Courtesan of the Saints

  *

  The following day Miles saw Robert start off on his long ride to Somerset, and spent the day wandering round the City, renewing his acquaintance with it after an absence of more than four years.

  He decided not to appear too eager to be at Mistress Weston's house that evening, and did not arrive until very close to the usual hour for supper. He was shown into a small parlor overlooking a garden at the back of the house. The maid told him Mistress Weston begged he would excuse her for her tardiness, but she would be down as soon as possible.

  He smiled, mentally applauding Cherry for her victory in this first round, and stood looking out of the window until she came into the room.

  Turning, he narrowed his eyes as he saw her. She was dressed in white, with the bodice cut low and tight fitting, laced with gold ribbons. A gold underpetticoat was visible where her skirts were looped back, and she offered tantalizing glimpses of scarlet slippers as she moved forwards to greet him. The only jewel she wore was a ruby pendant, which rested provocatively in the hollow between her breasts, just above her bodice.

  She smiled warmly at him.

  'I do regret I was not ready in time to welcome you. It is most remiss of me, and I beg your pardon. Will you forgive me?'

  'I would be churlish indeed to grumble at so slight a delay, when you present such a charming vision as a result of it!'

  She raised her brows. 'You are a flatterer, sir. But I will not keep you from your supper any longer. Come, let us go into the dining parlour.'

  He gave her his arm, and she led him through the door at the far side of' the room from the one he had entered by. Beyond was another small room, with a small table set for two. A large side table held numerous dishes, and a young manservant stood waiting to serve them.

  'I prefer to entertain here when I have just one or two friends,' she explained to him, as they sat down. 'I call it the dining parlor, and the other, why, 'tis almost a banqueting hall! I feel lost in it when I am alone. I trust you do not object to the informality.'

  'Indeed no, I am delighted at the opportunity of seeing more of your delightful house. The parlor I saw yesterday was most impressive, excellent for such as yesterday's gathering.'

  'But a little overpowering for just the two of us. We will sit in my special parlor afterwards. I am always most at my ease there.'

  'I cannot imagine you ill at ease in any situation, Mistress Weston,' Miles rejoined.

  She smiled her thanks at the compliment, and they chatted easily throughout the meal. He praised her on the excellence of the food and wine, and brought the conversation round to the previous evening, when she had provided similarly excellent refreshments. He was able to ask her questions about the guests, and she told him amusing anecdotes about many of them. He responded by stories of his life in the army, but neither of them volunteered much information about themselves.

  They did not lack for conversation, as both of them were skilled at entertaining, and the meal passed delightfully quickly. The servant withdrew, and Cherry ushered Miles through yet another door connecting that room with another, more of a boudoir than a parlor.

  It was very feminine in style, with upholstered chairs, and many cushions. Miles wandered across to inspect a portrait hanging beside the door to yet a further room. It was of a woman very like Cherry, but in a dress of twenty years before.

  'Who is this?' he asked, turning back to her.

  'My mother, when she was my age.' Cherry came to stand beside him.

  'She is beautiful.'

  'Yes, indeed, and she is still so.' Cherry laughed. 'Only a few months ago we were taken for sisters. I do not believe she will ever grow old.'

  'You are going to follow in her footsteps, and because you are ten times as beautiful now, you will stay like it till you are a hundred!'

  Cherry laughed. 'Fie, sir, what an extravagant compliment.'

  'Are you bored with being told you are so lovely?'

  'No, indeed! What woman would be?'

  'Some women would deny it, protest boredom, while angling for yet more declarations.'

  'I hope I am not like other women,' she said, wrinkling up her nose at him.

  He laughed. 'The first sign of vanity I have detected in you! No, indeed, you far surpass all your sisters.'

  He lifted her hand and kissed it, looking all the while into her eyes. Then he pulled her towards him, and unresisting she came into his arms. He could feel the rising excitement in his own blood, and sensed it also in her. He kissed her gently at first, then more urgently, and she responded with equal passion.

  When they were breathless, he lifted his head and looked without speaking into her eyes. A slight raising of his eyebrows, and with one accord they were moving towards the door which led, as Miles had expected, into a luxuriously furnished bedroom.

  The candle was already lit beside the bed, and it shed a soft glow round the room. The covers were turned down, and soft rugs covered the floor.

  Cherry was unresisting as Miles moved towards the bed. In silence, he expertly set about the task of removing her gown. It was all she wore, and was soon cast aside. Her body was all he had imagined it to be, smooth and supple, slim yet shapely.

  As he bent to kiss her she suddenly giggled, and rolled away from him, slithering under the covers. He stood up and regarded her with amusement. This was going to be better than he had expected! Slowly he disrobed, and she lifted the sheets for him to slip in beside her, giving a tempting glimpse of her limbs as she did so.

  Still in silence, he leaned over her to snuff the candle, but she caught his hand in hers.

  'Do you wish to be in darkness?' she whispered softly.

  Surprised, he looked down at her, and she grinned impishly.

  'You have been complimenting me. May I not return the compliment? You are handsome, and good to look at. I would not wish to lose the pleasure of looking at you.'

  Basely the thought flashed through his mind that she might simply find the attentions of a handsome man a welcome change, but he recalled that Dick Ashford was, in a different way, a goodlooking man. And he strongly suspected Dick Ashford had been in the same bed on the previous night.

  Dismissing the thought, he left the candle to illuminate the scene, and made the most of his opportunities. He soon found she was as expert as he in the art of love, and it was a long time before they lay quiet in one another's arms.

  She lay still for a while, and then ran her fingers lightly over the long scar on his chest.

  'Where did you gain this trophy?' she asked tenderly.

  'What, that wound? Oh, 'twas some years since, were defending some town, I forget which. We lost the town, I regret to say!'

  He thought back to that occasion. He remembered it only too well, but could not tell her it was a wound he has sustained when he had been covering the retreat of Charles Stuart from Worcester two years earlier. He thought back briefly to the rough bandaging he had been able to contrive before fleeing in the wake of the King, and the days he had spent in hiding at the house of a friend in Staffordshire, after an agonizing ride when he had wondered whether he would be able to stay on his horse for long enough to reach the refuge. He had spent several days in delirium, and only the courage of his friend's wife had saved him. She had hidden him under her bed, and with the assistance of the village midwife, given a most convincing demonstration of a woman in labour when the troopers of Parliament had searched the house. Fortunately they had had sufficient warning of the approach of the troopers to smuggle her three month old baby out to one of the cottages nearby, where there were so many children that an extra one would not be noticed.

  'Why then do you smile?' she asked. 'I would not have thought a wound and a lost battle cause for rejoicing.'

  'I was remembering the lady who sheltered me and cared for me then,' he said truthfully, and was wickedly pleased to see a slight frown cross her face.

  'Where were you fighting?'

  'Mainly in Flanders. It was mostly seige
warfare, which is mightily tedious. I had not the patience for it.'

  'No, that I can well believe,' she murmured, and he mentally added a point to her score of tricks.

  After a few moments of silence she spoke again.

  'Why did you leave the army?'

  'Partly I was bored with it, for I have been in the army for ten years, since I was eighteen, and my father permitted me to join.'

  'Did you not run away to join if you were so anxious?' she laughed mischievously.

  'I thought of it, indeed, and considered myself most ill used to be forbidden. But with my father and elder brother Thomas in the army, my mother was frantic against my going, and I could not distress her by such an action.'

  'So after achieving your wish, you became bored with army life? Is it so with you with everything you achieve?'

  He kissed her. 'Indeed no. Are you afraid I shall grow tired of your charms, my dear Cherry?'

  'I did wonder,' she murmured. 'Mayhap I should have been more coy, pretended shyness?'

  'You must not pretend. In some women it adds to their charms but in others, like you, it detracts. Stay as you are'

  There was a pause, while they embraced.

  'But the boredom was only part of the reason,' Miles went on. 'I did not wish to fight for the States against England, which might have been necessary. Also, I have just received a small inheritance, and have a mind to buy an estate and settle to the life of a country squire.'

  'Methinks you would get bored with that even more swiftly than with soldiering,' she said seriously.

  'Do you not like the country?'

  'Not overmuch, I confess. I spent much of my childhood in Norfolk, and though my father was a merchant in Norwich, we had a house some distance away where I spent most of my time.'

  'I would endeavor to spend a considerable time in London. Particularly —' he paused, and she glanced up at him, laughter in her eyes.

  'If you had something to do here,' she finished for him.

  'That I did not get bored with,' he added softly, and proceeded to make love to her again, so that it was dawn for the second night running before Cherry eventually went to sleep.