CHAPTER ELEVEN #3
Isabel nodded, blinking rapidly. The sight of her son in Constance's arms was shifting something inside her, pulling at old wounds even as it healed them.
It had only been her and Walter for so long - even in the first months of his life, when Geoffrey had been alive, he'd taken no interest in his son.
The only help she'd had had been a nursemaid, who had been surly and bad-tempered more often than not, and who Isabel had sent away after Geoffrey died.
In some ways, she had preferred raising Walter by herself: certainly, she'd been glad of the lack of interference from her husband.
But there had been times, late at night, when she paced the room with a screaming infant in her arms, that she'd wished for someone who could come and take him from her and settle him when she couldn't seem to manage it.
She had never envisioned a true partner, one who loved her and Walter both.
But now, seated between Peter and Constance, watching her son be lulled to sleep in Constance's arms and knowing there was no one in this house who meant them ill or would snatch Walter away from her, she felt a warm blanket of love and safety settle around her shoulders.
She'd wanted this. In some unutterable way that even she had not been aware of, she'd wanted it. And now, here it was.
Constance finished her last song and rose up onto her knees, careful not to jostle Walter as she shifted him onto the cot.
He went without any sign of waking, sighing in his sleep and rolling over to curl up on his side once he was fully situated on the pallet.
Isabel leaned over and pulled the blanket up to his shoulders, tucking it in at the sides so that he couldn't thrash himself out of bed if he had a nightmare.
In the candlelight, his face was rosy and peaceful, eyelashes fluttering against his cheek.
Isabel could not resist bending to press a kiss to the crown of his head; he murmured in his sleep at it, but did not wake.
"Shall we?" When she looked up, Constance was holding out a hand to her.
Part of her wanted to stay where she was, and go on soaking up the feeling of safety their little tableau had given her.
But the other part wanted to take Constance's hand and go downstairs with her, and do - whatever it was they were going to do next.
The thought of sharing a bed with her - really sharing a bed, sleeping side by side all through the night and waking in the morning to the sight of each others' faces - plucked at her nerves, but it also produced a restless, shifting sense of excitement.
She took Constance's hand and allowed herself to be pulled to her feet.
"I'll call you if he wakes," Peter said. Isabel paused long enough to look over her shoulder and nod to him, hoping that the gesture encompassed the sea of relief and gratitude that she had been floating in for the past half-hour, and then followed Constance down the stairs.
Constance held a reed lamp in her free hand, which was the only thing that lit their way: it was still too early in the spring for the sun to be visible past Vespers.
Even if it had been later in the season, it wouldn't have mattered, for the storm still raging outside blocked any ray of light that might otherwise have peeked through.
Isabel followed Constance through the main room, pausing to ensure the front door was securely barred - it was - and then on into the bedchamber.
Isabel stood by the door, resisting the urge to wring her hands as Constance went to set the lamp down beside the bed.
There was no rational reason for her to be nervous; she and Constance had already seen and touched each other so intimately, what was left to be exposed?
But it didn't feel that way. It felt as if she had been slowly creeping up to the very edge of a cliff, and this was the last moment before she stepped out into empty air, to either fly or fall.
Was this to be her lot in life forever? Always cringing away from the next challenge, afraid that she would be unable to rise to the occasion? She couldn't bear that.
"What -" Her voice came out weak and raspy. She cleared her throat and tried again. "What do you want?"
Constance turned to look at her. The lamp was behind her, which meant that her face was cast in shadow, and Isabel could not read her expression. She dearly wished she could. The urge to wring her hands was almost overpowering.
"Just you," Constance said. The words would have rocked Isabel back on her heels, if she hadn't already been standing against the door. "If you're willing."
"I am - willing," she said slowly. "But I don't know if I'm able."
Constance shifted a little to the side, so that she was now standing beside the lamp instead of in front of it.
It meant Isabel could now see her face properly, and she wondered if Constance had done that on purpose.
If she'd once again somehow divined something Isabel had not been able to articulate herself.
Her face was serious, but her eyes were soft.
"I'd like to see you," she said. "To start. Is that - can you?"
Isabel could not summon a single word to say in response.
Instead, she reached up and fumbled with the laces of her kirtle, unknotting them and then pulling until the bodice slid down around her waist. That was easy, at least: she'd done as much in this room before.
She pushed at the kirtle until it pooled at her feet, then stepped out in just her shift.
She bent and picked the kirtle up, folding it neatly and setting it aside.
Then she bent and untied her garters, rolling her hose down and off and setting them on top of the kirtle.
The shift was the only thing left to be removed, and then she would be entirely naked.
That was new; she had only bared herself to the waist, the last time.
She looked back at Constance. Her face had not changed, not notably - but there was a hunger in her eyes that she had not quite managed to disguise. Isabel swallowed hard. "You're still dressed."
Constance started and looked down at herself, as if she had previously been so unaware of her own body, she hadn't realized it was clothed.
Her own undressing was more careless than Isabel's: she pulled her kirtle off over her head and tossed it aside, then did the same with her shift before she untied and stripped off her hose.
It was the work of seconds, and it left her standing nude in the lamplight.
To Isabel's eyes, it almost looked as if she was glowing.
Isabel took in the sight as a pit of hunger opened somewhere deep inside her.
She'd seen Constance undressed the last time, obviously, but they'd both been more than a little distracted then.
Now, there was nothing keeping her from raking her eyes over Constance's body, taking in the swell of her hips - she remembered how her hands fit there, the yielding softness of her flesh when she squeezed - the softness of her stomach, the way her nipples had hardened in the chill of the room, the faint blush colouring her cheeks.
How strong her legs looked, how they'd felt when Isabel had ground down against them.
The broad, freckled expanse of her shoulders, all the dimples she could kiss. Her mouth was watering.
"All right?" Constance said, and Isabel realized she had been standing there, gaping, for what must have been a minute at least. She flushed, her hands going to the hem of her shift.
Constance had done this for her, so surely she could offer the same in return - but still, she hesitated.
She looked nothing like Constance. She was sharp and bony in all the wrong places, Geoffrey had always said so, and there was a loose flap of skin on her stomach that folded over itself - a relic of when she'd had Walter.
Surely Constance wouldn't want to look at that, or touch it. Surely she'd be disappointed.
"You," she said, then stopped. "You, you won't - I'm not -"
Constance crossed the floor and took Isabel's hand, tugging gently.
She guided Isabel to the bed, where she sat: she wasn't sure her legs would have held her up for much longer, anyhow.
That done, Constance knelt down in front of her, resting one hand lightly on her knee, where her shift had ridden up and left her bare.
"Please," she said, so softly. "I want to see you.
Please." Her thumb rubbed back and forth in place. "I won't hurt you. You know I'd never."
She did know. Whatever else she thought, or felt, she knew that.
It wasn't Constance she was afraid of. It was herself.
She swallowed again. "Could you - I mean -" Words failed, and she gestured instead.
She couldn't bring herself to take the shift off herself, but if Constance did it, it might be bearable.
She saw the moment understanding dawned on Constance's face.
"Of course," she said, and brought her other hand up to Isabel's leg, creeping slowly upwards and pushing the hem of the shift with it.
Up and up and up, so that Isabel was bared to the thigh, and then to the hip.
She lifted herself off the bed enough that Constance was able to slide the shift up over her waist, her palms burning everywhere they touched.
The slow, gentle slide of it was almost too much to bear.
She was shivering, not little tremors, but deep, bone-shaking shudders that made her whole body undulate.
Constance's touch raised all the fine hairs on Isabel's skin, leaving them standing upright in her wake, surrounded by pebbled gooseflesh.
She rose up on her knees as she went on pushing the shift, brushing the side of Isabel's breast as she went, until she reached Isabel's shoulders and Isabel was obliged to lift her arms to let the shift come off over her head. And then it was done.