Still, she held him; knowing herself to be a fool, and ashamed of her folly. But then she realized James was warm in her arms, not cold and stiffening, not sweating and dying. He was warm and sweet-smelling, like a man who would live, and his eyes were opening and his color was good.

“Alinor,” he croaked, as if he was saying her name for the very first time.

“Are you better?” she asked incredulously.

“I can hardly speak. I don’t know. Yes.”

“Don’t speak. You were very ill.”

“I thought I was going to die.”

“You’re not going to die. It’s not the plague.”

“Thank God. I thank God.”

“Amen,” she said.

Blearily, he looked around. “Are we in the net shed again?”

“No! The hayloft at the Priory. You fell sick. D’you remember?”

“No. Nothing.” He frowned. “I brought the boys home from Cowes.”

“You did. They’re safe. Then you had a great fever.”

He struggled with the memory of the lies that he had to uphold, but he could not remember them. He could not be sure anymore what was true and what was false. “I’m so thirsty.”

She offered him small ale and he drank it gratefully, but she allowed him only one cup. “Slowly, slowly, you can have more later.”

“I’m not sure what I said, what I may have spoken in my sleep . . .”

“Nothing that made sense,” she reassured him. “Sir William sent for me after midnight. He told me nothing. You were lying on a rug before the fire. He said only that you had fainted. When I got here, you were dazed with fever.”

He nodded. “I can remember nothing.”

She thought that he must spend his life forgetting half of it, and speaking of less, and now oblivion had come to him, like a curse in answer to a wish.

“His lordship sent for me and asked me to come up here with you to make sure that it was not the plague.”

“You came to me . . . although you said . . .”

“Yes,” she said steadily. “The lord of the manor sent for me. I had to.”

“But you agreed to nurse me.”

“His lordship asked me. I had to.”

“You came to me,” he insisted. “You chose to come.”

She showed him the sweetest, most generous smile. “I came to you,” she confirmed.

“And undressed me.”

“I had to see if you had the marks of the pox or the plague.”

“And stayed with me all night.”

“To watch over your fever.”

“You held me in your arms.”

“It was the only way you would lie still, and not toss and turn and throw off the covers.”

“I was naked in your arms.”

She pursed her lips. “For your own good.”

He was silent for a moment. “My God, I wish I could be naked in your arms again.”

“Hush,” she said, wondering how much they could hear in the stable below. “Hush.”