The Master of Winterbourne

‘Henrietta.’ It was a groan. Once more he bent and swept her into his arms, starting down the corridor towards the master bedchamber. Henrietta let him carry her, unresisting, her fingers twining in his hair, her lips urgent against his.

A voice echoed up the back stairs, ‘Martha? You seen the master and mistress, girl?’

‘Not come by me,’ a female voice answered from the main guest chamber. ‘They be in long gallery dancing, surely?’

‘They are awaiting us in the yard,’ Henrietta hissed, slipping from his arms and smoothing down her hair. ‘We cannot just disappear, leave all our guests.’

‘I can.’ Matthew pulled her to him again, his lips in her hair. ‘These country weddings last far too long for my liking.’

‘Come on.’ She tugged him by the hand while her resolve was still strong. ‘Our guests have come from afar to be with us and we owe them hospitality. It's not like a town wedding, where your neighbours are all to hand. And,’ she added, seriously, ‘you are master here now; you must learn our ways.’

Matthew dropped a kiss on her forehead. ‘We both have a lot to learn, a lot to teach each other.’

Chapter Fourteen

They were greeted with a rousing cheer as they entered the yard hand in hand. Shadows were lengthening across the cobbles, but the enclosed space was warm with the heat of the day and the press of bodies. Flights of swifts still swooped overhead, their high, piping calls piercing the laughter and joking below. Kitchen maids were constantly on the move fetching flagons of ale from the dairy where it had been cooling on wet stone slabs to quench thirsts raised by the fine spread now completely demolished.

‘A health to the master and mistress!’ John, the head groom, stood on the bench and raised his wooden flagon high. ‘Here's to long life and many fine sons for Winterbourne!’

The party surged to its feet, mugs and flagons clanking, their voices echoing the toast. Only Sim, the worse for cider, slumped off the end of the bench and slid, snoring gently, beneath the trestles.

Matthew climbed the stone steps of the mounting block and held up a hand for silence. Gradually they subsided, shushing the unruly, nudging each other while they waited for him to speak.

‘Friends – for I feel I may address you so, so welcome you have made me in the short time I have been at Winterbourne – my wife, your mistress, and I thank you for your good wishes and hard work this day. Now we are all together I pledge you that I will protect Winterbourne and its people, so long as you repay me with your loyalty…’

As Matthew spoke Henrietta watched the rapt faces, attentive to the speech. He was imposing, his long, lean authoritative figure dominating the yard, the garnet-red of his clothes glowing in the dying light, his trained lawyer's voice reaching every corner without effort. This was her husband and it was a strange new sensation to be watching him, proud of him and proud too of her people.

‘Mistress.’ Robert was at her elbow, low-voiced. ‘A package has come for you by messenger.’

‘Put it with the others.’ Henrietta paid him scant notice.

‘From Oxford.’ The quiet words brought him all her attention.

‘From Oxford? From our friend in Oxford?’

‘Yes.’

‘Where is the man? No one must see him.’

‘Gone, do not fear, Mistress. If anyone saw him they would think him just another servant with a gift.’

‘Where is the message? Is it safe?’

‘I have it here.’ Robert handed her a limp package. ‘It feels like a pair of gloves.’

Her fingers closed round it as Matthew jumped down from the block and joined them. ‘Another gift, Henrietta?’

‘Er…yes. I was just asking Robert if he had made the messenger welcome, but he tells me the man has already left.’

‘Will you not open it and see who sent it?’

‘I shan't trouble now, I want to get back to the dancing.’ Henrietta wove her way back through the throng of servants, stopping here and there to receive congratulations or to admire a new gown.

‘No, let us see who has sent you this kind gift.’ The bantering tone held the faintest edge of suspicion at her haste and Henrietta shrugged carelessly, ripping open the unstamped sealing wax with sinking heart.

Inside, as Robert had predicted, was a pair of kid gloves, the cuffs heavily embroidered with bullion. ‘Very fine,’ Matthew commented. ‘Is there a message?’

There was. Henrietta could feel it through the thickness of the left-hand glove, a page, not a brief note of greeting. ‘How strange. The card must have fallen off.’