Celia sighed. “No.” Then she said, “Thank you,” but she was looking at Dando.
And Dando waslooking back at Celia.
Susannah’s brother—her shy brother who wouldn’t say boo to a goose—was meeting the eyes of a woman. And not just any woman, but a plump, beautiful one like Celia.
Dando made his way to the door, brushing by Susannah.
“Hush, hush, hush,” he said under his breath, just what Susannah had said long ago when she’d paced the floor with him in the middle of the night.
Susannah was giddy. She wanted to twirl and shout and clap her hands. But she didn’t. She followed Dando to the cart and helped him hoist the snoring Ned over his shoulder.
“You and Celia?” she whispered to her brother.
He grunted, a nothing sound, but Susannah knew what she had seen. She followed Dando back into the kitchen. She wanted to see Dando and Celia together again, see more of the magic, but Celia was gone, her pastry abandoned, and Miriam was there instead.
Miriam nodded towards the back stairs. “Celia will show you where to put him.”
Dando bore Ned away, up the narrow stairs, the treads creaking dangerously with the unaccustomed double weight of two men.
Even after hours of tending to the custom in the publichouse, Miriam looked as neat as ever. Suddenly feeling quite untidy and awkward, Susannah tucked loose strands of her hair behind her ears.
“Miriam, you mustn’t think?—”
“Thank you,” the other woman said curtly. “For bringing him home.”
Susannah swallowed. “Of course.”
A clatter came from the pub and several shouts. Miriam made a shooing motion with her hand. “Go home.”
“Wait, I—” Susannah looked around, wrung her hands. “Can I help? Wash the dishes? Or make the pies?”
Another shout and a crash from the pub. “No. Just go home.”
“Ah.” Still she couldn’t leave. “I hope . . . I hope Ned won’t spew up. He hasn’t yet, but he might need a chamber pot to hand.”
Miriam’s face hardened. “I know how to tend my husband.”
“Yes, yes, yes, of course, you do.” No one would ever doubt Miriam’s skills at tending to anything. “I never meant?—”
Susannah’s words were drowned out by good-natured shouting and singing as Miriam opened the door to the pub and slipped through it.
“—to suggest otherwise,” Susannah finished.
She looked around the empty kitchen. Her brother might have a place here, but she did not.
Seven
Sleep was nigh.
“I wanted you the moment I saw you,” her king whispered in the concubine’s ear. His body cupped hers.
“And I saw you the moment I wanted you,” she whispered back to him.
—The Concubine and Her King.Unpublished MS.
Susannah left the inn’s kitchen. The music played on, filled her ears, lightened her heart. Ned was safely in bed, so she might stay and dance. Even just watching the dancing would be a treat. Her dress was plain, her hair was almost certainly disordered, but she’d be thought an odd body even if she had taken the trouble to don her best dress and brush her hair.
She took Beramo’s halter and led him to the back of the stables. They would be full of the inn’s horses and the horses of those who had ridden into Much Wemby for the fête, butshe might ask the night ostler to keep an eye on Beramo and the cart.
