Chapter 9 #4
Margaret lifted away. Henry turned onto his left side and completed apart from her, keeping the promise they had made without pretending it guaranteed the future.
For several breaths neither spoke.
Rain touched the glass. The fire shifted behind the grate. Margaret remained kneeling beside him, her body warm and open, Henry’s hand still resting upon her thigh as though he wished to be certain stopping one act had not ended everything after it.
She lay down beside him.
He gathered her with his left arm and kissed her hair.
“Are you comfortable?” he asked.
“Yes. Your knee?”
“Better now that it has been relieved of heroism.”
“That is a poor occupation for a joint.”
“I have attempted to tell it so.”
Margaret smiled against his chest. Humor had returned without shielding anything.
After a time she rose to fetch the covered ewer and basin. The water remained warm. She brought both to the bedside, washed herself, and handed the cloth to Henry when he reached for it rather than performing the service unasked.
He cleaned himself, then held out his hand. “For you?”
Margaret gave him the cloth.
Henry washed her gently where tenderness remained. The act contained no ownership and no embarrassment. When he finished, she took a fresh linen from beside the fire and wrapped it around his left knee.
“You need not treat it merely because we shared a bed,” he said.
“I am treating it because it is stiff and the linen is warm. Neither marriage nor intercourse has altered the indication.”
“That is reassuringly unromantic.”
“It is also more likely to help.”
Margaret returned to the bed. Henry drew the covers over them, leaving the warm linen in place around his knee.
For several minutes they lay face-to-face.
“There is an appalling legal word for what we have done,” Margaret said.
“Several, depending upon the quality of the solicitor.”
“Consummation.”
Henry considered it. “It sounds like a clerk has completed a shipment.”
“Or Dyer has written beneath our marriage, ‘received in acceptable condition.’”
“He would require two witnesses.”
“He would require three copies.”
Their laughter stayed quiet, close to the pillows.
When it faded, Margaret looked toward the rain-dark curtains. The room was unchanged in every object that could be entered in a household book. Her gown remained on the stool. Henry’s coat occupied the chair. The water in the basin had cooled.
Nothing visible could prove that the marriage no longer belonged only to its settlement.
“I am afraid of wanting this,” she said.
Henry did not ask what she meant by this. “Because it may become another claim?”
“No.” Margaret traced the edge of the sheet between them. “Because I know what I want now, and the law may still decide that the name protecting it belongs to Christopher.”
“Our marriage ceremony does not become false because my title is challenged.”
“The settlement may be attacked. Your acts as duke may be restrained. My trusteeship may be called invalid because it came through you. Men who have never seen this room may decide which parts of our life possess legal weight.”
Henry’s face remained close to hers. “Yes.”
The agreement hurt less than a promise he could not keep.
Margaret continued. “When the marriage was practical, I could tell myself that losing its legal purpose would merely return me to work I understood. That is no longer true.”
“What would you lose?”
She looked at him. “You.”
Henry’s hand moved toward hers, then stopped upon the sheet until she closed the distance herself.
“I cannot promise Christopher will fail,” he said. “I cannot promise a court or trustee will never interfere. I cannot promise my title will protect either of us before the evidence has been tested.”
“I know.”
“I can promise no private bargain with him. No property transfer in exchange for his withdrawal. No decision about your office or settlement made before you hear the danger and choose with me.”
Margaret’s fingers tightened around his. “No sacrifice arranged in secret because you believe the cost belongs only to you.”
His silence lasted long enough to make the answer deliberate. “No sacrifice arranged in secret.”
“Even if my answer is inconvenient.”
“Especially then.”
She studied him. “That is not safety.”
“No. It is joint action.”
Margaret moved closer until her forehead rested against his chest. “It will have to serve.”
Henry’s arm came around her. “For tonight?”
“For tonight. Tomorrow we may improve it.”
He pressed his mouth to her hair. “That sounds like a marriage.”
“It sounds like a repair schedule.”
“I have learned not to distinguish them too quickly.”
The candles burned lower. Henry’s breathing slowed, though he did not release her hand.
Margaret had expected that after intimacy she would want her room returned to its established order. She had assumed she would ask him to leave before dawn, not from shame, but because separate rooms were an agreement she had defended and did not intend to lose through silence.
The agreement still existed.
It could also be altered for one night because she wished it.
“Stay,” she said.
Henry’s breathing changed. “Until you sleep?”
“Until morning.”
“Are you certain?”
“Yes. Separate rooms remain ours. Tonight, I choose not to use them.”
He settled beside her without triumph. Margaret turned within his arm, drew the covers over his shoulder, and checked that the warm linen had not slipped from his knee.
Then she stopped managing the night.
Sleep came with his hand open against her waist and no debt entered between them.
Near dawn, rain silvered the windows and softened the roofs beyond Waterloo House. Margaret woke once to find Henry still beside her, his face unguarded against the lavender pillow and the line of his scar pale in the early light.
She did not wake him to ask what the sight meant.
Beyond the curtained room, the House began its ordinary work. Coal was brought through the lower passage. Sarah redirected the first linen maid toward the east stair.