He stepped away from her, his mouth now a thin bitter line, and Emma belatedly understood he knew she’d had ample occasion to see how some noblemen could be. Yet he was deeply mistaken in his belief. He seemed persuaded his wife had taken a nobleman for her lover, or even several, and that she’d now become wiser and repentant by coming to see how cruel and unfeeling such lords could be.
“Arthen...”
As many times before she plucked up courage to tell him the truth, but yet again he would not listen to what she had to say. He shook his head with a wave of his hand.
“Wife, let it go. You’re weary. And I am weary of it all. Perchance we both need a respite from it. Rest,” he urged, and his voice did not sound as flinty as before.
If it hadn't beenfor his wife, the child he cherished may well have been trampled by the reckless, mad rider who had been whirling by. And Arthen reasoned Rowena may have changed at least in that and she now cared for their child, truly cared, and was proving selfless. Such selflessness could not be feigned. She cared for Robin. In that, at least, she did not mean to deceive him.
Upon thinking of things carefully that day and the night that followed, he had well resolved what he would do, and this morn he’d gone to Aunt Royse’s house to fetch the coin he’d left there for safekeeping. Aunt Royse said nothing when he asked to have the money, but his uncle, whose gout troubled him and made him keep mostly to his bed, was nevertheless as sharp as ever.
“A full, heavy purse of coins… which you were wise to set away and not to touch. How did your woman come by it, you reckon? You do recall she stole and lied before?”
Arthen nodded with a darkened face, but kept silent.
“It would be unwise to keep this kind of coin with her in the house, and you know it,” his uncle went on sensibly.
Yet, Aunt Royse waved her hand and went on to push towards Arthen the purse and all the coin he’d left in her house for fear Rowena might behave just as she had before.
“The girl is changed, I tell you. And you’ve nothing to fear from her that way from now on.”
Her husband glanced at her searchingly. Yet upon seeing the pointed look she cast him, he only scratched his head and shrugged.
“Well, if my Royse says it… She must have good reason for it then.”
And it was done. Arthen returned the coin to his own house, and set it on the table, staring at it and at the rings he collected from the floor, knowing only too well Rowena had chosen not to pick them up, leaving them just where he’d let them fall. For a while last night, Robin had played with them, marvelling at their shiny red gemstones. Yet soon the child had lost interest in the baubles and found other pursuits.
Arthen waited for Rowena to rouse, and for her to come into the kitchen. When she did so at last, she glanced upon him and the money with a pale face and wary eyes.
“Here,” Arthen said tersely, gesturing to the purse he’d taken away from her and to the rings. “It is all yours to keep.”
She opened her mouth to speak, but he only shook his head to let her know he was done with this.
“Since you swear it’s not stolen and it won’t bring us doom, then it is yours.Iwill have none of it. As for the coin you need for our household, I’ve placed it yonder in the chest. You’re right, wife, and it won’t ever do not to have coin to deal with when you oversee our house.”
A long silence loomed between them, and Rowena spoke at last, in a small voice which sounded anguished, “You have decided to trust me? You think me now deserving of your trust. And I… who—”
He cut her off, unwilling to dwell upon what lay between them at this time, “Just as I said before, I do not wish to talk of it. I am done with talking. We have a day of leisure tomorrow. So we will have our leisure. This is all I seek.”
CHAPTER 16
It was Whitsun, and red banners bedecked the Town Square, and, in spite of her earlier anguish, Emma looked forward to a day of leisure. John, Maggie and Will had joined them in their best Sunday clothes, and Emma was pleased to look upon the tunic she'd newly fashioned for Robin from a bolt of red cloth Aunt Royse had kindly gifted her.
"Robin looks just like a lord!" Will said with wide-eyed admiration, staring at the red colour.
Robin seemed unimpressed by the praise.
"It's not green…" he muttered, and Emma suppressed a smile, because it seemed that an archer's brown-green was what the child already wished for.
While the children were given sweet treats, John brought cups of Whitsun ale, which to Emma seemed like the most delicious brew she'd ever tasted. She watched with a smile upon the merrymaking and dancing around a strange pole bedecked with flowers and red ribbons. She knew better than to ask what this strange custom was, because she assumed Rowena was already acquainted with it. Was this the Maypole she'd heard her nurse speak of at times? Emma decided this must be it. A Welshcustom, and it seemed that the English people of this town had already become used to it.
Soon the children were happy to join the joyous dancing taking place in the Square around the Maypole, in the merry sound of lutes and drums. And Emma found herself pulled by Robin, who wanted to show his mother that at his tender age he already knew how to dance. It was the first time Emma had been allowed to dance in a square, and the dancing was nothing like the dancing she'd been required to attend at Court, under Lady Edith's watchful eyes. Emma had hated the dancing at Court, disliking the way noblemen's predatory eyes lingered on her and feeling powerless and confined. But this dancing was different. There was Robin, and Maggie and Will and other people unashamedly revelling in the joy around them. And there was freedom in it instead of confinement.
“Oh, here he is… A taller dancer for you, mistress!” Maggie suddenly said with a wink, steering Emma away from the dancing children and then pushing her gently in Arthen’s direction.
Arthen was feeling so takenwith the joyous picture of the dancing that he forgot to glare at Maggie. Instead he stared at his lovely wife, thinking that never in his life had he seen her looking more beautiful. And he berated himself, knowing that at this time he felt ready to forgive her every ill deed. He chided himself bitterly, understanding he was fully prepared to surrender his heart to her in a way he hadn’t done ever before.
Belatedly, he realized he’d closed the distance between them and had taken her hand in his, as he joined in the jaunty step of the dance. He was a keen dancer, had always been so, but latelyhe’d had little occasion to engage in it or in other such joyous things.