Unlacing Lady Thea

He saw her, reached out, but she made a little gesture of reassurance and broke the surface, spluttering. ‘The current is faster than I thought,’ she called to the other two, who were gazing tactfully in the other direction.

‘Rhys?’ She looked around. No sign of him. Thea splashed round in a circle, treading water. Cramp? A snag of dead branches? Clinging weed? She was about to dive under when hands took her around the waist, tossed her upwards and she fell back with a great splash and a shriek.

‘You wretch,’ she spluttered, dragging wet hair out of her face.

‘Pax,’ Rhys called. He had taken refuge behind Hodge.

‘Coward!’

‘I know where I am safe.’ He was grinning like the boy she remembered from so long ago and her heart contracted with love for him and with nostalgia for a time when all was innocent and uncomplicated.

She realised, with a jolt, that she was happy. Whatever had passed between them, however much she might love him in vain, she and Rhys were back on their old terms of friendship. ‘I have a long memory,’ Thea threatened, trying hard not to laugh as she swam back to Polly as decorously as she could manage.

‘Snails in my slippers?’ Rhys called after her.

Thea rolled onto her back and assumed her best society expression and voice. ‘You may have reverted to thirteen years of age, Rhys Denham, but I have put no snails in slippers since I was eight.’ That reduced even Hodge to hoots of laughter and Rhys... It was clear Rhys attached no importance to their night together.

Chapter Seventeen

It had been almost time for the evening meal when they finally arrived in one of Avignon’s smarter hostelries, close by the Porte du Rhone. They’d still been rather damp about the underwear and decidedly relaxed.

‘The proprietor obviously thinks the circus has come to town,’ Thea remarked as they met in the hallway an hour later. ‘Either that or he will expect all English visitors to arrive removing water weed from their hair.’

‘The place is like a morgue,’ Rhys complained. He had been looking forward to dinner, to enjoying good food and wine while watching Thea laughing. She seemed to have recovered her poise after their reckless interlude, and it was good to have her so comfortable with his company again. He only wished he could put it behind him so easily, but desire was not to be suppressed.

‘I was told it was clean and comfortable,’ he grumbled now, focusing on that and not on the memory of her slim waist as he had caught her in the water, as near naked in her clinging shift as made no difference. There had been a moment as their eyes had met, the second before she hit the water, when he had imagined he’d seen a yearning as intense as his. Wishful thinking.

‘It is perfectly clean and well appointed,’ Thea pointed out.

Rhys felt a perverse desire to disagree. ‘I suppose it is a superior establishment, but I do not fancy eating my dinner in a private dining room that looks as though it was decorated for one of the gloomier popes.’

‘I was forgetting that the popes were here for some of the Middle Ages.’ Thea tucked her hand into his elbow and he had to consciously keep himself from squeezing it against his ribs. ‘Were they gloomy?’

‘Probably not. There’s a very splendid papal palace and acres of vineyards—I would wager they had rather a good time.’

‘I wonder what the music is.’ Thea went out to the front terrace and Rhys followed her.

‘There is a festival, madame.’ The proprietor came through the doors as she spoke. ‘One trusts the noise will not disturb you.’

‘It sounds delightful. Will there be food down there?’

The man looked down his nose. ‘Rustic fare, madame. The eating places of the townspeople, vendors with stalls. Wine sellers.’ He made a very Gallic flicking motion of dismissal with his fingertips.

‘Sounds excellent,’ Rhys said. ‘We will eat out. Hodge!’

‘My lord?’ The valet emerged from the shadows.

‘Tell Polly and Tom we’re going down to the fair and you can all have the evening off. All right?’ He raised an eyebrow at Thea.

‘That sounds wonderful. I would like to try the local food.’ She adjusted her shawl over her shoulders, took his arm again and made for the steps.

They strolled amidst the old stone buildings, gilded by the setting sun, then wove their way through narrow alleyways and across tiny squares, headed for the music and then followed the smell of roasting meat. The Place du Palais had three great fires that had obviously been nursed since early morning—a whole ox, two sheep and three pigs were turning on spits with waiters hurrying to and fro between them and the tables grouped around to form impromptu eating places.

Other stallholders shouted their wares from boards laden with pies, breads, salads, sweetmeats and fruit. Down the middle of the long open space, dodging the cursing waiters and tripping each other up, a group of men were laying boards over the cobbles.

‘A dance floor. What fun.’

‘You want to dance?’ Rhys asked with a sinking heart. He danced out of duty, because it was expected of a gentleman, and he always felt a fool promenading about, despite being assured by any number of young ladies—with much fluttering of lashes—that he was an excellent dancer.

‘I love to dance,’ Thea said firmly.

They strolled around the place amidst the ladies in their local traditional costume, skirts wide with frothing white petticoats, lace in their headdresses and at cuff and throat, the men with coloured waistcoats and wide sashes. One side was dominated by the Palais des Papes, more a fortress than a religious building, Rhys thought.

‘This one,’ Thea decided and stopped by a group of tables, each topped with a spotless chequered cloth, some red and white, some blue and white. ‘See how busy this is, which should mean it is good. It is not too near the fires and there is a table here with a good view of the dance floor.’

Rhys pulled out chairs, settled Thea at the table and clicked his fingers for the waiter. ‘Bring us a good selection of what you would recommend. And as for wine, a Châteauneuf-du-Pape.’

The waiter suggested adding some of the local crémant. ‘As sparkling as the demoiselle’s eyes, monsieur,’ he said, and hurried off.

‘I cannot wait,’ Thea said. ‘Good food, wine, music, dancing. Bliss. You do dance these days, don’t you, Rhys?’

‘Not if I can help it, no,’ he responded. His mood had soured again with the waiter’s mildly flirtatious comment about Thea’s eyes. He wanted to be at that little table over there, half-hidden by a drapery of creepers, not here, on display. He wanted to feed her titbits of food, to watch her eyes sparkle with the wine, to hold her hand under the table and steal kisses. And then they would dance, but not in this square under the stars, but in his bed, which was wide and plump with snowy sheets and a goosefeather mattress and the dance would be the ancient pavane of loving...

‘Oh. Of course, I expect you do not care for it anymore.’

Her face fell as if he had snubbed her and he supposed he had. How not to hurt her? It was like picking his way across a scatter of broken glass, barefoot with his eyes closed.

‘I never did.’ Rhys found it impossible to keep the edge out of his voice. ‘Serena cared for it, so I danced, that is all.’ Now he really had cast a damper over the proceedings. Thea bit her lip, upset, he supposed, that he should mention that name. ‘I have little talent for it,’ Rhys added, striving for a lighter tone.

The musicians started to group together, fiddle players, drummers, various woodwind players and one with a strange device that they guessed was a hurdy-gurdy. Couples were coming onto the dance floor, girls giggling and pretending reluctance, young men in their best suits, swaggering and showing off, older couples, stocky and more sombrely clad, but moving together with the ease of long acquaintance.

‘Madame?’ A pleasant-faced, stocky young man stopped at the table and bowed. ‘You would care to dance? If monsieur permits?’

Thea jumped to her feet, took the stranger’s hand and left without a glance back at Rhys. He heard her laugh as they took their places in the lines of men and women and say something to the pretty girl on her right. Then the fiddlers stuck a chord and they were off, weaving and spinning, promenading, a human plait.

She turned wrongly, bumped into two other women, righted herself and they laughed good-naturedly, turning her back into the measure. Now the women were waving neckerchiefs over their heads. Thea tugged the lace fichu from her shoulders and used that. She looked beautiful, Rhys thought. Graceful, happy, full of life and enthusiasm, her face transformed with a flush of colour, a wide smile.

When the dance ended, her partner brought her back, bowed and went to the next table in search of another girl. Thea sat down, fanning herself. ‘That was such fun!’

Before she could sit down another man approached, bowed. ‘Madame? S’il vous plaît?’ He was tall and dark and even Rhys could appreciate that he had looks that would set any woman’s heart aflutter.

Thea darted a glance at Rhys. Not asking permission, that was certain, and yet there had been something in her eyes.... Yearning? For what?

He was still puzzling when she turned to the Frenchman. ‘Merci, monsieur. You do not mind, do you, Rhys?’ Without waiting for an answer she took his arm and they went back to the dance floor.