something real and true between us. She gave me that ring one night, and the next day wrote to say our relationship was ended. She used it to buy me off. It was her gesture to her own conscience. And before you ask,' he went on, 'I don't want you to have it because I wish to salve my own conscience, or because I'm hurling you out onto the street, or to buy you off. I want you to have it because it's a thing of rare beauty. Forgive me for a terrible cliche, but it deserves to be paired with another thing of rare beauty. And because I've kept it all these years as a reminder of human perfidy and betrayal, it needs to be cleansed by being given to someone who's stayed loyal, and instead of betraying me shown me the others who wished to do so. Please take it.'
Hesitantly she reached forward. He felt the momentary warm brush of her fingers against his.
'You know I won't wear it,' she said, 'but you won't be offended?'
'Not offended,' he said, 'but tell me why you won't wear it?'
'Emeralds are for sadness,' she said, 'pearls are for death, and sapphires are the lazy stones, the easy ones. Blue matches eyes and dresses. Diamonds are for show. But a ruby… a ruby is for confidence. A ruby is a great, red, warm glow that says here I am and this is what I am. It's alive. It's the blood, it's the heartbeat. You know someone's alive when they bleed. A ruby shows life. A ruby matches what people feel. You started wearing that ring soon after you took me in. It summed up your confidence to me. Will it mind being wrapped in a handkerchief and hidden under a floorboard?'
Gresham smiled. 'I shouldn't think it'll mind. But not the floorboard in this room. The floorboard in the red room. I'd like you to move there.'
'But the red room is one of the grandest bedchambers in the house.' There was a challenge in her eyes. He felt slightly offended.
'I won't charge you for the room,' he said. 'It has a key and a lock. I'm not asking for — favours. You run this House. You're its mistress. It's only fitting I should recognise that fact and give you a room that's in keeping with what you do.'
'Why aren't you asking for favours?' she said, her chin up. He could see a pulse beating in the long sweep of her neck. It was a rather beautiful neck, he could not help but notice. Smooth, clean, clear skin. He began to wish Mannion was there. Damn the man for sending him alone! It was suddenly warm in the room. Didn't the window work?
'Because you're my ward!' he said. 'I took you in as a child. I'm like a parent! I have a duty towards you, a responsibility. What sort of man is it who has a power over a woman that has nothing to do with mutual attraction or consent, and uses — abuses — that power to lure her into bed? It'd be like a father bedding his daughter!'
'Parents realise when their child has grown up,' she answered vehemently. 'Do you think you're the only one with power? I've got power too, haven't I?. The power to decide who I love. What if instead of you taking, I choose to give? What if as a wild little girl I fell in love with you for all the wrong reasons, because you were so brave and so handsome and you came out of nowhere like the knight in shining armour in the fairy tale and took me off to a magic land? Then ignored me? Ignored me so I started to hate you, thought you hated me, but found after all that I still loved you? And fended off awful men with greasy hands and fat promises and leery eyes because I'd decided long ago that if I couldn't have you I didn't want anybody? That I had to give in to the inevitable?'
'The inevitable?' answered Gresham. He felt like a sailor surrounded by a storm that had come suddenly and with incredible violence, but which in some way was not sinking the ship.
'That I was in love with this irritating, distant, impossible, patronising, stupid, infuriating man, whether I liked it or not. You're not abusing your power! If you did what I want you to do, you'd be listening to me for the first time in your life!'
She moved forward, until there was less than an inch between them. He felt her breath on his face, warm, sweet-smelling.
'I'll take and treasure your ring. But will you give me something I need? Will you see me as a woman and not as a child?'
The world seemed to implode on him. They fell onto the bed in a tangle of limbs and he gave up any sense of control.
Afterwards, when all was quiet and even their breathing had returned to normal, she turned her head towards him.
'My Lord,' she said, 'please. No torturings or agonising. I gave to you and took from you nothing I didn't wish to give and to receive. Nothing will change. I'll move into any chamber you wish except your own. I'll visit you at night, but leave by morning, if you so wish, or not visit at all if that's your choice.'
She had been a virgin. How much had he hurt her? He did not wish to hurt her.
'Marriage,' he mumbled. 'I must marry you.'
'Nonsense,' she said. Deftly she climbed off the bed, rearranged her clothing, put on the items they had torn off so recently. 'No true friend of yours, no one who knows you at all, would imagine you were ready for that. Did you think I wanted to trap you?'
He recognised that at the back of his mind, even as he had fallen on the bed with her, there had been exactly that fear.
'My Lord,' she said, and was prim and courteous now, 'what's happened is between us. And only us. With your permission, I propose to make it both secret and private.'
He sat on the edge of the bed.
'Keep anything from the servants?' he said. He was not at his most articulate.
'My Lord,' she said almost pityingly. 'The servants have had us sharing a bed these two years past, whatever the truth might have been. And been loyal enough to keep the news to themselves. It would be better if you left first,' she said, matter-of-factly. 'And if the right buttons were in the right loops on your doublet.'
