Page 53 of By the Sword
Kate stroked his damp hair. ‘And I you. Jonathan…?’
‘Hmm?’ he whispered sleepily.
‘Jonathan. I need to know…I mean I don’t mind…I would understand.’
‘What are you talking about?’
‘Other women?’ she said in a small, tight voice.
In the dark, she could not see his face.
He pulled her closer. ‘Why do you ask?’
She sighed. ‘Nell says Giles is unfaithful.’
‘Regularly,’ agreed Jonathan. ‘Kate, how little you understand men. A man may love a woman to the ends of the earth, and the act of taking another woman to his bed will not alter that. For some men, it is no different from eating or sleeping. It is a need of the moment that has nothing to do with his heart, and that is how it is with Giles.’ She stiffened and he laid a finger on her lips. ‘I’m not Giles. Did you ever doubt Richard’s fidelity?’
‘No.’
‘Then why doubt me?’
‘I know your reputation.’
‘And you should also know I have only ever loved one other woman in my entire life, Kate. She is many years in the grave and while I have not been a monk, I have never told another woman that I loved her…until you.’ He kissed her gently. ‘Kate, you have my word that I have lived a life as chaste as that of a priest. Indeed my less charitable comrades in arms have remarked upon my apparent lack of interest in the fairer sex on many an occasion in the last few months.’
‘And what did you tell them?’
‘I told them that Scottish women held no more allure for me than their particular hairy breed of cattle.’
‘Jonathan.’
‘’Tis true, Kate. Hairy and dirty and no bedfellow for me. Now you, on the other hand, are worth the wait.’
As he talked his hand strayed across her shoulder, his touch sending shafts of fire through her body.
‘I thought you were tired?’ Kate remarked.
‘Licence my roving hands, and let them go, Before, behind, between, above, below…’ Jonathan quoted, illustrating his words as he spoke.
‘Don’t quote Donne at me. I’ve read all his poems.’ Kate giggled as she wrestled with the roving hands. ‘Jonathan..’ She broke away and looked at him. ‘You haven’t told me.’
‘Told you what?’
‘That you loved me.’
He paused and frowned as if the words that followed were the hardest words he had ever had to say. ‘I love you, Kate Ashley.’ He took a deep breath.
‘Thou art my life, my love, my heart,
The very eyes of me:
And hast command of every part
To live and die for thee.’
‘Donne again?’ she asked in a hoarse whisper.
‘Herrick.’
