A Broom at the Masthead (The Drowned Books Book 1) (14 page)

With the
creature's head nestled against his throat like some sort of hairy baby, she
could only stammer that no, of course not, no offence had been taken, all high
spirits -

"For if he
had caused you offence, Penthesilea," the young man breathed over her
hand, "
I should tell his wife of his antics."

And by the
hilarity that followed, she deduced that it had been a rather unkind joke, and
not speaking of the monkey at all. "The Earl of Rochester,"
Fairmantle said, "who thinks he is a wit, and is not. You’re not funny,
Wilmot, and you’re drunk. Sit down, sir. Mistress Russell - Major Russell -
" he spread his hands, you see what I have to put up with? - "I am
surrounded by puppies at play -"

"Woof,"
someone else said, very quietly, and she giggled.

They were late.
The company had been at the theatre - "Hence," Wilmot said,
"hence our pitiable state, for news is new come of a second war against
the Dutch, and we must drown our cares ere the Dutch Navy drown us."

"Def'ntely
drunk," the cheerful, slightly balding cherub Fairmantle had called Sedley
said firmly. "Being silly, now, Wilmot. Don' say that to the lady. You
going to hold her hand, Crophead?"

"They are
always like this," Russell said grimly, carefully picking his way around
the monkey's discarded fruit. "I imagine he dismisses his household staff
-" looking up at the stony-faced manservant who held chairs out for them,
- "should they betray any expression."

"He's not a
Crophead any more," one of the ladies said firmly, and Thomazine stared at
her in amazement, for she was dressed in silk and jewels and yet she spoke like
a good plain countrywoman. "Let it grow a bit, haven't you, lovey?"

Sedley put his
arm round the woman's shoulders and squeezed her familiarly, and Thomazine was
unsure whether to laugh or to cry, for these women were whores: gaudy, cheap,
noisy whores. Her first supper in London was in the company of blowsy tarts and
drunken fat cherubs. She had dressed in her fine array for this.

Under the table,
something touched her hand, and she pulled her fingers away, fully expecting it
to be the monkey - or worse. It touched her again, and this time she looked
down, and realised that it was her husband's hand. He squeezed her fingers,
gently.

"I
am
holding her hand, Sir Charles," he said, eyeing Sedley balefully. "So
the whole poxed crew of you may stop behaving like Wilmot's ape in an attempt
to impress my wife. We now comprehend fully that you are carefree gentlemen who
are not restrained by the conventions of society. May we now proceed to behaving
like civilised men of reason?"

It seemed that
the doleful young man, Wilmot, had just volunteered himself to serve in the
Navy, in an attempt to redeem himself for some stupid prank that had earned the
King's disfavour. And that this riotous affair had begun in sobriety and
decency, as a modest supper for friends. (There was a lot of guffawing at that,
by which she deduced that it was an untruth.)

Thomazine looked
at the candlelight glittering on plate and crystal, at the great engraved
silver bowl half-filled with fruit that the ape was presently selecting the
choicest titbits from.  Very modest. She was suddenly glad that Russell had
insisted on the bronze gown, for in her yaffingale-green she would have felt
dowdy and out of place.

"May I help
you to some chicken, madam?" Wilmot said gravely.

He seemed a very
serious young man. Perhaps whatever naughty prank he had played on the King, he
had learned the error of his ways, and a little military service would go all
the way to making him a sober and respectable citizen.

She glanced
under her lashes at her husband, who was presently engaged in some intense and
earnest discourse with Master Sedley.

"I am very
sure she did not," she heard him say, and Sedley cackled. "I am very
sure she did, too, major. In the silver-cupboard. With the head footman. Now
that, sir, is what you might call a rattling."

The which
Thomazine thought might be a dirty joke, and she was not sure if she ought to
have heard it, so she applied herself to her plate with downcast eyes and tried
not to giggle.

"Shocked,
my lady Penthesilea?" Wilmot's dry voice at her elbow.

"Amused,
rather," she said truthfully. "Though I suspect I ought not to know
what it means."

"Ah. The
Puritan does not rattle his lady?"

Which stung,
actually, and she raised her eyes and looked at him - at this solemn-faced boy
who was younger than she was, who was stroking his monkey as if he hoped the
sight of it might offend her, who had a mocking smile on his lovely mouth that
had no humour in it at all. She wondered why a young man who was handsome and
witty and learned ought to be so downright mean-spirited, and then decided it
was none of her business. "The Puritan, sir, rattles like a hired
carriage," she said sweetly, and had the pleasure of watching his eyes
widen slightly in shock. So you see, Master Wilmot, two of us can play at
childish games. 

"Good God,
Strephon," he said faintly to the monkey. "The age of miracles is not
yet past. A wench of wit. Well, Penthesilea, are you determined to set the town
about its ears with so devastating a combination of beauty and daring?" He
rubbed the monkey's head again, and she thought he might be smiling, though his
eyes were as modestly downcast as hers. "Or are you so innocent that you
still see the world as a place of high romance?
Amor vincit omnia
,"
he said wryly, "God help you."

"I may
be," she said, and squeezed her husband's hand where it was comfortably,
wickedly settled on her knee under the table. "
It
may be." 

"Good God,
my Amazon, next you will be telling me that our gallant Crophead pursues a
second career as a, a highwayman, or some such lawlessness!"

He laughed.
Russell turned round, and did not. "My lord, if it amuses you to fill my
wife's head with foolishness, I may assure you, sir, I am not amused." He
bit into a strawberry, and placed the uneaten half back on his plate with
malevolent precision. "I will not have her made game of, sir."

"Jealous?"
Wilmot said, and his lips twitched.

"Very,"
Russell said levelly. "And violent-tempered, to boot. You may do well to
remember that."

"You would
have done better not to lay -
temptation
- in my way, then, major. To
bring such a pearl beyond price within my lewd compass -" and he said it
in such a perfect imitation of Russell's chilly society tones that she was hard
put to it not to laugh, because could the dear man not see that he was being
deliberately baited?

"The pearl
has a fairly sturdy oyster," she said firmly, and looked over her shoulder
at him in case he hadn't quite got it. 

"I trust he
pays sufficient attentions to the pearl," Wilmot said, and the lady at his
side snorted with unladylike giggles.

She'd said
something she ought not to have, then.

“If you did not
choose to have her admired, sir, you should not have brought her.”

“Should she not
have the liberty to see some society unmolested?”

“She has a
tongue in her head,” she said mildly, and Russell forgot himself and smiled at
her, not his careful company-smile but the real one, the slightly lopsided one.

He pushed his
plate to her and she picked up his half-eaten strawberry and, very
deliberately, set her teeth in the exact same place where his had been. “On the
contrary, my lord,” she said demurely. “I am entitled to enjoy my husband’s
company, and he mine. We neither of us can be responsible for
your
temptation, sir.”

And Russell
looked quickly away, with what might, from another man, might have been a
giggle of his own.

27

She grew confident, after
that. Understood little of what Wilmot and Sedley said, it being mostly in
Latin, or in tortuous Classical analogy, but she did understand that they
thought she was amusing, and pretty. She even fed the little monkey, rather absently,
on grapes from her plate, and it grew sufficiently accustomed to her to allow
her to stroke its head.

But
mostly, she watched her husband, which was a thing she liked to do, and sipped
wine from the delicate glass that Master Wilmot kept refilling for her, and
said nothing.

She
wasn't sure if she liked it or not, but everyone else seemed to be swilling the
stuff like ale, and even her darling grew a little flushed. Which made her prop
her chin in her hands and watch him, more animated than was customary,
bright-eyed and almost lovely, from this side.

Wisps
of hair had worked loose to frame his face and she forgot for a moment that
they were in civilised company, and reached up to tuck it behind his ear, and
he glanced at her sideways under his lashes. Forgot they were in such company,
for when he was amongst
decent
people - when he was at her parents'
table - he was different. Here he was disapproving and cool, but he was not out
of place. His wit was less rapier-thrust than plain cavalry backsword, but it
was every bit as sharp and true.

(She
had definitely had too much wine. The look he gave her made all her bones turn
to water, and the hairs stand up sparkling on her neck And she left her hand on
his shoulder, daringly, because this was not a thing that a gently-born young
woman should do in company at supper. Even at a table-full of whores and
ruffians.)

And
Russell put his hand over hers - his warm, competent, slightly rough hand, that
was so out of keeping with his elegant dark grey silk waistcoat and the
embroidered ribbon that caught his hair into a tail -

"Oh,
Apple," she breathed, and the corner of his mouth lifted very faintly.
"Oh, you dear, foolish thing!"

For
the ribbon in his hair was one of her bridal favours, a length of golden-green silk
that she had embroidered herself with a trailing spring of rosemary. She
stroked it with a finger. "You
silly
."

That
wry smile widened. He knew exactly what she meant. And without missing a word
of his conversation with Sedley, he rubbed his jaw against the back of her
hand, and carried on talking - of taxes, she thought, or the price of barrels
of salt fish or something. He wasn't paying any attention, of course. She could
feel his heart suddenly take flight under her stroking finger, and a fierce heat
on his skin. No, Master Sedley could be asking if he might dance upon the table
for all Thomazine's husband cared, presently.

And
that was a powerful and a joyous thing to be able to do, to hold a man's heart
in the palm of your hand so.

(Well.
Possibly not just his heart, then.)

"I
see," the Earl of Rochester said at her other side, and there was that in
his voice that was not mocking, any more. "I see."

And
she thought he probably did not, actually. But she had shocked him, and that
was funny, because around this table these men did nothing but try and shock
each other with their casual talk of women and debauchery: and Thomazine
Russell had shocked
him
by loving her husband. It was funny, and it was
sad all at once. "I hope you do," she said, and meant it. "One
day."

"Is
that an offer, Penthesilea?"

She
shook her head, smiling, and Russell turned his head and looked at her
questioningly. 

(Surely
not
jealous
, husband?)

"No,
Master Wilmot," she said. "I am well content."

28

It was raining, when they came to leave.

She did not
think she had ever eaten so much rich food in her whole life, and certainly she
had never drunk so much wine – and she did not think she had ever seen him so
intemperate, either.

It suited him,
and he hadn’t let go of her hand (which had possibly inhibited her eating as
well as his own, but given the tightness of her lacing that was possibly no bad
thing) and they stood hand-in-hand in the great marble-lined hall peering out
at the swirling mizzly darkness with a very childish foreboding. 

"Thankful,
it's raining," she said wanly, and he looked down at her, the marred half
of his face hidden in shadow, and she thought he was the loveliest thing she
had ever seen. With a little sob, she unwound the fur wrap from about her
shoulders and wound it about his, for he would be cold, and wet, in his plain
cloak, and she could not bear that he might be cold and wet -

"'M all
right, tibber," he said, and his eyes sparkled above the creamy fur.
"Be home soon, and I asked Mistress Bartholomew would she put a hot brick
in the bed -"

"Your poor
hands," she said ardently, and slipped her hand from her muff and tucked
his into the warm place it left, and there they stood, -

"A pair of
very slightly cupshot lovers," he said, and ducked his head and bumped her
nose with his own, both of them with their fingers laced inside the snug fur.
"I have never come away from one of Master Fairmantle's suppers strictly
sober, my tibber, and I fear I never shall."