“Whom you marry.”

“What.”

He kissed her again, long and gently, and as her eyes closed he put his right hand on her stomach. He felt her stiffen beneath his touch, knew she was shrinking from him, and raised his face. “Campion?”

She kept her eyes shut and said nothing. This was the fear, this was the thing that had been smirched. The water was tainted, the evil within her, the shadow reaching from her past.

“Campion?”

She wanted to say something to him, she wanted to give him love if he would only give her time, but they were to be married in a week and she was frightened.

He lifted his hand from her stomach, moved it gently to her face and pushed her eyelids up. The blue eyes that watched him, if not hostile, were very frightened. He smiled. “The priest won’t touch you again.”

She stared at him, her face frowning. “You know?”

He nodded. “I read the Mercurius. It’s not difficult to guess.”

She thought he had not known, that the stain was hidden within her and she had hidden it from him. She had told Lady Margaret much of what had happened, though not all, and now she sat up, brushing hair from her face. “Did your mother tell you?”

“No.” Which was not quite true. With her usual directness Lady Margaret had assured Toby that his bride was still a virgin, but she had also told him he must treat her carefully. Now Toby pushed himself up so he was sitting opposite her. “Tell me.”

She shook her head petulantly. “There’s nothing to tell.”

“Then there’s nothing to worry about.”

Her eyes met his almost in challenge, then she shrugged and, in a toneless, flat voice, she told him.

She knew it could have been far worse, but she still felt the defilement of Hervey’s hands on her breasts, his breathing in her ear as his fingers groped down past her waist. She spoke of the tribunal spectators staring at her while the priest’s hands slid over her body. She could feel them now, kneading and rubbing, and she knew that Faithful Unto Death Hervey had spoiled something she wanted kept clean. The stain would not go from her.

He said nothing when she finished. She had not looked at him as she talked, but had stared across the stream. Now Toby looked at her profile, wistful and beautiful, and still he waited.

She turned to him, still defensive. “Vavasour Devorax said something odd to me.”

“What?” He was being as gentle and delicate as if he were feeling in cold waters for an elusive trout.

“He said everyone has a terrible secret, something horrible, and he said the secret is always in the bedroom. He meant it too. It all sounds so foul, as if love ends up in a squalid, dirty room with smelly sheets.”

“It doesn’t.”

She had not heard him. “Scammell pawed at me and that man you killed tried. Then there was the Reverend Hervey and there was a soldier in the Tower.” She stopped, shaking her head, and she hated the seals again for it was they that had made her vulnerable to all that lust, that had poisoned this summer’s day beside a stream.