CHAPTER 17
"What do you do when you want to make love with someone but know you shouldn't?"
Charmaine looked up at me, surprised. "Marry him, of course," she answered, then broke into a gale of laughter. I glared at her but couldn't help smiling.
It had been an age since we had had a proper visit. Elena and Simon had been delighted to see me, and I had played with and entertained them both most of the morning. I had desperately missed Elena's sweet face and childlike wonder about the world, which was only marched by her canine companion's. The two of them had gone into the back yard to play in the snow and wrestle each other, so I now had more than a moment alone with Charmaine. The subject of my question had arisen after telling her the events of the past few months, which I had hinted at but never had a chance to fully explain.
"So now Scarlett is your suitor," Charmaine continued. "He's a good man, Nyssa. Far better than Gisborne, or at least the way he's treated you." She raised an eyebrow. "Though you should know, Guy still gives us tax relief, and has done so for other families as well."
I rolled my eyes. "Gisborne is impossible to understand, so I have stopped trying,"
"I'm still not clear about whether it was he or Scarlett you were referring to earlier," she said playfully.
I glared at her. "I'm not dignifying that with a response. You know that I won't have anything more to do with Gisborne, and he's marrying someone else, anyway."
"Scarlett, then?"
"I haven't seen Will in a while." I replied. It was true. Ever since our last meeting, I had avoided him at market days and refused to come for another sword lesson. I didn't trust myself with him.
"Well, you best speak with him again soon," she said. "John says he's been meeting up with Robin Hood again in the forest, and he had quit that band of men since you started courting. That lot is dangerous. I admire their bravery, but I fear it will be the death of them."
"So my choice is to save Will from death by marrying him?" I asked Charmaine, giggling. "It could be a worse fate for him."
"Hardly worse than yours with Gisborne," she countered.
I shrugged. "I suppose so."
"Have you seen Gisborne lately?" Charmaine asked. I shook my head. "I've been avoiding both of them, honestly," I confessed. "I've been traveling earlier than usual and using hidden paths."
"He came by yesterday to collect from us," she said, and began to rummage in a nearby drawer. "Nyssa, he looks terrible. He's very gaunt and haggard, and there's no light in his eyes. I almost felt sorry for him. Almost." She paused. "But then I think he saw the pity in my eyes. He said that if I saw you, I should give you this."
My eyebrows shot up. It was a letter, on very fine paper, and bore the Gisborne crest. I was surprised he had taken the time to write me anything, since most of my social rank could not read. I had only learned a little reading and writing so that I could do Father's accounts, but had never told Guy. Perhaps he had found out somehow. It would be like him.
I extended my hand and slowly took the letter. "Did you read it?" I asked Charmaine.
"Never learned," she replied, shrugging. "He asked me if I could read and when I told him no, that was when he gave it to me."
I felt my heart beat quickly. What could he want now? My fingers shook nervously as I pulled the wax from the paper, afraid I would rip the letter in half. Charmaine came close to me, and took my hand. "Read it out loud," she said.
"Then you won't feel alone with whatever it says."
I took a breath. "The first part is some kind of poem," I said, reading,
"Your two eyes will slay Me suddenlY
I may Not the beautY of them Sustain,
As this tortuouS beauty rejects my Ardent heart."
I paused, unable to go on for a moment. I was certain that Guy had not written this but was surprised that he had taken the time to copy it for me. I went on reading,
"My lady,
I can make no excuses for my actions towards you. There are none to give, nor do I have the right to beg your pardon. Know that all of this weighs heavy on my heart, and my heart always brings me to your door. I ask you to meet with me, as I have a proposal to offer to you. You may bring a chaperone if you wish, to Gisborne Manor when you receive this letter. I hope that you will remember happier times with what is enclosed, and come for the memory of those, if nothing else. I remain yours, always,
GG"
I turned the last fold of the letter over, and found the pressed and dried lily in its cradle. My breath caught, and the letter fell from my hands. The memory of that afternoon came so suddenly, as he had known it would, of course. I closed my eyes, every fiber of my being humming with the remembrance of his eyes, his vulnerability to me, and his words of love. My vision swam with unshed tears. I turned to Charmaine.
"Burn it," I said.
She glanced at me before she bent to pick up the letter. "Will you go?"
"No," I said, shakily. "It's all nonsense anyway. He's committed to his current course. In any real manner, I mean less than nothing to him."
"I would agree with you," Charmaine said, "if I hadn't seen him myself. He is suffering greatly, Nyssa." She sighed and moved towards the fire with the letter in her hand.
"Wait," I said. "You can burn the letter, but…I want to keep the flower."
"Keep it all, Nyssa," Charmaine said. "I don't want to see you or anyone else suffer for the sake of killing a memory. I don't want to destroy that." She glanced at me. "Are you sure you won't go?"
"I'm not sure of anything right now," I said, as she handed me the letter and I saw the dried lily, so delicate and beautiful, inside. "But if I do go, I know exactly who I would ask to accompany me. "
I glanced at the letter again, noticing for the first time that poem had capitalizations that had been oddly chosen. While spelling was certainly not standardized, most capital letters occurred at the beginning of nouns, where here they happened randomly...until I noticed a pattern.
He had spelled out my name in the poem, the name I told him never to use again.
My Nyssa.
