The Master of Winterbourne

She drew on the right-hand glove, turning her wrist for Matthew to admire the workmanship, hoping to distract him from the missing greeting. ‘They are a good fit, perfect for riding.’

Suddenly she shivered. ‘Can we go in now? It is cool here in the shadows.’ The goose-flesh crept on her arms, but the fine hairs were rising through nerves, not chill.

Matthew put his arms around her shoulders, drawing her against the warmth of his body. ‘Come inside, have a glass of Canary wine and warm yourself with a dance.’

Passing the cloak chest at the foot of the stairs, Henrietta sat down abruptly, one hand at her ankle. ‘Ouch! I have a pebble in my shoe. Go up to our guests, Matthew. I will follow directly I have shaken it out.’ As soon as he had disappeared round the half-landing she was on her feet, her heart in her mouth, the message pulled from the glove. Quickly she scanned it: someone would come as soon as maybe, but the message was so oblique that no one who did not know of the casket's existence would understand it.

Hurriedly she lifted the lid of the chest. With a swift glance round she bent and tucked the gloves under the topmost winter cloak. No one would touch the contents of the chest until the autumn so the message was quite safe until she chose to retrieve it. Now she must get back to Matthew before his vague suspicions hardened and he came to seek her out.

The party in the long gallery had become boisterous while they had been away. The consort of viols were refreshing themselves with a well-earned tankard of ale but one young man among the guests had appropriated a fiddle and was scraping out a tune for his less inhibited friends in a corner.

Aunt Susan, pink-cheeked, was head to head with Lawyer Stone, obviously deep in her own wedding plans, and a group of the older guests were dissecting the gossip from London over several bottles of Canary.

Henrietta stood just inside the door, unnoticed, surveying the scene. She jumped as Matthew came up behind her, girdling her waist with his hands, each warm finger tangible through the thin silk. ‘You see, no one missed us. We could have gone to our chamber after all.’

The hairs on the back of her neck rose in a sensual frisson at his plain speaking, the promise in his voice. Matthew's hands moved slowly upwards until they just cupped the lower swell of her breasts. He stepped

backwards, pulling her gently towards the door. She melted back against him. Perhaps, after all, this was best, to slip away quietly before anyone noticed them…

‘Ah, there they are!’ Too late – or just in time – Aunt Susan had found them. ‘Time is getting on. Come, Henrietta, ladies.’ She beckoned to the female guests. ‘Leave Sir Matthew to the menfolk, we have our own matters to attend to.’

Blushing furiously, Henrietta was swept on a giggling tide of femininity to the master bedchamber, pursued by the masculine laughter of the groomsmen bearing a protesting Matthew off to the Spanish chamber.

Aunt Susan shut the door firmly on the gawping maids, leaving Henrietta closeted with Alice, Letty, herself and the female guests. The maiden cousins from Aylesbury, flushed with wine and excitement, bustled forward with silver scissors to snip off the knots of ribbon sewn around the hem of Henrietta's wedding gown. As each was freed she handed it with a kiss to one of the unmarried guests as a token to be sewn on their own wedding gowns. The girls took them with much teasing, giggling and speculation as to which of them would be next at the altar.

Then Alice and Letty began to undress her, unlacing the primrose silk, lifting the heavy skirt over her head, leaving her standing in a flurry of silver-embroidered petticoats.

‘Time for the stocking-throwing!’ Alice declared gleefully.

Laughing, Henrietta pulled up her skirts and untied her ribbon garters, rolling each silk stocking down her leg and over her foot. Alice, as most recently married, picked them up, turned her back on the assembled women and tossed the stockings over her shoulders. Shouts of muffled laughter from the chamber beyond showed that the men were following the same ritual.

Shrieking and scrambling, the unmarried women pounced on the stockings; Aunt Susan emerged victorious with one, to cries of ‘Unfair! Unfair!’ and Serena Willoughby, Marcus's younger sister, captured the other.

‘Who is he, Serena?... Own up, it's William Latham, isn't it?... Oh! You flirt!’ Poor Serena blushed scarlet under the teasing onslaught, but no amount of cajoling could persuade her to admit her young man's name.

Henrietta stood in her petticoats among the laughing, teasing friends and found herself smiling with pure happiness. She had been dreading this ritual, but now she was caught up in the infectious joy of it.

‘Robe the bride!’ Alice and Letty removed the rest of her wedding garments, then slipped the new lawn nightshift over her head. Henrietta caught a glimpse of herself in the glass and gasped involuntarily.

‘Aunt, this is not seemly.’ The diaphanous fabric clung where it touched, a mere illusion of covering for her naked body. It pooled round her bare feet, slipped treacherously from her shoulders.

‘It is very seemly for a wedding night,’ Serena said daringly. ‘I'll vouch Sir Matthew would pronounce it so.’

‘Serena!’ There was a chorus of automatic disapproval from the married women present, but they laughed none the less.

Alice was patting rosewater on to Henrietta's shoulders, letting the cool liquid trickle between her breasts, touching it to the fluttering pulse-points at her wrists and neck. She and Letty brushed out Henrietta's chestnut hair until it crackled before two of the youngest girls crowned her with a chaplet of white bud roses and silver ribbons.

The giggling and laughter died away into an almost palpable silence as the women stood together regarding their handiwork.

‘Ahh…’ It was Lady Willoughby. ‘I declare, my sweet child, you are the most beautiful bride I ever laid eyes on.’

Susan, tears standing in her eyes, dropped a kiss on Henrietta’s hair, but her soft words were drowned by a sudden clamour in the passageway outside.

‘Open up for the bridegroom!’ Lord Willoughby's stentorian tones shook the panelling.

‘To bed! To bed!’ The knot of women inside the bedchamber broke into a whirlpool of activity, sweeping back the sheets, plumping up the bolsters, installing Henrietta in the centre of the big bed.

The banging on the door grew more insistent as the women smoothed the coverlet back into place. Letty arranged Henrietta's hair, fanning it over the pillows, and at the last moment, as Aunt Susan opened the door, Alice darted forward and tweaked the ribbon loose at the neck of the gown.