CHAPTER FIFTEEN #3
"No." She stepped out and around the table.
"A different girl. Nelly." She shook her head.
"It seems we all underestimated him - he had nursed a passion for her all this time, and never let on.
Margery helped them run off together, when she found out, though they came back once they were wed.
Matilda took it better than I might have expected, and now all three of them are happy - Simon and Nelly, of course, but Margery as well.
She need no longer fear being married off, now. "
"Oh." Isabel still looked puzzled. "I am pleased for them, then."
"I thought of you," Constance went on. She felt as if she were chasing her own thoughts around and around in a circle, trying to marshal them into some semblance of order.
"When we found out what had happened, I thought of you.
Richard - Matilda's husband, Simon's master - threatened to turn Simon and Nelly out of doors for disobeying him.
He didn't - Matilda wouldn't let him. But I thought of you.
And I thought, if you had had a Matilda, or a Margery to help you -"
"No." Isabel took a half-step forward. "Constance -"
"Or even me," she went on. "If I had helped you - if I had offered -"
"But you did -"
"If I had done anything," Constance said, "anything but offer platitudes and beg you to stay when I knew you couldn't - I might have been of some use to you instead of what I was."
"But you were," Isabel said urgently. "You were, Constance, do you not see?
If not for you, I would never have left of my own accord.
I would have stayed where I was and let them go on using me up until there was nothing left.
I had not thought there was anything better for me - anything I could strive towards, anything I could hope for, until you. You gave me that."
Constance said nothing. Her heart was beating very fast.
"And I came to tell you," she continued, "because I - I thought you should know, that you deserved to know.
I have no expectation of your feelings, after I left you once before.
But you said -" Her lip trembled. "You said - something - to me, at the end, and you told me it was because I ought to know.
I returned because I - I feel the same. And I wanted to be sure you knew that I had not left because I did not love you, or want you.
I do love you." She said it simply, after all the stumbling of her speech, as if it were the truest and easiest thing in the world.
"And I do want you. I want you more than anything else in the world.
I would not think to demand anything from you in return, but I -"
Constance did not step forward so much as she fell, half-running, half-lunging at Isabel until she had caught the other woman in her arms and was kissing her soundly, desperately.
Isabel's arms came up around her as soon as their lips touched, and she was kissing Constance back, just as ardently.
They swayed on the spot, grasping at each other and gasping each others' air, Isabel clutching at Constance's waist and Constance hanging from her neck as she tried and failed to steady herself long enough to push herself up on her toes so that she could kiss Isabel properly.
It was not an embrace so much as a collision, but neither of them was willing to let go long enough to re-orient themselves.
"Ahem."
At the sound from the bedroom, they broke apart - or at least, they stopped kissing, though neither of them relinquished their grip on the other.
Peter was leaning against the bedroom doorway, his arms crossed over his chest, one eyebrow raised.
"I had no intention of eavesdropping but - if you'll forgive me - it was difficult to avoid, at the volume you both were speaking.
Am I to assume, then, that I may welcome you properly into the household? "
Before Isabel had a chance to respond, Walter squealed, "Peter!" from the corner where he'd been playing with Tib. He leapt to his feet and raced over as fast as his short legs could carry him, throwing his arms around Peter's knees and beaming up at him. "Ball? Play ball?"
Isabel dropped her head against Constance's shoulder, her laughter muffled. When she lifted her face again, her eyes were shining with mirth. "You may welcome us both."
"That I will, then." Peter braced one arm against the doorway so that he could lean down to ruffle Walter's hair. "And play with this one, as he's asked so politely. I take it the two of you wish for some time to be re-acquainted?"
Isabel blushed bright pink. Constance gave Peter a remonstrating look, but he only grinned and shrugged, entirely unrepentant.
"I'll remember this," Constance said to him; whether it was a promise or a threat was for him to decide, and from the look on his face, he knew it.
She turned back to Isabel, taking her hand.
"I sleep upstairs now," she said softly, "since Peter and Jack took the downstairs room so that Peter could get around more easily. Do you wish . . . ?"
Isabel was still pink, but she was smiling. "I do." She turned towards Peter just long enough to nod to him. "Thank you. For watching him."
"Think nothing of it." Peter had already retrieved his crutch and was making his way across the room to the chest of toys, Walter close on his heels.
"Only stand between our wife and I when next she takes against me.
" He reached the chest, retrieved the ball from inside, and set it rolling across the floor.
Walter shrieked with joy and scampered after it all else forgotten.
The words our wife had left Isabel's eyes wide and shining. Constance tugged lightly at her hand until she had her attention. "Come," she murmured next to her ear. "Let me show you your room."
"Ours, I think," Isabel said, in a tone that suggested she could hardly believe the words coming out of her mouth. Constance squeezed her hand, kissed her cheek, and led her up the stairs to their room.