Toby lifted his hand and pushed up an unwilling chin. “Do you think my parents found it squalid?”

“No, but they’re different.” She knew she sounded childish.

He smiled at her, shaking his head. “It doesn’t have to be squalid…”

“How do you know?”

“Will you listen to me?”

“Lady Clarissa Worlake?”

“No!” He laughed. “Now will you listen?”

“Who?”

“Campion!” He startled her with sudden sternness. “Listen! How do you think the people in Lazen found their wives, husbands and lovers?”

“I don’t know.” She was miserable because of the shadow on her, childish because she was ignorant, frightened because this was the smear on the flawless sky.

“We used to talk of May Day, remember? And Harvest? How the young people and the not so young used to go off at night into the woods. That wasn’t horrible! If it was, why would people look forward to it?” He smiled. “It could be uncomfortable if it rained, but it wasn’t squalid. At least a third of our marriages started that way and the church never minded. It’s called love, people celebrate it. It doesn’t get spoiled.”

“I never had a May Day.” She was looking at the grass, but now she looked at him accusingly. “You did.”

“Of course I did! What was I supposed to do? Sit at home reading my Bible and deciding which of my neighbors was a sinner?”

His indignation forced a reluctant smile from her. She shook her head, still troubled. “I’m sorry, Toby, I’m sorry. You shouldn’t marry me. I’m just a Puritan and I don’t know anything.”

He laughed and touched her cheek. “I’m glad you’re a Puritan.”

“Why?”

“Because no one caught you on May night or in the harvest rick.”

She smiled, still miserable. “You caught a few, didn’t you? And you caught me swimming.” She shook her head. “If I’d known you’d seen me…”

“You’d have died?”

“I would have been embarrassed.”

“Poor Campion.” He smiled. “When did you last swim?”

“Last year.” She shrugged. “The day I met you.” She had thought so often, in the Tower, of those moments she had stolen in the stream, of the sun on her body and the water so clean about her.

Toby knelt up. “I’m going for a swim.”

“You can’t.”

“Why not?”

She shrugged, saying nothing. Because, she thought, he would undress here, and she was terrified. Faithful Unto Death Hervey had put this fear in her, a fear of her own body, of other bodies, and she was terrified of the moment that came closer, the wedding night, and yet she knew, instinctively, that Toby had brought her here to exorcise that horror.

He grinned. “You’re hot.”

“No I’m not.”

“You’re hot, I’m hot, and I’m going for a swim.”

He stood up, moved a few paces to one side, and undressed. She did not look at him. She stared across the stream to where a field of barley shimmered in the heat, the grain dotted with poppies. She was being foolish, she knew, yet she could not control herself.