A Broom at the Masthead (The Drowned Books Book 1) (6 page)

“How very perceptive, madam.” He
pulled his hand away from hers, gently. “I reckon it’s coming on to rain, Zee,
and I’d like to make shelter before dark. Twenty years ago there’d have been
half a dozen houses where we’d have found a welcome and a bed for the night
within an hour’s ride of here, but I wouldn’t stake my life to it, after
Mistress Lane’s welcome. Welcome to
bloody
Buckinghamshire, wife. It’s
raining, and nobody wants to talk to me.”

“Oh, well, dear.” She put her
heels to the mare, and trotted on a few strides. “I’m not so tired of your
company yet that I can’t manage a little further conversation with you.”

And thank God,
the turf beneath the mare’s feet was solid and firm, and the path flat, because
as that sweet little mare trotted out willingly, her wicked husband set his own
horse chasing after her, bounding from a standing start into a gallop, and they
arrived at the coppice that gave Four Ashes its name in the gathering dusk,
laughing and breathless.

11

But as they walked the blowing horses
side by side out of the dripping black trees, her first sight of the house
where she was to spend her married life broke her laughter off short. For it
was a ruin, looming up stark through the gusting rain at the end of an
overgrown track.

One wing, and
the centre, of the house were as honey-gold new as a fresh-minted gold piece.
New-finished, and sturdy, and homely. And then the house tailed off,
fire-scarred and black, into a jumble of broken glass and charred timber and
broken stone, and there was something heartbreaking about that. Beside her, the
grey horse threw his head up and backed as if Thankful had jerked on the reins,
and then he dismounted with a thump and walked towards the ruin, his hands
outstretched like a blind man’s.

The grey horse,
cavalry-trained, dropped his nose to the grass, and Thomazine cocked her leg
over the sidesaddle and went to dismount, to go to her man, for he looked as if
he had been stabbed to the heart. He turned, and gave her a brittle,
unconvincing smile, and brushed the heel of his hand to his eyes. “Well,” he
said, “there is more work needs to be done than I had imagined, my tibber.
Welcome –“ and his voice broke a little, “welcome to our new home, wife.”

And she had
wanted to say something bright and clever to console him, but looking at that
bleak, black ruin, she could not. It was horrible, and pitiful, all at once.
The new-built wing and the front door and the centre were lovely, gracefully
proportioned and mellow and welcoming, and then the west end of the house was –
It was as if a pretty girl had opened her mouth to reveal rotting, splintered
black teeth.

There were no
lights in the windows, no smoke from the chimneys, no signs of life. Not so
much as a slinking cat crossed the overgrown lawns, no birds sang from the
shaggy bushes. It was not only half in ruins, it was uncared-for, and eerie, in
the cat’s-light. And Thomazine was cold, and wet, and hungry, and tired, and
she would have given much for a hot supper and her bed. Thankful was looking at
her as if he wanted her to say it didn’t matter, and she could not, because it
did. It mattered very much. She slithered down the mare’s flank, missed her
footing in the wet grass, and twisted her ankle. No great damage, but a sharp
little pain to add to her other woes, and for the first time since she had been
a baby Thomazine could not get back on her feet smiling, but instead sat in the
cold grass in the dark and wept.

She had her head
buried in the folds of her skirt, that still smelt of her mother’s linen-chest
and home and a place that had a roof on it, and so she didn’t see him, but she
felt the touch on the back of her neck and batted her hand at it with a most
unmaidenly, “
Leave me alone
!”

He laughed
weakly, and sounded almost as forlorn as she felt. “That’s not me, tibber.
That’s Marlowe. He worries about people.”

A horse’s muzzle
investigated the scant few inches of bare flesh at the nape of her neck,
between her hair and her collar: investigated, and blew, moistly, and she had
to laugh even though she didn’t want to. And then Thankful came and sat in the
wet grass beside her, and did not much care about the rain and the indignity of
sitting on the muddy ground in riding boots, but put his arms round her and
pulled her into his lap and held her head against his chest and rocked her, a
little, as if she had been a child again. “Oh, Thomazine,” he said, “oh, lass,
it will not be so bad, come the morning. In the daylight. Looks worse than what
it is, I’m sure. And, you know, we can always live somewhere close, and –“

“I want to go
home!” she sobbed, and felt him nod.

“So did I, my
tibber, so did I. Wanted this to be home and it’s not. It looks like the
morning after they lifted the siege at Colchester.” He rocked her again, and
lifted a hand to stroke her hair, as much for his own comfort as her own, she
thought. “It’ll come good, love.”

She wanted to be
her brave little mother, right that minute, because Het Babbitt would have
shaken out her skirts in a martial fashion and rolled up her sleeves and called
for soap and hot water, and started in on making the place all right and tight.
But Thomazine was too stiff and miserable, and just about the only thing of any
warmth in that whole bleak November world was the patch of her husband’s
shoulder where she clung, and even that was bony. The grey horse nuzzled at the
back of her head again, and she frowned into Thankful’s damp coat. “What kind
of stupid name for a horse is
Marlowe
?”

“Blame your Uncle Luce,” he said
dryly. “He introduced me to the man's poetry.”

The tears still
ran down her cheeks, but that was of their own volition, and they no longer
hurt her eyes and her temples, they just ran, overflowing, like rain. Her nose
was running, too, and the breast of his coat would be a horrible sticky mess
when she straightened up, and so she burrowed her face tighter against him,
scenting wet wool and fresh air. He put his hand on the back of her head again,
and then cursed softly to himself. “Oh, a pox on those hairpins, tibber. There
goes another one. D’you want a handkerchief?”

It would be full
dark, soon, and moonless, and chill. She wanted to go in to a warm hearth, and
to her mother sitting beside it with her mending, and the smell of cooking and
baking bread and scoured cleanliness.

She sat up and
pushed her hair out of her eyes and wiped her nose on her cuff, though it was
so dark he’d probably not see the unfeminine gesture. And took a deep breath,
and straightened her shoulders. “No,” she said, “no, I shall be fine. A momentary
silliness, that was all. A little bit tired. It’s been a long day, I think. Do
we,” it was a forlorn hope, but she had to ask, “do you think there would be
anything to eat, within?”

He kissed the
top of her head. “Oh, my girl, you are your mother’s daughter. Well, I can
promise nothing. All I can say is that if I know the gentlemen that have been
working on the west wing, and if they have been here as recently as I pay them
to be, then yes. There may be a few leftovers. And if not, why, then, we won’t
starve before tomorrow morning.”

“The horses?”
Because if there were stables, there might be oats, and then there might be
gruel. Of a sort.

“Leave them
loose,” he said firmly, and stood up, and pulled her to her feet.

12

She opened her eyes blearily, to a
faint, pearly dawn.

In the first
grey light, the kitchens looked like a family crypt, which thought made her
shudder: long, rough-planed wood boxes stacked along the walls, like coffins.
She hadn’t seen those, in the dark. (She might have barked her shin on one, in
the dark, and used intemperate language, mind.)

She’d not
expected to sleep, but she had been so tired that she had. Wrapped in each
other’s arms, rolled in two wet cloaks in front of a black-empty hearth, with a
saddle for a pillow, but she had slept, in the end.

She’d felt him
get up, in the hours before dawn, and go somewhere. And that hadn’t given her
pause, save that there was a chilly patch all along her flank where he’d lain,
because – well, it might not be romantic to pee but you did, you had to,
especially when it was cold, or there was the musical sound of water running in
the gutters outside as the rain came down.

And after that
he’d come back to bed, and it had given her a good deal of drowsy pleasure to
wiggle her bum in his lap until he put his arms round her middle and held her
tight and beloved.

He’d been
outside, she could smell it on him. She had turned round in his arms and
snuffed him like a dog and kissed him, just at the angle of his bristly jaw.
And his bristles had tickled her at that tender place where her neck joined her
shoulder, where he had returned the favour, and – all in all Thomazine was
stiff, and sore, but feeling unreasonably well-disposed towards the world, this
morning.

She looked down
at her new husband. He looked different, in sleep. (He looked like a man who'd
rolled himself up in most of the cloak as soon as she'd stood up, and she hoped
that
wasn't going to become a habit, either.) Flat on his back with his
hair in his eyes, and the collar of the cloak pulled right up to his chin, and
he snored. Only a little bit, and it was rather sweet, but he did.

There was also
not a stitch of clothing on the man, and it would be full daylight soon, and
she couldn't help but giggle out loud, because she was only wearing a shift
herself, and it was just downright wicked of both of them.

She leaned over
and pulled the cloak up over his bare shoulder, more for the excuse of touching
his bare skin than anything else.

"Thomazine,"
he said sleepily, and she sat upright with a squeak. "That tickles,
tibber, what're you doing?"

She didn't have
an answer, other than to blush, and he rolled over and peered up at her through
his tousled hair. "Idle fornication, mistress?" he said, sounding
suddenly much more awake.

- and it was
very difficult to tell with her husband, even for Thomazine, because the
scarring on his cheek had faded over the years, but that austere expression was
still more or less perpetual. Unless you could see his eyes, and since they
were presently hidden by a fall of loose mousy-brown hair, she couldn't, quite,
tell if he approved or not.
Then he slid his arm round her waist, drawing her back down under the cloak.
"I'm game if you are, gal."

Afterwards, she
lay with her head on his shoulder, and her hair trapped under his arm, and she
was comfortable. Happy, actually, with his heart beating against hers, and his
hand on the curve of her hip, idly moving up and down. Felt a little bit odd,
her skin against his, and the roughness of the cloak against both of them, but
it was nice. Reassuring.

"We ought
to put some clothes on, you know," he said, and kissed the top of her
head.

"Reckon
so," she agreed, and kissed the bit of him that was nearest.

"Depraved,
that's what we are."

"No
arguments from this quarter, then."

She felt him
laugh, rather than heard it. "D'you want some breakfast, then, my
tibber?"

"What -
why, Thankful, you're
enjoying
this!"

"I am not,
either!" Though he did sound suspiciously pleased with himself. "I
was not a supply officer for the better part of twenty years without acquiring
some common sense, madam. And, I flatter myself, I was a competent one, at
that. Can't promise you any more than bread and bacon, mind you, and I wouldn't
swear to it that my cooking is any better than the common run, but where there
are labouring-men in these parts, there is most often a piece of bacon -"

It made her
laugh, because he still sounded marvellously prim and dignified, even whilst he
was wriggling into his breeches and hauling his shirt over his head, his hair
in an abandoned tangle down his back. He didn't look much older than she, at
this moment. "Won't take a minute to get the fire lit," he said
smugly, and then, a while later, pink and slightly flustered, "It'll catch
shortly, I'm sure. No, truly, it will -"

It was like an
adventure, and she liked adventures. She'd had most of her adventures with this
man. Wouldn't have married him, if he'd been quite so forbidding as he looked.
She took the flint and steel out of his hand, and he smiled up at her. "A
helpmeet, lady?"

"A friend
loves at all times, and a wife is born for adversity," she misquoted
softly.

The corner of
his mouth twitched. "No doubt. Um, we will have staff to do this kind of
thing, usually, tibber. I'm not wholly uncivilised. It's just - I wasn't
expecting us to stay, ah, overnight, here," he said carefully, and she
caught a spark and blew on it, onto the little pile of woodshavings in the big
hearth. 

"Well, we
are here, though. For as long as may be."

He glanced up at
her. "Perhaps we ought to see about employing some servants with all
dispatch?"

"And not go
ho -"

"Not go
back to White Notley," he finished. Not quite severely, but with an air of
finality. "This is our home, Zee."  He must have caught her look
of disappointment, because he blinked at her solemnly, like a hopeful owl.
"It's not finished yet," he said. "I've not showed you upstairs."