according to Chester wasn’t likely, since she didn’t have a large enough army to attack.
Two months . . . I needed only to survive two more months of isolation and I would deliver Mercia from the threat of Margery’s rule—a threat that had been hanging over the country for almost two decades. I couldn’t put my future or Mercia’s well-being into jeopardy for any reason. Especially not because of a silly desire to dance again with a handsome woodcutter.
The silence in the cottage brought my thoughts back to the present. Aunt Elspeth’s hands and feet had grown idle, and a deep groove formed between her brows. “Something ails you, my sweeting.”
As before, I knew I ought to tell her about my encounter with Kresten. It had been so unusual, so unlike anything I’d ever experienced that I would do well to seek her counsel on the matter.
But I had merely to think of Kresten’s engaging smile, his beseeching eyes, and his tenderness in teaching me to dance, and I squelched the impulse to speak of him. I couldn’t lest she forbid me from seeing him.
“What is it?”
“I am wondering about men.” Even as I spoke the words, I could feel a flush stain my cheeks.
Aunt Elspeth’s mouth rounded into an ‘o,’ and she blinked several times as though she hoped she would wake up from a dream to find my question had disappeared.
’Twas indeed a bold question, and I ducked my head as my own embarrassment swelled.
“Well now.” Aunt Elspeth’s voice squeaked unnaturally high. “I don’t know much about that topic . . . I’m not exactly equipped to speak on the matter . . .”
“What matter is that?” Aunt Idony breezed into the cottage. Her wind-tossed, wiry gray hair frizzed out in all directions, and she brought with her the scents of soil, sunshine, and the dozens of herbs she grew in the garden behind the cottage.
Aunt Idony approached the table with her usual brisk manner and deposited bunches of basil, rosemary, and mint. Over the past several weeks, she’d been in the process of harvesting and drying the herbs she used in her medicines. Some she tied together and strung from the ceiling. Others she clipped and dried more rapidly over the heat of the fire.
She started to separate the plants, but at our continued silence, she paused and glanced between us. “What matter are you speaking of?”
I plucked at a lone leaf in the berry basket, unable to utter the query again.
Aunt Elspeth cleared her throat. “Our sweeting is wondering about—about—well, she’d like to know about . . .”
“Spit it out,” Aunt Idony snapped.
“Oh dear.” Aunt Elspeth fanned her face with her hand, her ample bosom with the wild cyclamen garland heaving up and down. “Oh dear.”
“Surely, it cannot be as bad as that.”
“She wants to know about . . .” Aunt Elspeth’s whisper dropped low. “Men.”
I couldn’t meet either of their gazes and instead rolled the berries around the basket, pretending to pick out more leaves.
It was Aunt Idony’s turn to clear her throat. She did so twice, the second time louder. Even then her voice cracked as she spoke. “What would you like to know, Aurora?”
I shrugged even though it was unladylike.
The two older women remained silent, likely exchanging glances as they did whenever I behaved in a way they found amusing or interesting. Or in this case, embarrassing.
I couldn’t forget that, before they’d brought me to the cottage as a wee babe, they’d both lived as nuns, sheltered and secluded. They hadn’t been around men any more than I had.
“Let’s see.” Aunt Idony lifted the basil and placed it on the opposite side of the rosemary only to shift it right back. “Men. They are big, talk too loudly, and eat too much. I think that sums it up.”
“I don’t think that’s what our dear child wants to know,” Aunt Elspeth hissed to Aunt Idony as if I couldn’t hear.
I’d grown up with Chester, who’d turned into a fine man. But he was just a friend. I’d never forgotten to breathe around him or felt like my skin was on fire at the merest contact or had tingles rush over me at a smile.
But I had with Kresten. Was such a reaction to a man normal? In the fairy tales I’d read, some couples married for love, but others wedded for convenience or for other arrangements. What would it be like for me?
Aunt Idony coughed, trying to clear her throat. “What else can I