Luton, Bedfordshire to Langley House, Hertfordshire

The next day at mid-morning they set out from Luton. Noah looked much better for sleeping well, and she had enjoyed the good food provided by the innkeeper’s wife. She appeared fit enough to ride, so Catling rode behind Thornton, while Noah kept her own horse. It was a fine day, although there was a strong westerly wind blowing, and for the most part Thornton let his worries abate. Noah’s back had looked much better in the morning, and he chose to believe that she was, indeed, visiting her friend Jane Orr in London, so that she might enjoy the festivities surrounding the king’s restoration.

Noah had meant to travel to London via Watford today, but Thornton persuaded her to a slightly different plan. He meant to stay this night with friends who lived close to the manor of Bushey Park, just north-east of Watford. Thomas and Leila Thanet would provide much more comfortable accommodation than a crowded public inn and, Thornton argued, better care for Noah should she need it.

Noah had not been sure of Thornton’s suggestion—how would John explain both her and Catling?—but acquiesced after only a short hesitation. Thornton had argued that it would be safer for her and Catling if they stayed at the Thanets’ Langley House, and to this Noah had no counter.

The way from Luton to the Watford region was gentle and easy. They passed between ranges of hills on either side during the morning and, in the early afternoon, stopped in the fields of St Albans, where they rested and partook of some food they carried with them.

“What shall you say to the Thanets about myself and Catling?” Noah asked as they stood up from their picnic, brushing down their clothes from the grass seeds and flowers which clung to them.

John Thornton shrugged slightly. “That you chose to accompany me to London to see your friend Jane Orr,” he said. “Perhaps following the death of your husband.” He looked significantly at Catling.

“I would prefer that you told them the truth,” said Noah.

“What? That you are the scandalous companion of Lady Anne that so much of the county has gossiped about?”

Noah flushed, and Thornton fought away a twinge of guilt.

“Noah,” he said, “it is best not to tell them all the truth. We need not speak of a deceased husband if you so wish—the Thanets shall merely assume it, and assume Catling is his child.”

Noah hesitated a moment longer, then nodded. Thornton aided her to her horse, lifted Catling to his own, and then himself mounted, leading the way back to the road and the way south.

From the fields of St Albans it was but a two-hour ride at a sedate walk to where the Thanets lived in their large red brick house. Thornton told Noah and Catling that Thomas’ great-grandfather had been a successful merchant during Queen Elizabeth’s later years. With the riches he’d made from his business he’d purchased an estate just to the north of Bushey Park, and built Langley House in the showy Elizabethan style. There the Thanets settled, selling their business and engaging, over the next two or three generations, in a gradual process of gentrification.

“Thomas’ father represented the county in the House of Commons,” Thornton said as they turned their mounts down the long drive towards the house. “Now Thomas hopes to do the same in Charles II’s new Parliament.”

“It shall be a grand new age,” Noah said, but something in her voice made Thornton look at her sharply.

“You don’t think so,” he said.

She gave a slight shrug. “So much can always go wrong.”

Thornton grunted. “You are a pessimist, indeed.”

“Indeed,” she said, and Thornton would have challenged her on that had not the front doors of the house opened that instant to reveal a well-dressed man and woman, presumably the Thanets, hurrying to meet the man, woman and child approaching the house.

“John!” Thomas Thanet exclaimed, catching at the reins of Thornton’s horse as Thornton dismounted. They shook hands enthusiastically, then Thornton stepped forward and kissed Leila Thanet’s hand. “I am so happy to see you well,” he said, glancing at her rounded six-month belly.

Flustered, Leila stepped back from Thornton and looked to Noah, as well as to the little girl still sitting on Thornton’s horse.

“John,” she said, her smile broadening, “you did not tell us you were bringing your new wife with you! What a wonderful surprise.” She looked over to Noah, who was staring at Leila with a shocked expression. “Welcome, my dear! You cannot know how happy we are to know that John has found his soul mate at last!”

Before Noah could open her mouth to protest, Thornton said, “She is my life, Leila. I cannot imagine existing without her.”

Noah was furious. She stood in the centre of the large and well appointed bedchamber to which Leila had led them (Catling, who Thornton had explained was Noah’s child from a previous marriage, had been taken to meet the Thanets’ children), her face flushed and her posture stiff.

“You did not tell me you had married your Sarah!”

“I thought you would be pleased for me.”

“I am! I am! But I would not have stayed with you in the manner I did if I had known you had married…and now the Thanets think I am your wife, and—”

“And if you tell them not, after having allowed Leila to show us to this private chamber, what shall she think? That I am disporting myself with some strumpet from Watford? Or a whore I picked up along the roadway?”

“This,” Noah waved her hand at the bed which took up almost half of the entire space of the chamber, “is a lie!”

Thornton sighed. “How can we now explain that—”

“Explaining now will take a greater skill at diplomacy than either you or I possess, I think. What should have happened, the moment Leila mistook me for your wife, was to set her to rights, not to stand there like a lovelorn donkey and say, ‘She is my life. I cannot imagine existing without her’.”

“And that was the truth, Noah,” Thornton said quietly. “To have said anything else would have been a lie.”

Noah’s shoulders slumped, her anger draining away. “Gods,” she said, “how I have mismanaged this.”

She turned away, walking to the bed and stroking the beautifully embroidered coverlet. “Here we are, arguing as if we are, truly, a married couple.”

He said nothing, and she looked back to him.

“John, what will you say when one day Thomas and Leila meet your true wife? And what shall Sarah say when she knows you have stayed here a night with a strange woman in your bed who you passed off as her?”

Thornton shrugged. “I shall think of some explanation.” In truth, Thornton did not like to think what would happen once his new wife heard of this. He hadn’t meant to say what he had when Leila called Noah his wife…but the words somehow had slipped out and, as he had just said to Noah, they were the truth.

Noah rubbed a hand over her forehead, as if her head ached. “Well, at least we shall be gone in the morning.” She studied the bed once more. “And thank the gods the bed is wide enough that we may keep fully half an acre between us during the night.”

Thornton had noted not only Noah’s hand rubbing at her forehead, but her slight wince as she had turned to the bed. “Your back, Noah? Does it pain you.”

“A little.”

“I shall ask Leila for some soothing water and—”

“For sweet Christ’s sake, John, you cannot let her see the welts. She will think you one who prefers to take his pleasures through pain rather than gentle caresses!”

“I shall wash your back myself,” Thornton said, “and how could I manage this, if Leila did not think me your husband? You can afford no one else to see those wounds if you do not want them calling the sheriff so that your attacker might be taken into custody.”

“Catling—” Noah stopped short, and Thornton wondered why she could not rely on Catling to wash her back for her.

“Catling is a wondrous child,” said Thornton, “but those wounds need more care than she can give.”

Noah sighed, and sat down on the bed. “I have no concern for myself with these lies in which we have enmeshed ourselves, John, but for you. When the Thanets—when your wife—discover the deception you have played—”

“Then I shall live with the consequences,” said Thornton. “Now, rest, for I am going to ask Leila for the water with which to soothe your back.”