Niccolo Rising - Dorothy Dunnett [141]
He knew, normally, exactly how long to make love. When to tease it up to its climax. How long to allow for the courtesies afterwards. But this, of course, was hardly routine. For one thing, he had the kitchen to clear up and his clothes, for example, to remove.
With care, he eased himself free of the girl and left the room silently for the kitchen. There the sand-glass told him he had four hours perhaps before daylight. All the same, he did not take time to dress, but went quickly about the business of tidying. In the end it looked, he thought, as it had when Katelina had led him in from the garden. The broth would hardly be missed. Or the towel, which was upstairs for a very good reason. He looked round, lifted his clothes, and hesitated. He could dress here and depart, as he would have done had he not slept. But then, he would have taken proper leave of her.
As it was, he didn’t quite know what to do. She seemed happy. She had been happy; of that at least he was sure. She had clung to him at the climax as if the gates of heaven were shutting. Afterwards, she had said very little, but had lain stroking him, over and over as if he were a new possession. And he had fallen asleep.
But he was glad about that. He was not ignorant of the ways of well-born women in bed. Some made no secret of what they wanted, and were frank and comradely both in your arms and out of them. Some wanted servant-lovers to whip them in bed and crawl under their feet the rest of the time. This girl was neither of these. He wondered what he had done to her. Perhaps, having taken the first step, she would never marry, but take a succession of lovers. Until in time she ceased to take heed of the calendar, or of the courtesies, and trouble and ruin would come.
Perhaps it would turn out well. Perhaps, like an overanxious child she would now be content to wait for a proper marriage. Or even look forward to it. He smiled a little, thinking of the kind of men, young and old, her family would propose for her. Perhaps he ought to have restricted the performance a little. But she was a delicious girl, well made and courageous. What else she might be he didn’t know, any more than she could know him, whatever she claimed. They had hardly exchanged more than a few sentences in all their acquaintance. It was not his mind she or anyone else wanted him for. That he fully accepted.
He decided to go back and open her chamber door. She had only to pretend sleep if she wished him gone. If she were still asleep, he wouldn’t waken her. In any case, she knew she could rely on him to greet her, when next they met, as a servant should greet a lady.
The line of light under her door told him that she had risen and renewed the candle. And, perhaps, dressed. His clothes, held one-handed before him, would have to represent the decencies: he wanted to end the matter, one way or the other. He opened the door.
She had risen, and replaced the candle, and lifted the sheet from the floor, but she had not dressed. She looked up, half in bed and half out of it. He looked at the long line of shin and knee and thigh and all the places where his fingers and his lips had rested. And then the white skin of the arms, and the frail ribs and the small breasts, round as oranges. And her lips, which were open. She was smiling. She stood, and he could trace the small incoherence of her breathing. Then she walked towards him, her eyes on his hand, and the sheltering twist of his clothes. “These need to be folded,” she said. “And in any case, they are in the way.” And striking them from his hand to the floor, she took their place.
That time, there was no courting at all. The next time, a great deal. The third time, when the sky outside the window was lightening, a desperate onslaught which