Whiter than the Lily Read Online Free Page B

night, you see. Oh, she thinks that she does not disturb me, that I sleep blissfully on when she creeps out of my bed. But I awake, sir, always I awake. I perceive her sudden absence, even if I am deeply asleep. And I go to the window, from which I can look down on the garden, and I watch as she enacts her rites. Only often she conceals herself, you understand, she slips away to where I can no longer see her. It is easily done.’ He sighed. Staring out over the garden, dropping to a whisper, he said, ‘Naked under the moonlight she is, her lovely body so pale and white. So beautiful. So beautiful.’
    Suddenly he seemed to recall to whom he was speaking. The intensity left his haggard face and, laughing briefly, Ambrose said, ‘Josse, I am sorry. In my desperation, I forgot myself. You arrive here as an unsuspecting guest then all of a sudden your host drags you off alone and starts raving about matters more suited to a private discussion between a lady and her bedchamber maid. You must be quite horrified!’
    Since horrified did not begin to describe it, Josse merely grunted.
    ‘What I am asking you,’ Ambrose went on, his voice calmer now, ‘is whether the Hawkenlye nuns can help my wife. Help both of us, indeed, for it is my wish as much as it is hers.’
    Light dawned on Josse, suddenly and totally. Old husband, young wife, and a large, wealthy household whose quiet peace was undisturbed by a child’s shrieks of laughter or a baby’s cry.
    He opened his mouth to speak, but as he did so Ambrose forestalled him. ‘Galiena is barren, Sir Josse,’ he said quietly. ‘And I want more than anything in the world to grant her heart’s desire and give her a child.’

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    ‘You reassure me, Josse. I had no wish to raise my wife’s hopes if there was no hope, but now I believe I shall make the suggestion to her.’
    Ambrose and Josse had walked all around the garden. Josse had answered the older man’s questions about the Hawkenlye community as fully as he could, and at last Ambrose seemed to accept that Josse could not be regarded as any sort of an authority on that highly embarrassing subject of women’s matters. With a chuckle, Ambrose said he would wait until he could address his questions to the proper person – Josse had told him that the infirmarer was called Sister Euphemia, which Ambrose had committed to memory – and he promised not to badger Josse any more.
    As they set off back towards the house, the soft summer sounds punctuated by the tap of their footsteps on the path, Josse suddenly exclaimed, ‘We are forgetting the waters!’
    ‘The waters?’ There was a note of query in Ambrose’s tone.
    ‘Aye, the precious healing waters, down in the Vale.’ Confident that this was a type of cure that anyonecould discuss without the hot flush of embarrassment, Josse hurried to explain. ‘There is a spring at Hawkenlye – you have not heard tell of it? The holy water has worked many a miracle.’
    ‘I am not entirely sure that I believe in miracles,’ Ambrose said. ‘Sir Josse, I would risk a further confidence, if you permit?’ Screwed-up eyes peering at Josse’s dubious face, he gave a shout of laughter and said, ‘Not that sort of confidence, man! Did I not just give you my word? No. What I was about to say was this. We have prayed, Galiena and I, aye, and fasted. Confessed our sins and done penance, quite extreme in my case. The priest tells us that Galiena’s failure to conceive is a mark of God’s disfavour and that a sincere and heartfelt repentance will restore to us the Lord’s grace. So we pray, and tell our beads, and I submitted myself to a hair shirt and no clean linen for a month.’ He shuddered. ‘Believe me, Josse, to I who am probably over-particular, my own stench and the crawl of lice on my skin were worse torments than the rough scratch of horsehair. And all for naught!’ Anger flashed in the stern face and, for a moment, Josse caught a glimpse of the authority and the