Chapter Nine #3
This was typical of Wynter, who thought deeply on the subjects that interested her, particularly her plays.
Even though the stories were set in the bible and everyone knew how they ended, sometimes she would explore different choices for her characters before the story came to its given conclusion.
Especially with women – she gave the women in her stories more of a voice than they would have traditionally had, which was why Salome aggressively danced the Dance of Veils even when she was told to stop.
In Wynter’s plays, the women were not shrinking violets and knowing this, Spring was prepared with her answer.
“Hagar would do as she was told,” she said. “Abraham didn’t have any children, so why would he not have a son with a woman his wife gave to him? God said it was acceptable for him to do so.”
Wynter shrugged. “I still wonder why he would lay with a woman not his wife,” she said. “If it were me, I wouldn’t give my husband my maid to bed. He would be for me and me only.”
“And he would be a very fortunate man.”
It was a decidedly male voice that responded.
The door swung open and Gage stood there, smiling timidly at Wynter.
The woman’s eyes widened in surprise as Spring ducked out and Gage stepped in.
It was Spring who shut the chamber door, leaving Gage standing a few feet away from Wynter as she tried to recover her composure.
“What are you doing here?” she finally said. “You should not be here with me. Alone.”
Gage held up a hand. “I know,” he said. “I swear to you that I will not come any closer. But I told Lady Spring I wished to speak with you and she told me that I must come to you. She said you would not speak to me any other way.”
Wynter gazed at him, feeling her cheeks grow hot. She lowered her eyes, focusing on the vellum again.
“I am simply weary from our journey,” she said. “I wanted to sup in my chamber and go to bed early.”
“You are avoiding me.”
“It is arrogant of you to presume that.”
“Are you not avoiding me, then?”
Wynter sighed sharply, looking up from the vellum.
“What do you want me to say, Gage?” she said.
“We met yesterday after not having seen each other for six years and I think we have said all we need to say to one another. You have your life and I have mine and although I am glad you are happy in your life, I do not think we should pretend as if we are long-lost friends. We’re not.
Therefore, I really have nothing more to say to you. ”
He could tell that she was hurt. He could hear it in her voice. He took a step back, by the door, leaning against the wall.
“But I have something to say to you,” he said quietly. “I hope you will listen.”
Wynter shrugged and looked back to her vellum. “I will always listen,” she said. “What is it?”
Gage realized that he was being forced out of his comfort zone, into a realm he was unsteady and unfamiliar with.
The realm of speaking of his thoughts and feelings, something he never did.
Not ever. He and Laurence had a close relationship, but even Laurence didn’t know what was buried far below the surface.
Truth be told, Gage didn’t even know what was in the depths of his heart and soul, but he knew that something was stirring and it began stirring when he saw Wynter de Thorington at that inn in Durham.
He just couldn’t let that moment go.
“Do you have dreams, my lady?” he finally asked.
She looked at him in surprise. “Everyone does,” she said. “Why?”
His eyes took on a faint twinkle. “When we knew each other long ago, you told me that you dreamed of traveling to Rome,” he said. “Do you recall?”
A flicker of remembrance came to her expression. “I do,” she said. “I’d heard the streets were paved with gold and there was free-flowing wine in every fountain.”
“That’s not true, you know.”
“Have you been there?”
He nodded. “I have,” he said. “It is a magnificent place, but there is no gold in the streets. They are quite common, in fact. I remember thinking of your dream to visit when I went there, one of the few times I thought of you since leaving England. But now, I have a serious question to ask you.”
“What is it?”
“Have you thought of me since I left?”
Wynter’s cheeks flamed a bright red. Lowering her head didn’t make it any less noticeable because her ears were red, too. “Nay,” she said flatly. “Not since we heard of your departure. I’ve not given you a second thought.”
“I may have heard otherwise.”
Wynter seemed to cower, as if she were shrinking from him. “Who told you that?” she demanded. “Spring? She’s lying.”
“How do you know it was Spring?”
“Who else would say such things?” She was becoming genuinely angry.
“If she told you that, it is only because she is angry because I have no wish to marry and she lusts for any man who crosses her path. She hopes that I’ll marry soon so she can have her pick of suitors. That’s why she told you such things.”
Gage was trying not to smile because her anger was amusing. None proclaim their innocence so loudly as the guilty, he thought.
“Well, I’ve thought of you,” he said, utterly lying to her in the hope that it would weaken her enough to tell him the truth.
“I thought of a very pretty girl I used to call my little sister, a girl who has grown into a magnificent woman. I cannot tell you how good it has been to see you again. I am in a risky business, my lady, and my heart is never light. It is heavy with the burden of my vocation. But you… you lighten it. Mayhap that is why I wanted to speak with you tonight, because you remind me of a life that is fine and beautiful. I could not go into battle without feeling that one last time.”
Wynter was looking at him with shock. “Then if it has helped you, I am glad,” she said. “But I do not see any point in continuing this conversation if you expect me to say that the sight of you is just as pleasurable to me.”
“Isn’t it?”
“Nay.”
He wasn’t put off, nor was he insulted, but he could see by her expression that she was lying. Casually, he folded his enormous arms over his chest.
“I’ve also come to say something else to you,” he said frankly. “Seven years ago, you asked me to marry you. Do you recall?”
The flush that had been fading from her cheeks returned full force. “I was a child then,” she said, deeply embarrassed. “I did not know what I was saying. It was foolish.”
“Not so foolish,” he said. “I am thinking of accepting.”
Her eyes flew open wide and her jaw dropped. “Nay,” she breathed, standing up from the bed and trying to back away from him. “You are cruel and terrible in your joke. I do not see why you should torture me so with…”
He cut her off. “It is no joke,” he said. “Most assuredly not.”
She had backed herself into the wall, recoiling from the man as if she’d just met the Devil himself. “It is a joke,” she said. “A nasty and mean one. You told me that you had no intention of every marrying because…”
He cut her off again. “I told you that the path I’ve chosen is no life for a woman,” he said. “That is very true. But I never said I would not take a wife.”
He was correct. He’d never said such a thing. But the conversation had Wynter so rattled that she had no idea what to say or do. Her composure was beginning to show signs of cracking.
“What do you want from me?” she finally asked. “Why are you telling me such things?”
It was an honest question that deserved an honest answer.
“I am not trying to toy with you, I swear it,” he said.
“It’s only that so much has changed since I saw you in Durham.
I realize it has been a short amount of time, but I didn’t know my most recent paid task with Varro’s army was against my own brother.
I only found that out the night I spoke to you. ”
Wynter eyed him. “You were not told before that?”
He shook his head. “Nay,” he said. “But in fairness, Varro never divulges the details of a task we are hired for until we arrive, so that is not unusual. But Bull reminded me of something.”
“What’s that?”
“I am my brother’s heir,” he said simply. “If Boothe dies in battle, Stagshaw and Septentrion are mine. That is something I never thought would happen. I was so certain that I put it out of my mind.”
She was starting to look a little less harried. “It is all true,” she said. “What will you do?”
He shrugged. “I am not sure,” he said. “But one thing I do know is that I cannot leave Septentrion to fend for itself. I cannot destroy my family’s legacy more than my brother already has by refusing the responsibility. I suppose I will come home again.”
Wynter came away from the wall. “But that’s good news, isn’t it?” she said. “Or did you want to be a mercenary for the rest of your life?”
Gage shook his head. “Not for the rest of my life, but it has been very lucrative,” he said. “I have more wealth than God now from all of the battles I have been paid to fight. I could return home and restore my family’s castle and our reputation. But that has me thinking on something else.”
“What?”
“I will need my own family. My own wife and sons to carry on the de Reyne name.”
Wynter started to stiffen again. “Then I wish you well,” she said, refusing to look at him. “A wife from a good family would indeed restore the de Reyne reputation.”
“Your sister says you are in love with me.”
He lowered the boom on her. He had been waiting for the right moment to speak those words and he determined that it was now. Wynter went back to the wall again, pressed against it, her features a mask of shock.
“She had no right,” she finally stammered. “She had no right to say that. I do not know why she would say such a thing.”