At his approach, Aphra disappeared with a diplomacy Etta did not appreciate. Even so, she retained a grain of satisfaction from knowing that, since supper last evening, she now knew much more about him than he had so far discovered about her. And she would have kept it so, had he not insisted on trying to redress the balance. ‘Tell me about yourself, mistress,’ he said, walking beside her.
She looked away into the distance where high shaped hedges enclosed them. ‘I don’t talk about myself to order,’ she said, ‘as some do.’
‘Not even to the man you’ll wed?’
‘If the man I’m being obliged to wed could not bestir himself to find out more before he offered for me, then I’ll be damned if I’ll spell out my life story for his pleasure. Most men would have shown some interest before they made an offer.’
‘I showed an interest, mistress,’ he said, laughing. ‘Ask your parents.’
‘Then you know all you need to know, my lord. There is no more.’
‘I see. Then you are content for me to find out for myself?’
‘No, I am far from content. I thought you knew that, too.’
‘Well, well,’ he said. ‘Most intriguing. Your parents told me you were fluent in French, Italian and Spanish. Is that what you mean by no more?’
‘Don’t patronise me, if you please. I’m not a child to recite what I have learnt for the benefit of my elders. Women seldom receive any credit for their learning, at the best of times, and it was not at my father’s request that I joined my brothers in the schoolroom. It was my wish to find out if I could match the Princess Elizabeth’s abilities. But so far I have not. I don’t have her Latin and Greek yet, nor her Welsh. And I don’t suppose I play on the virginal as well as she does, or dance. I doubt if I shall ever know now, shall I, my lord?’
He refused to rise to the bait. ‘I find that quite remarkable,’ he said. ‘It’s a pity, in a way, that you never had the chance to meet Lady Jane Grey. She was a scholar, too. Unlike her two sisters. They’re feather-brained to a degree. Jane didn’t dance well, though, and I’m sure you do.’
‘Again, I’m hardly likely to dance before the court unless I can...’
‘Go there, yes, Henrietta, I think I have the message now, I thank you. I can see we may be plucking on that one string until it breaks.’
‘Yes,’ she said, stonily. ‘I intend to.’
‘So how many children shall we have, mistress? Have you thought about that yet?’
‘Oh, for pity’s sake!’ she cried, turning her head to avoid seeing his grin. They walked on in silence until Etta slowed and stopped, realising that her coldness was not going to help matters, yet it was the only defence she had.
‘Etta?’ he said. ‘Look at me. Can we be friends now as we once were? Just as a start? It will make things easier for both of us if we can talk about this.’
Turning to face him, she tried hard to find the same sincerity he had shown before he’d revealed his conspiracy to influence her decision. Her long silence signified the mental conflict still raging in her mind until finally she sighed with a slight shake of her head. ‘As for being friends, my lord...that counts for little, doesn’t it, when my future has been decided for me? I thought at one time that we could be friends, but you have lost ground since then and I shall need some persuading that your integrity is what I thought it was. Don’t ask from me any more than I can give, if you please. I have little choice, it seems, about becoming your wife, but you can hardly lay the blame at my door if you find you’ve bitten off more than you can chew. I am my father’s daughter and I am being forced into this situation.’
‘It was never my intent to forfeit your trust, Henrietta. Perhaps my determination to have you for my own, before anyone else, blinded me to the way it might be seen as underhand. But nor do I believe for one moment that I’ve taken on more than I can handle.’
Etta slid a hand to her cheek to cool it, knowing that he referred to her incivility. ‘I have not been used to having a man other than my father telling me what I must do, sir. It will go hard with me. And you, too.’
‘I think I know that, mistress, without you telling me.’
‘But you’ve had women, I suppose? All of them compliant?’
‘Yes,’ he admitted. ‘I’ve had women, but you are the first I’ve ever offered marriage to.’ His hand moved through the shadows to touch her brow, then to trace a line down her cheek, his thumb brushing against her lips, feeling her tremble.
They parted slightly as something told her to stand firm, not to relent against this tender invasion, but the coldness she tried to summon was slow in coming and now the messages she was sending were the wrong ones. Etta knew how well he would be able to decode them. Placing a warning hand on his shoulder, she tried to hold him away, but it was too late and, before any words would come to her aid, she was being held against him with her face slanted across his.
The warmth of his mouth blanked her mind to everything except the thrilling sensation, and no matter that he’d had women before her, she believed in that moment that she was indeed the only one he had ever wished to marry. For those unfettered moments of honesty between them, each revealed to the other that desire would rise above all other conflicts, with or without their permission, for his kiss was persuasive. Had she not retained that indignation and hurt about being manipulated, she might have given in to the moment, the thrill, the newness of surrender. But she pulled away, moving back into the shadow of the hedge to hide her confusion, one hand covering her mouth. ‘No,’ she whispered, ‘this is not...’
‘Listen to me, Etta,’ he said, easing her back to him. ‘This is what we want. It’s what we wanted from that first meeting. We both know it. But it doesn’t mean your surrender if you don’t want it to. You can fight me until you tire of fighting, but from time to time, sweetheart, we can indulge in a truce without shame to either of us. We shall be married within the week and think what a waste that would be if we were to spend our wedding night in useless animosities. That would be pointless. Is that what you intended?’
‘It’s my only weapon,’ she said, looking away into the dimness.
‘What? How can you say so, woman? You of the thousand pinpricks.’
‘That’s an admission, coming from you,’ she said.
‘Do your worst, Etta. I can handle you, but don’t stifle what could be an endless capacity for loving, just to try to hurt me. Our new Queen may do as she pleases about marrying, but you don’t have to emulate her in that, too. Be yourself.’
‘Is this meant to...?’
‘Oh, I know what you’re thinking, that I want a submissive wife in all things. But, no, that’s not what we’re talking about, is it? I’m talking about you denying yourself to