Page 36 of Claiming the Tower
“I slept very well, though better in the first half of the night than the second. I was— did you?” Bess broke off. “How did you sleep?” There, that was a sensible question.
“Very well.” Hereswith turned away for a moment, and Bess wondered if she were suddenly shy. There was something to the angle of her shoulder. Then she took a breath and turned back. “It was comfortable. Companionable.”
“That, yes.” Bess hesitated, wondering if she should say what she wanted to say, but keeping it to herself wouldn’t do much good. “I felt, I felt like you wanted me there. Like there was a place I could belong.”
Saying it might have been an error, but it was an error that came with strong emotion. Hereswith’s face shifted, half a dozen expressions, before she held out her hand. “You’ve not had that.” Then, far more quietly. “I’ve not had all that much of it, other than Papa. Well. And one more place.” Her voice cracked.
Bess held still for just a second, trying to decide whether to draw attention to that.
“It’s something you ought to know. That you’ve a right to know, if we’re— whatever. Making a space.” Hereswith’s voice was more certain as she went on, deliberate.
“Oh.” Bess swallowed. “Go on?”
“Since my school days, my second year.” Hereswith sounded like this wasn’t something she talked about at all. It was entirely vulnerable, unpractised. “I’ve been a member of the Society of the White Horse.”
Bess blinked. “Oh. Oh!” She wasn’t, of course. For one thing, if she had been, she’d have known about Hereswith, and Hereswith would have known about her. “You don’t talk about it?”
“No. It— if people, other people knew, it disarranges the connections and expectations. I go to the gatherings, I find time with specific people. Some around here. I like the way it’s about the landscape. Physical and metaphorical. And I can lend a hand, sometimes hiring someone, sometimes connecting them with someone who needs work done, sometimes philanthropy.” Hereswith looked away, then back. “Most of the people there aren’t like me, but they make me feel welcome. Included. Friendly.”
“Like you, like you want for me. Connected.” Bess swallowed, her mind racing with the implications. “So we’ll figure out making a bit more? For us?” Bess’s voice cracked a little on the last word, but she wanted, needed, to hear Hereswith say she wanted it too. They could sort out those particular considerations over time, when Hereswith was perhaps a little more relaxed about talking about it.
Hereswith nodded, then she took Bess’s hand, kissing the top of it gently. “We need to figure out what that looks like.” Hereswith looked up. “Though perhaps not today. Or tomorrow. I don’t know when Magistra Ventry might speak with me.”
“That’s going to be lurking there, taking up all the space, until you know more.” Bess nodded. “I will be here when you get home tonight. And tomorrow, and however many nights to come, as long as I’m your father’s companion.” She hesitated. “I’d asked at the agency about other options. Is it—” Her voice caught again, and she made herself keep going. “Is it too forward to turn down any options for the moment?”
“That’s not a question I can entirely answer for you,” Hereswith said, twisting on the bench she was on to face Bess full on. “What would make you feel more secure?”
Bess had to think about that. What would make her feel secure was being confident of space in Hereswith’s bed, for night and nights to come. Her own bedroom down the hall was becoming increasingly homelike, as much as anywhere she’d lived as an adult had. The other day, Mary had brought in a vase full of ordinary flowers from the garden, just because they were beautiful. Bess had put up some of the family photos, since she was sure no one would make snippy comments about them. “It’s crass to talk about money.”
“Not if you’ve not been secure in it, I gather.” Hereswith reached to cup Bess’s hand in both of her own. “I can’t say I know what that’s like. I’ve never lived with that problem. But I do have a decent imagination, and some small amount of experience with people who feel like what they have is unfair. Often because it is. What would make it feel more fair?”
“You’re already paying me well. And there’s the complication of—” Bess twitched a shoulder. “I am your employee.”
Hereswith got an expression that Bess was rapidly learning to identify as some new plan or layer of an existing plan. “You are currently hired as Papa’s companion. Which he is finding most enjoyable, so I would like, whatever else, for you to continue to keep him company, as long as you are willing. But...” She glanced away, then back at Bess. “If you were my companion. I mean, if that is what we said. But we made arrangements that would ensure your comfort and security, that went beyond a salary? An amount that would give you independence.”
“How?” It came out of Bess in a cry of confusion. “There isn’t a way, is there?”
“Oh, men do it for their mistresses often enough. I’ve come across documentation of that enough times, in diplomatic circles.” Hereswith seemed amused, now, that she was the one explaining a nuance of a relationship. “The usual sort of thing, for a generous man who is kind enough to think of some point after, is to settle a small cottage and a modest income on the mistress. Sometimes in holding, via a solicitor, until and unless the relationship ends. It can be revoked in some cases, I gather. If the woman could be proven to have stolen or had another man’s child or something of the kind. The big lies, the ones that can’t be excused.”
“Well, my having another man’s child certainly doesn’t apply. Or wouldn’t by any choice of my own, at least three times over.” Saying it out loud helped Bess get a little more control over her emotions. “Seeing as how I do not care for men in that way and I do not wish for children. Men of a relevant age and physical ability seem to be rather short in supply in this household, anyway.”
“Besides, the truth charms can be a part of the arrangement, if there’s any doubt.” Hereswith seemed a little stuck on that particular question, but then she shook her head as if to free something and tried again. “I’d want to talk it through with our solicitors, and they will probably fuss. But I think what I’d like to propose, if you’re willing, is this. I’d settle a sum that would cover room and board at the Field or somewhere similar for three months, held unless this— us— ends. With additional sums added on a regular basis. Your own income to spend, that, however you chose. Not— um. Buying services.”
Bess tilted her head, catching something in the tone. “Is that something you might like to play at, eventually? I’m sure I could have a grand time with it, suggesting the ways I might bring you pleasure.”
Hereswith flushed dark pink. “I— er. Maybe?”
“Here. Let me have a look at your wardrobe while I think about that. You’re in Trellech today?” Hereswith nodded, and didn’t object when Bess went to look at the wardrobe. “I do like you in green, but it’s high summer. Perhaps this lighter blue, like the sky. It brings out your hair. If you wear this, you might wear the chalcedony. That will give your words a few more wings.”
Hereswith glanced at the frock, then nodded, standing and coming over to get dressed. Bess stood back at first, but as Hereswith was working on the corset, she offered, “An extra set of hands?” Hereswith nodded, and Bess found she quite liked the process of dressing Hereswith. It was certainly vastly more pleasant than helping one of her previous employers.
It also gave her enough time to think about what she wanted to say. “There’s no, erm, easy way to make the money even. That’s the thing I get caught up on. But I think if there’s a way I’d have confidence that I had my own resources. Enough for the sort of life I’ve had so far. That would be a help.”
“I am aiming, dear one, at several steps better. The sort that would give you enough income, should anything happen to me. You could set up your own home, a small business of some kind, take in a lodger or three for your ongoing expenses. That you would have choices. Your previous employers have been grasping about that to keep you close. I want you to know that we’re choosing to be together. Both of us. That you have options.”
“You’re very generous.” Bess took a step back after finishing the last buttons.
“I am exceedingly selfish in this matter, I find.” Hereswith turned around, her skirts and petticoats swinging. “I find I rather like the idea of knowing that you are with me because you want to be. Because you have other options, with rather less in the way of my wittering on about minute points of diplomacy and political argument. Or whatever else might be annoying about me. I do have a list of such things in my head.”
