CHAPTER EIGHT

Housecleaning ... and Mending

---

By the following day, Catherine had completely recovered from her melancholy and had put into practice her resolution to find happiness in the castle. On her orders, Vincent carried tapestries outdoors, hung them over tree limbs, and beat them with a broom, raising clouds of dust that made him cough.

Inside the great hall Catherine stood on one table after another, lowering the chains on all the iron wheels. Now the tables would be illuminated rather than the ceiling rafters. She scraped old wax from the holders and replaced the stubs with new tapers before hauling the wheels up and securing the chains. Mary and Jacob were assigned various tasks: to mop the floor, polish the furniture, and carry away ashes from the cavernous fireplace. To freshen the air she mixed potpourri and filled bowls with fresh ferns, lilacs, and white hyacinths.

She stepped back to admire her arrangement. "Mary, is that to your liking?"

The polishing cloth paused in midair. "It’s perfectly lovely, dear."

"What is your opinion, Jacob?"

"He is not here at the moment. I think he went out the window."

"Perhaps he objects to mopping floors," said Catherine, smiling. She saw that the mop had been thrown into the fireplace it was dripping on the andirons.

"He learned long ago that he could not object to any task, as there were only the two of us and Vincent to keep the entire estate from falling down. In the beginning there were others -- ostlers, gardeners, cooks, and so forth. But as one by one they passed away they chose to ascend rather than remain at their posts. Anya gave us orders before she went out to fight Those-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named; and Jacob and I have kept faith."

"I admire you, Mary. Loyalty is a quality I’ve always respected."

"Why ... thank you. What a kind thing to say." Not only was Mary thrilled, she was touched.

"Oh! I just remembered something I’ve been wanting to ask you! When Vincent was very small and he was dashing under the tables, what was his nickname?"

"I’ll whisper it to you." The faintest of winds breathed into Catherine’s ear.

She had to laugh. "Yes, I can see that. By the way, do you sing? I can’t get through my daily tasks without singing." She lifted her voice in a folk tune about the month of May. A small, ghostly quaver sang along.

Vincent stopped his tapestry-beating to listen. As he leaned on his broom outside the window, words were scratched in the earth at his feet.

"She is regarded fondly by all of us."

That was quite an admission, coming from Jacob. Vincent answered aloud. "I never imagined anyone so beautiful could actually exist. When we’re apart I have to tell myself about her over and over again to make her real. Then I see her again, and it’s all true."

"But keep in mind she had another life, and other hopes. You must steady your mind with doctrines of wisdom." He took off his skullcap and kneaded it between his hands, adding uneasily, "I would be grateful if you would refrain from telling Mary I said that."

Vincent rubbed out the scratchings with his boot. "She has decided to try and find contentment here. How to make her every hour a glory of happiness -- that is the knowledge I want. Teach me that."

Jacob hated to admit there was anything he didn’t know, but he had to admit that dusty books did not contain the answer to every single question. "Such matters are beyond the knowledge of any philosophy." He replaced his skullcap and added in his mind, ‘Even my own.'

Vincent leaned on the broom and looked far away. "Confer with Mary, then. To see her happy I would give the soul out of my body, and never count the cost."

"Take my advice, my boy, and try to think more of yourself than of her. Don’t let your heart go out to her. Just as sure as you do, the door of a torture-chamber will swing open. The moment you become vulnerable through love, you haven't a strong place in your whole armor." He thumped his chest with an imaginary dagger and coughed.

"What a doctrine," Vincent protested.

"I know it, but I went through it myself, long ago, though you might not think it; and it would pain me to see you suffer."

"A man wouldn’t be a man at all if he didn’t think enough of someone to suffer for her. To weigh the cost and put caution first -- what a waste of a life that would be. The power of a man’s soul is tested in such trials -- otherwise how can he know he’s truly alive?"

All Jacob’s lectures in the ivory tower had come to nothing. Apparently Vincent hadn’t been listening to a word he said. Maybe he never had listened, except out of politeness. Jacob cared for the lad, though, more deeply than he ever let on, and he tried one last time to make him see reason. "You're old enough to have learned some self-command. Don’t imagine Catherine is the moon and sun and stars. If you can only keep your head instead of plunging into the bottomless depths, it will be better for both of you."

Once again Vincent scraped out the advice with his boot. "Joy may come to me or sorrow. Whatever happens, never for one moment will I regret or repent. It will be the same for me forever -- forever -- forever."

A merry face appeared at the window. "I heard your voice -- were you calling me, Daredevil?" She reached down one hand, which held a stalk of white hyacinth.

He dropped the broom and leaned his face against her hand.

"You’re fond of hyacinths," she remarked.

"With all my soul and strength," he answered, but it wasn’t the hyacinths he meant.

***

He rehung the tapestries on their iron rods and propped the ends over stone fists in the hallway, then stepped back to admire his handiwork.

"There, isn’t that better?" Catherine asked, coming out of the great hall. There were dust smears on her face and dress. "Instead of grubby brown troubadours and dingy gray palfreys, they’re sky blue and grass green and primrose yellow."

"An infinite improvement," he agreed. "Why didn’t I do it years ago?"

"It’s easy to sink into a stupor when there is no one around to kick you into exertion."

He swept off an imaginary hat in a magnificent bow. "Give your commands, my lady, and if I don’t leap to obey, then you can give me a kick."

She laughed merrily and responded with a deep curtsey. "Where did you learn to bend your knee in such a splendid, courtly bow?"

"Books, books, books," he answered cheerfully.

"The time has come to put aside your books and exert yourself," she warned him. "Your next task is to bring your ladder and broom in here and dust these skulls above us. They’re frightening enough without cobweb beards. I feel sympathy for you -- I really do -- you’re going to have to work like a slave. You’re going to be sorry I’m here." She patted him on the back in mock sympathy and disappeared back into the great hall.

He obeyed, propping the ladder against the paneled wall. Up close, the snarling skulls really were filthy with dust and cobwebs; he went to work with a whiskboom and rag. Through the open door, her song drifted, as clear and light as the notes of a bird. As clear and light as Catherine herself.

Quietly he said, "Somehow I can’t see myself being sorry."

***

One morning Catherine joined Vincent in the library, where he began to teach her how to rebind books. They sat on opposite sides of a long, narrow table littered with pots of wheat paste, scraps of leather, and many odd tools.

"What is this?" she wondered, picking up an awl.

"It’s a piercer for overcast cloth joints."

He began to point out the tools. "Bandsticks for pressing leather down on either side of raised bands. Band nippers to mould leather over raised bands. That’s a spokeshave for paring leather -- it’s like a carpenter’s plane with end handles. Those are cobbler’s knives and that’s a backing hammer. A bloodstone burnisher … "

"Please, please, give me something simple to do," she begged him. "I’d like to make a journal."

"Very well. Here’s a large sheet of paper. You must fold it in the proper manner. First fold from right to left, then from head to tail, and again from right to left, and so on. Fold it four times and it will be a sixteenmo. You will have thirty-two pages."

She obeyed, folding carefully. "Is it a sixteenmo?"

"Not yet, for the pages aren’t cut," he explained. "Now fold a piece of cover paper around it and knock it square -- gently." He tapped it on the table. "I’ll show you how to stab and sew it. Then take a knife and cut the pages apart."

While she worked on her task, Vincent took up an ancient volume and explained what he was doing. "The spine is the area of the cover most exposed to light. Also the constant dampness can be harmful to leather. So I’m going to remove the spine and reback the book. I may reuse the spine and I may not, depending upon its condition. As I proceed I will describe the steps in logical sequence."

A smile flickered over her lips. "When you’re acting as a teacher you sound just like Jacob."

"I’d hate to think that, but it’s probably true," he admitted ruefully.

Her eyebrows rose humorously. "May I ask you a foolish question?"

"Of course, ask me anything."

"If you have been here so long, why are your garments in the latest style? Why do you not dress in the fashion of long ago?"

"Some of the books update themselves."

She let her needle fall. "You don’t mean it."

"Some of the histories do, and one book showing costumes through the ages. I’ll show you."

She turned around in her chair to watch him rummage through the shelves. From the back, he looked almost like an ordinary man, apart from his height and strength, and the saffron mane that spilled across his shoulders.

"Here it is," he announced. Standing behind her chair, he placed the book open before her, showing two beautifully colored illustrations.

She glanced at the book and back up at him. "Why, you’re wearing these same clothes. The doublet with slashed sleeves, the long pointed lace collar, the knee-length breeches and high boots. Just like this plate."

"Mary copied this suit of clothing from that picture," he said. It pleased him immensely to surprise her, and even more to lean close and scent the lilies of the valley in her hair. "It only appeared in the book a year or two ago."

"I don’t believe you!" She turned a page back. "Here’s a style of a hundred years ago. Did you actually wear a leather jerkin and pluderhose?"

Her yellow shawl slipped to the floor, baring her shoulders. Vincent retrieved it and draped it around her; and for one never to be forgotten second, his hands rested on her bare skin. ‘I’m touching her,’ he thought, dazed by the sensation. ‘She’s allowing these hands to touch her.’

That brief touch was a caress, the first he’d ever given. An odd thought raced through his reeling mind, ‘I could do this. I know how.’ Before she could stop allowing it, he stepped backwards. It took him a while to find his voice. "It’s packed away in an old trunk, if you would like proof."

"Well! I have to admit, I am astonished. It appears there are no women’s fashions in this book."

"Before you came, there was never any need." He could see the brief caress hadn’t affected her as it had affected him. Still, it had happened, and something within him was screaming with joy. The touch of his fearsome hands was acceptable to her. It had to mean she was beginning to care for him. He wouldn’t be fearsome at all, if she cared. He would just be a man. Her man.

She handed the book back to him and turned in her chair to watch him replace it on the shelf. "So Anya did that for you."

"I suppose she did."

Shelves of folios reached to the ceiling. Marble busts glared from niches and balanced on pedestals -- all sibyls who had inspired Anya. One enchantress cradled a leafy skull, while snakes coiled around the head of a pythoness. The place of honor was held by a wild-eyed woman who gripped a wicked knife.

"I wonder why the woman all appear so fierce. Look at the one with the curved dagger -- who did she intend to sacrifice?"

The roaring of joy within him hadn’t subsided. To keep himself from going on his knees to her, he kept his back turned. "Animals."

"What do you mean?"

Catherine’s surprise amused him. "She was a haruspex. She foretold the fortunes of emperors using the entrails of slaughtered animals. My mother was apprenticed to her."

"My, my." Catherine was impressed. She had heard of divinations with constellations and tea leaves, but this was a new one. "Did she ever visit here?"

"No -- that was hundreds of years before I was born."

She was relieved to hear that -- the castle was daunting enough without wondering if she might turn a corner and confront a haruspex. "Your mother doesn’t have a statue?"

"Only various portraits scattered about the castle. You saw the one in my chamber."

"Yes, indeed I did." How could she forget the woman wreathed in lightning.

"Anya’s magic was not benevolent," Vincent explained quietly. A little of the joy within him faded. It was an old wound that would never be healed. He turned to face her and she saw the pain in his eyes. "Remember it was her original intention to sacrifice me to the Dark Gods. The ones Mary calls, Those-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named."

Her own mother had died soon after Laura’s birth. The few memories Catherine had were treasures: a soft voice raised in song, white ribbons on a gown of lavender, and a fairy kiss. A mother such as Vincent’s Anya was hard to picture.

"I find that very difficult to believe," Catherine said dubiously. "She left you such an enormous estate, and enacted spells to give you everything you could possibly need. She must have cared for you in some strange fashion."

His lips tightened. The question had always puzzled and pained him. "I was spared, but whether she was able to feel any affection for me is another matter. Mary told me she was a woman of ice."

Catherine thought deeply as she sewed together the cover and the parchment pages. "I wonder. Even though the sibyls seem so malevolent, I still think a woman is less likely to use power unwisely than a man."

Vincent smiled faintly. He was ready for a change of subject. "I know little of men or women, but I agree with you. I have read histories of your world that tell me the same thing. Emperors and kings wrecking devastation, while valiant women shelter their families from the warhorses’ hooves, and keep life in existence."

She reproached him, smiling. "We don’t always cringe away from the chargers’ hooves! We fight back, too!"

"I have no doubt of it," he agreed; and his smile answered hers.

She was silent for a moment, comparing two points of view. "Gunther believes that most women are mindless, treacherous creatures. He condescends to make an exception for me. I think his experiences with tavern wenches have made him cynical."

Vincent’s knife slipped and tore the leather. He thought she was jesting until he saw her calm expression and realized she spoke in earnest. In utter disbelief, he cried, "How could you accept the attentions of such a cur?"

She was startled by his explosive reaction to her casual remark, and tried to shrug it off. "Gunther is no worse than other men of his class. He has silver to spend, and he indulges himself."

Vincent couldn’t believe what he was hearing. Shock rang in his tone. "He speaks to you and takes your hand, then sullies himself with other women, and then approaches you again, and instead of spurning him with your foot, you allow the faithless wretch to come near you?"

She bit her lip; she hadn’t thought of it quite that way. In self-defense, she said, "There are many things about the world beyond the wood that you fail to understand. It’s not that simple."

He was willing to believe it was all Charles’ doing. "Was the match forced upon you -- had you no choice in the matter?"

Cornered, she had to defend herself and her suitor. "Two choices. Yes, I will marry you, Gunther, and become lady of the manor and have the silver to help my father and Laura. Or no, when you kiss me I feel nothing, so I prefer to remain solitary all my life. Which sounds more prudent to you?"

He threw the spine aside and began scraping the backbone with a folder. So Gunther had kissed her. The knowledge felt like splinters in his chest. "And those are the only alternatives you have?"

Taken aback, she put her work down. "Why are you so angry? I’ll never see him again."

He fancied that she gave a woebegone sigh. He scraped the canvas-covered backbone recklessly and spoke through gritted teeth. "It does make me angry to think there is no one who could rescue you from such a degrading alliance. To think that no man has asked you to share a lifetime of heartfelt devotion."

Her lips thinned to a straight line. She was growing angry, now. "I never said I haven’t been asked. By the squire’s eldest son, and a wealthy goldsmith, and a sea captain."

He interrupted. "One of those men, surely. The one who has gained your heart, in secret."

Fuming, she declared, "My heart is my own, to give or withhold." Throwing down the journal, she said, "And why you think an alliance with a great landowner would be degrading, I cannot imagine. Gunther is not a bad man, only a little shallow. His life has been so easy that his soul is rather small. It is true he is not the man of my dreams. It is dispiriting to see myself as merely number two hundred and nine, so to speak. But it would be childish to expect fidelity from a man who has been pampered since birth. I don’t know why I hesitate -- every unmarried woman within forty leagues of his manor house would spin straw into gold, if she could, to become his chosen one." From within the lace of her bodice she pulled a locket. "This is Gunther."

Unwillingly Vincent took a look. The miniature showed a preposterously handsome gentleman foppishly dressed in crimson satin. A pearl drop hung from one ear. There was an arrogant jut to his chin. Behind him rose the chimneys of a manor house.

Wild thoughts burned through Vincent’s mind. She had allowed that scoundrel to kiss her. She wore his portrait even now. Because his features were well-arranged. The fellow could take no credit for that -- he hadn’t made his own face. Was that the only thing that mattered to her -- an aristocratic nose and a pirate’s smile?

And only a few moments earlier he had imagined she was beginning to care for him. Well, he might be a fool, but not a perfect fool. He spoke almost savagely. "Yes, he is handsome, I can see that perfectly well. No doubt if you are number two hundred and nine, he is well-practiced in love-making."

"Yes, he is handsome. Also elegant, refined, and a gallant swordsman. But what is that to you?" she exploded, rising from her chair. "Even if I love him madly, I’ll never see him again."

"You do not love him."

A sarcastic thought flashed through her mind: ‘How could you know anything about love?’

Pain exploded within him; his face whitened with shock. He tossed his tools and book aside and stalked out of the library. The door slammed, and she was left alone. Only then did she realize with a pang of remorse that her unkind thought had reached him through their connection.

Catherine propped her chin on her fist and groaned. The morning had begun so pleasantly, and then Vincent’s intuition had ruined everything. It wasn’t her fault he read her outburst of angry emotion. He shouldn’t take it personally when she spoke of her friends in the village. Every single time she mentioned them, he took it the wrong way.

"Maybe I shouldn’t speak of them at all. But is that fair to me?"

She had to admit that Vincent was becoming a true friend, perhaps the truest she’d ever known. No longer did she cry herself to sleep at night. She was glad to awaken every morning in her beautiful chamber and to share breakfast with him on the terrace. There were so many tasks to be done and odd corners to explore that the days flew past. Often in the evenings they sat together in the window seat and talked until the stained glass windows behind them reflected only blackness, until the candles in the wallsconces had all burned out.

Yes, he had become a friend. But he still had no right to criticize Gunther, a man he’d never met. A man she might have married, if circumstances had been different.

A thin, quavering song caught her attention. Looking up, she saw a floating feather duster. It was Mary swooping around the walkway, flicking a duster over the highest shelves. "In that yellow and white silk you look as lovely as the first jonquils in spring. But you don’t seem happy, dear."

Catherine leaned her cheek on her hand. "Vincent is angry at me, and I feel terrible."

"Angry at you?" That wasn’t easy for Mary to believe. "Whatever for?"

She sighed heavily. "A foolish quarrel, half my fault and half his."

The faintest of touches pressed her shoulder, as lightly as a butterfly. "His feelings are very deep. Give him a day or two, and if he is still upset, I’ll talk to him."

"If you say so. When you see him, though, let him know I’m sorry for my half of it. I want to be his friend again." Catherine drew the shawl over her shoulders and left the library. Her step was less buoyant than usual.

Mary picked up the feather duster, then forgot she was holding it. To herself she said, "I’ll tell him, but that’s not what he wants to hear. Not half of what he wants you to say. An offer of friendship is dust and ashes to a man who's dying of hunger."

***

Catherine wandered back to her chamber. She examined a few books and shelved them again. She couldn’t work up any interest in finishing her embroidery or crocheting more lace for her nightdress. She pushed open the double doors and leaned over the balustrade, telling herself the mental comment Vincent had picked up was true: he’d never even had a playfellow, let alone a friend or relation or sweetheart. All his knowledge of love came from books. It wasn’t her fault he accidentally picked up her thought. She had perfect liberty to think as she liked as well as to speak of her home and friends without being criticized. And yet all the excuses she listed in her mind only deepened her depression.

"He’s simply going to have to get over it, that’s all."

She grazed the top of his chair with her fingers, remembering the merry breakfasts they’d shared. "By tomorrow morning he’ll have forgotten it."

Somehow, though, she knew he was not the kind that forgets.

Though her father never swore, she had overheard a few raw words in the smithy. "Damn and blast." Coming back inside, she slammed the doors hard.

Sitting down in her wingchair, she stared into the fire and crossed her arms. "He started it. I made one remark about Gunther and he flew into a tizzy." Frowning, she took another look at the miniature. "Gunther is gallant, and handsome, and dashing, and courtly. Women pile up at his feet like autumn leaves. And I am the one he has chosen. I ought to be much more grateful than I am. If his kisses fail to thrill me, it’s probably my fault. I must have a cold nature, as he says. Besides, kisses aren’t the only thing."

Frowning at the fire, she added, "How touchy can someone be? My word, I ought to be able to make a comment without being pulverized for it. Now he’s off pouting somewhere and trying to make me feel guilty. Reminds me of Laura. She used to hold her breath until her face turned blue. Well, I have my own pride and I refuse to feel guilty. So there."

Restlessly she got up and circled the chamber. There was nothing to do that she wanted to do.

"I’ll take a bath." She tore off the yellow and white gown and tossed it on the bed, then unhooked her corset and let her shift drop to the floor. Pulling the screen around the fountain, she let herself sink into the warm and scented water.

"Sulk, Vincent, sulk. I don’t care. I’m perfectly at ease."

She watched her wriggling toes and thought of fish, and shoes, and the silver buckles she’d dropped into the well. Anything but Vincent. Somehow his face kept intruding, though ... his ashen color when he strode toward the library door.

"Damn and blast," she said again. Wrapped in a towel, she padded across the floor to the wardrobe and threw open the doors. "I don’t want blue, I don’t want green, I look like a forest fire in red." None of the glorious gowns caught her fancy and she ended up pulling back on the yellow and white.

She sat down on the edge of her bed and fingered one of the posts that Vincent had carved with birds: warbling robins, doves in flight, hummingbirds hovering around a blossom of honeysuckle. The carving was done with care, but he hadn’t seen many birds in real life. Instead he’d copied pictures from books, and the proportions were a little off.

"I know what’s wrong," Catherine finally announced to the empty air. "I’m ashamed of myself."

She had hurt someone who had never hurt her. Someone who had no defenses against unkindness. Catherine was entirely straightforward; for her there was seldom a pause between a decision and its action. At once she rose from the bed and set off to find Vincent.

Down the stairs she hurried. A quick look told her he was not in the library or the great hall. It never occurred to her to summon Mary or Jacob. Finding Vincent and apologizing was up to her.

On the front steps she paused, looking to the east and to the west. It was possible that he was sitting in the maze-swing by himself, or strumming his lute in the grape arbor, but somehow she didn’t think so.

There was a bond between them; she knew it now. A thread had linked them during her time I of blindness and terror, and it had grown stronger since then. It beat from her heart to his and back again. When she concentrated on that wavering vibration, she could feel its pull.

She turned, as if testing the wind -- the pull was coming from the northern end of the garden. Down the cedar-shaded avenue she marched, letting the bond lead her. There was no hesitation in her step when she turned right and began to walk toward the lake. It was a field of silver that reflected drooping trees, a low crumbling wall, and the ivy-covered keep.

White lilacs bloomed around the doors. Inside she caught a strong smell of mouldering hay. The two stalls were both empty; the pony’s crumbling saddle still hung over a divider.

"Vincent?" she called softly. There was no answer. Up a creaking ladder she climbed and through a square hatch. At the top of the ladder she paused, brushing cobwebs away from her face. It was so dark that it took some time for her eyes to adjust. A few shafts of dusty light sifted through cracks in the roof and through arrowslits in the stone walls. One beam of light struck across a quiet form sitting in the farthest corner. The connection had led her directly to him.

She swung herself up, not thinking at all about the damage to her striped gown, and crossed the splintery floor. Without saying anything she sat down beside him in the dust.

He didn’t acknowledge her presence. He was looking out an arrowslit, his profile stern and remote.

It was only then she realized how deeply she had hurt him. Despite his differences, he wanted so desperately to be accepted as a man like other men. Her unspoken comment had mocked his deepest wishes and thrown his differences right back in his face.

Intuitively Catherine understood that an apology wouldn’t suffice. He might even accept it, but his hurt wouldn’t be healed. She had to find another way to comfort his wounded soul. Only the connection could reach him there.

She thought hard, then closed her eyes. Never before had she tried to direct the bond, but now she had to make an attempt.

She visualized it first as a thread of gold that united their two spirits. When she could picture it clearly, she let herself feel a pulse beating from her heart through the linking cord and reaching his. He gave no sign that he was feeling the link, but she wouldn’t give up.

Through that cord she tried to send to Vincent all the gratitude she felt for his unwavering kindness and care. She wasn’t used to directing such feelings through a spiritual tie; the effort made her head pound, but she kept on trying and failing and trying again. From the beginning he’d poured out to her everything he had and everything he was; and now she rallied her inner strength to do the same. With every heartbeat she sent to him her joy in the happy hours they’d spent together on her terrace and in the garden, the library, and the great hall. The laughter and the tears, the deep conversations and the bantering.

Still he made no sign. She took a deep breath and dared to let him know the depth of her sympathy for his long loneliness. ‘I know you’ve suffered,’ she thought, ‘and I’m glad I’m here to make it easier for you. Today, though, I made it harder. Please forgive me.’

He didn’t move or look at her. There was only one last confession she could make. She could only pray he would accept it, for she was baring her soul. Bravely she opened her feelings, without reserve, and let him sense in his own spirit her true and loyal affection. In her mind she pleaded with him. ‘I care about you, Vincent. You may not believe it at the moment, but it’s true. I’ve been more myself with you than I’ve ever been with anyone. I’ve changed -- you’ve changed me. Don’t shut me out. My true home isn’t in the village or the castle. Only in your heart. And I’m so homesick.’

He turned his head at last and looked at her. Tears were streaming down her cheeks. With a gentle touch he brushed them away.

"For me?" he whispered.

Perfect honesty shone in her face. "When I came here I cried every night. I don’t cry any longer. Not for my friends or my family. Only for you."

Vincent reached his arms around her. She tucked her head under his chin and gripped his shirt with both hands. Against his chest she murmured, "I’m so sorry I hurt you."

He pressed his cheek against her soft hair, holding close to his heart all the warmth and fragrance that was Catherine. "I’m glad you did. Otherwise I might never have known that you ... that you care about me."

"I do. I just wish you could forget that I ever thought such a cruel and untrue thing."

"I won’t remember anything but this. That you searched for me and found me and let me have a glimpse of your radiant spirit."

Supported and circled by his arms, Catherine relaxed against his chest. Under her breath she said, "I can feel your heart beating."

He thought, but didn’t say aloud, ‘The day you cease to care for me, it will stop.’

After a while she asked, "Do you really think I’m radiant?"

She felt his chest shake with a rumbling chuckle. "Sometimes -- in spots."

That evoked a laugh from Catherine. "I can’t disagree with that." She sat up a little and leaned against his shoulder, perfectly content. "Do we have to go back to the castle right away? It’s pleasant here."

There was a faint wrinkling at the corners of his mouth, and his eyes lightened a shade. "Oh, so you prefer dust and cobwebs. I wish I’d known that weeks ago, it would have saved me a great deal of work."

She narrowed her eyes and tried to look indignant. "You’re making fun of me."

He tucked the shawl closer around her shoulders, for the air in the keep was dank and chilly. "Yes," he said, smiling. "Do you object?"

She shook her head, no. "I like it."

A wisp of wind curled up through the trapdoor. It circled them once and vanished back down. Mary was extremely pleased to see the two of them sitting together. She wouldn’t have intruded for worlds.