Page 6 of Claiming the Tower
“That’s a kindness, only if it’s no extra bother.” Then Bess heard the bells from further up toward the Temple. “I really must be off. Have a good evening.”
A week later, Bess had just settled in the pair of chairs they’d used three weeks ago, when there was a delighted sound from nearer the hall. “Ah! There you are. Grand.” Hereswith looked rather splendid, a queen in triumph in some court masque. “I was desperately hoping for some pleasant conversation this afternoon. Adelaide, would you ask the kitchen for tea and something reasonably decadent? Both sweet and savoury.”
Bess waited until Hereswith had settled in the other chair, putting her reticule down. A small bag. Presumably she’d left anything larger in the cloakroom. Then Hereswith turned that glowing attention on her. “How are you? I was glad of your note. I thought about writing this week, but I wasn’t sure if you’d get it. And then what I wanted to write out would have been pages.”
Bess blinked twice. “You wanted to write to me?”
“Yes.” Hereswith tilted her head. “Is there some reason I shouldn’t want to?”
“Generally,” Bess said, “people don’t. Genteel correspondence with a few distant cousins. Notes from yearmates, invitations I can’t accept, though those have fallen off over the years.”
“Also, we’re now into the age that’s less about weddings and baby namings and not yet into the children’s weddings,” Hereswith said. “It would be lying to say I don’t have a fairly busy social calendar, but mine’s all professional, not much personal. Bar a few necessary events that really are both. St George’s Day. That was what I’d wanted to write about, actually.”
Bess nodded cautiously. Just about at that point, there was a tea cart wheeled in, and Bess’s eyes widened. “That is reasonably decadent?” The cart was rather laden down. It held a pot of tea steaming gently from the spout, a tiered plate with what looked like sandwiches and little savoury pastry tarts, and above that, small confectionaries. “And is— is that drinking chocolate?”
“Mistress Rowan did ask for a little decadence.” Adelaide leaned over to set the cutlery in place. “Charmed to stay the perfect temperature, of course, until you’re ready for it.”
Hereswith was looking delighted with that. “Exactly what I was hoping for. Thank you, Adelaide, and my thanks to Cook.”
Once they were left alone, Bess peered at the options on offer. “Orange biscuits for you, I think. The chocolate really is too much.”
“I would prefer to enjoy it in company, and I absolutely earned it today.” Then Hereswith paused, a measured pause. “I rather like the idea of giving you something to enjoy. Anticipate.”
Bess looked down at her skirt. It struck her, then, that she had perhaps passed a test a fortnight ago that she hadn’t been aware she was taking. “A privacy charm, perhaps?” Bess asked, keeping her voice low.
Hereswith obliged, again with the magic that came to her call remarkably smoothly. Then she deliberately set out plates, waiting for Bess to speak.
“Pardon. I feel that for clarity, asking a question right now might be entirely too personal, but also asking would avoid misunderstandings. I presume you dislike those in your personal life, having an abundance of them in your work.” Bess did her best to phrase it so it would amuse, at least a little, and was rewarded with Hereswith’s smile.
“I do indeed prefer questions, even the personal ones, to the misunderstandings. I don’t think you intend to offend or manipulate, which makes it far easier to answer, mind.” Hereswith met her eyes for a moment, but somehow steady. “Please, ask. If we are to be friends, we should feel we can ask.”
“Are we friends?” Bess was startled into asking that first. “I mean, we’ve only spoken a few times.”
“My dear Bess, I have had relationships of far more national import built on far less. Such an exhausting proposition, having to decide what someone thinks of you by the way she holds a fan at a ball or how he escorts you to supper.” Hereswith added one of the little sandwich halves to her plate, and added, “I’m sure Madam Judson disapproves of you eating well, so please indulge as much as you’d like. As you can see, there is no shortage for me to enjoy as well.”
Bess glanced at the food, took a breath, and then pressed herself to asking. “When you mentioned your partner at work, were you?” Her voice caught. “Were you wondering how I felt about that?”
“It would be something of a bother if you were difficult about it. Best to get that out early, I’ve found.” Hereswith’s voice was brisk, like a chilly breeze across the back of the neck at the wrong moment. Bess did not like it being directed near her at all.
“You are also not married. Is that, I mean.” Bess felt she couldn’t actually finish that question. Not without sharing her own feeling first, but she had to look at the ground to get it out. “I’m not married— well, no one’s actually asked or been interested. But I’m also not inclined to marriage. Or men.”
Bess looked up to find Hereswith looking at her, head slightly tilted. “Ah.” The other woman took a deep breath. “I’ve always rather thought relationships were something that happened to other people, honestly. When people were going on about it at school, it seemed like a tremendous amount of fuss and bother for not a lot of pleasure. At least in most cases. I might prefer to be exceptional when I can manage it, but it seems poor planning to presume it will happen.” She reached for a biscuit with a precise touch, before she added, “Also, I have no desire to have a man attempt to control me, which leaves out rather a lot of them.”
“Oh, doesn’t it? Not that men are the only ones who do. Madam—” She bit off the comment, then made herself finish it. “Madam Judson. You’re quite right, she’d never have anything like drinking chocolate in the house, let alone offer me any. And I have so little privacy.”
“No privacy, nearly nil resources of your own, no time. That’s the thing I would resent her for most, from what you mostly weren’t saying last fortnight. Not even having time on your own to think your own thoughts.” Hereswith leaned forward now, though the corset kept her back straight. Bess kept being caught by how Hereswith moved, each gesture measured out. It made her wonder who she let see her when her movements were unguarded.
“Surely you don’t want to hear my bothers. They’re tiny,” Bess said. It was easier to protest about that than to think about the rest of the conversation.
“Ah, but I’d rather like to.” Hereswith leaned back again, that intense focus ebbing. She took a bite of her biscuit, then set the rest down, chewed, and swallowed before she went on. “For one, there’s a chance I might help with a small thing. Or at least lend an ear, so you’re not entirely alone with it. And for the other, it’s a bother to you. I find I like the idea of helping you.” Her fingers twisted, indicating the table. “More than one way.”
When she was a schoolgirl, Bess would have taken some of that as a sign of an offer of a mutual shared passion, a flirtation, a bosom friend. Hereswith had said she had no particular interest in men or women as partners, Bess would take her at her word. But friendship, at least, had been offered. The parameters of the friendship were something they’d work out, she supposed.
Now she shrugged slightly. “There’s not very much to be done about Madam Judson. Other than finding another place, but I’ve no guarantee another will be better. And it might be worse. The staff are pleasant, the food is, yes, probably insufficient in quantity at Madam Judson’s side, but well cooked. The house is maintained. There are no leaks or mould.”
“Has that been a problem in your previous places?” Hereswith asked. “And here, try that. I want to know how you like it.” She nudged the other of the orange biscuits over as Bess finished nibbling on her sandwich.
Bess did not argue. She was already entirely clear that arguments with Hereswith were something that needed planning and vastly more cause than the offer of a biscuit. An excellent biscuit indeed, when she tried it, with a perfect mix of chewiness and the sharp joy of the orange. “The biscuit is excellent, and yes, more to my taste than I expected.”
