The comb resumed its long caress. “What did you say to him?”
No words came back to her, only the memory of Sebastian’s eyes, blue as flame as they stared into her own. He had been angry at one point, angry enough to make her flinch to see it, but she had not feared him. However wise fearing him might be, she could not seem to do it.
“Beatrice, what did you say to him?”
“I cannot remember.” Her mind emptied of everything but brilliant blue eyes.
“What did he say to you?”
“He talked about Sir George.” Talked? He had shouted at her. And still she had not feared him.
“And how did you reply?” Ceci’s steady combing never faltered, her voice as calm as if they discussed the weather.
“I told him I will not sin for any man’s pleasure.” Or displeasure. Within days of Thomas’s death, Sir George Conyers had sent her a note, entreating her to meet him. She had sent that note, and the others that followed, back to him, unanswered. She was done with him and everything he had meant in her life.
“What did he say to that?” Ceci asked as calmly as before, her voice betraying nothing other than a passionless interest. How easy it was to answer someone who seemed unlikely to be upset by anything one said.
Was that the secret of Ceci’s skill as a listener? That nothing said disturbed or agitated her? Talking to her was like confession but without the burden of remorse or the price of penance. Everything Beatrice had kept to herself pressed against her, a heavy weight, so heavy she did not know how to begin unloading it. But Ceci would know, and Ceci would help her. She knew that as certainly as she knew the sun would rise in the morning, the first good thing she had trusted since her marriage.
“He said I was changed.” She leaned forward, putting her face in her uplifted hands. Through her fingers, she said, “We shall be wed in no more than a month. How shall we learn not to quarrel in that time?”
“I think the wedding will not happen until Michaelmas, Beatrice,” Ceci said.
Beatrice straightened. “The end of September? Why so long?” Despite knowing that she and Sebastian needed time to find a way to rub along comfortably, she did not want to have to wait at all, much less wait two months. She was not free, would never be free, and wanted no time to begin to imagine what it would like to be unmarried.
“You are newly widowed. Enough time must pass to show you are not with child.”
Beatrice whirled on the stool to face Ceci. “You know I am not with child,” she said, her heart fluttering. It was hard to speak of her childlessness.
“I do—”
“And Sebastian will know as soon he lies with me.” If he lies with me. She pushed the thought away, refusing it room in her mind.
“—but the world must know,” Ceci said. “You know as well as I that the show of truth is more valuable than the truth itself.” She gripped Beatrice’s shoulders and shook her gently. “If the truth alone mattered, you could join Sebastian at Benbury tomorrow.”
“I cannot wait so long,” Beatrice whispered.
“Are you so eager?” Ceci asked, her eyebrows lifting.
“Eager? No, I am no more eager to be Sebastian’s wife than a condemned man is for the hangman. But I would rather not wait, day in and day out, for the rope.”
“It will not be so ill, Beatrice, I swear it.”
“I cannot keep a still tongue in my head when I am with him! I carp and complain as no proper wife should ever do. He will lesson me, Ceci, if not with a switch, then with the flat of his hand, and I do not know that I can endure any more of it. What shall I do?”
“Be still, dearling, hush.” Ceci knelt and, setting the comb aside, took Beatrice’s hands in her own, squeezing them gently. “However angry Sebastian may be with you—and he is angry, though I think him a fool for it—he is also a good and kind man. He is not Thomas Manners and he will not use you as Manners did.”
“How can you know that? How?”
“How can you not? Sebastian does not beat his horses or his hounds. Why should he beat his wife?”
There was truth in what Ceci said. Sebastian was not given to harming those in his care, more than could ever have been said of Thomas Manners. Seeing that was one thing, trusting it another. She could not take that step. She whispered, “I am sore afraid.” As senseless as it seemed, she did not fear Sebastian himself. She only feared to marry him.
“I know, dearling, I know.” Ceci let go of Beatrice’s hands to wrap her arms around her. Beatrice rested her head on her sister’s shoulder, while Ceci rubbed her back as Mistress Emma used to when they were small girls. Ceci’s cleverness had not made her cold or uncaring, nor had she forgotten how to love. Beatrice felt strength flowing into her as if it came from her sister.
“I am so glad you will be with us at Wednesfield,” she said.
The hands on her back stilled, but Ceci did not speak. Beatrice lifted her head to face her sister. Her mouth was turned down, her eyes shadowed by her lashes. Beatrice’s heart chilled.
“You are not coming home.” She did not need to ask, not when she already knew the answer.
Ceci’s lashes lifted, revealing sadness and excitement mingled. “If the queen gives me leave, I shall return to my post as maid of honor.”
“Why?” Why do you go? Why do you leave me when I need you? “For the family’s benefit? We do not need it. For love of the life at Court? You do not love Court, I have seen it in your face.” She was bereft, betrayed, wanting to hold Ceci to her with both hands and angry at the knowledge that nothing could hold her sister back.
Ceci released Beatrice and sat back on her heels. “No,” she said softly. “I do not love Court.” She sighed. “I do not want to leave you at all, but there are things…people…one man I must face before I do anything else.”
“Who? Who must you see? And why?” Who is so important you can abandon me? Beatrice pushed the thought aside. I will not feel sorry for myself. Pity, from whatever source, was worthless.
Ceci swallowed. “I loved a man.” She picked up the comb and ran her fingertip along its teeth, the faint rattle of her fingertip’s passage loud. “I thought he loved me.” She laid the comb in her lap. “I need to know the truth. I need to know how he feels.”
“Who is he?” Rumors returned to her, tales half heard because no one would tell her outright. Disbelief spread silence through her mind. “Not the Duke of—”
“Do not say his name!” Ceci cried, reaching up to put her fingers over Beatrice’s mouth. “I cannot listen to it.”
“There were rumors—” Beatrice said against her sister’s hand.
Ceci nodded. “There is some truth to them.” Her hand dropped away. “If he does not love me, I must know. And the only way is to see him again.”
Her sister’s courage stole the breath from Beatrice’s throat. To confront the man she loved simply to know with certainty that he no longer loved her. The one time circumstance had demanded like courage from Beatrice, she had fled behind the barrier of pride, afraid to risk a little wound, a little pain. Ceci’s risk seemed so much greater.
“And if he does love you?” she asked. She had to know, as if the knowledge might answer some question she had not faced, resolve some dilemma she had not acknowledged. “You cannot marry him.”
“I know I cannot marry him. But if he loves me, I will know all I have done has not been a mistake.” Ceci’s eyes were unfocused, as if she gazed on memory and no longer saw the narrow, candlelit