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At the look of startlement in Gilbert’s eyes, Joan shakes her head. This, however, does not seem to get the message across; or at least, not loud enough to be heard over her semi-naked state. Perhaps it would help if she threw one of Tom’s robes over the thinning cloth of her shift, but she has no time for squeamishness nor delicacy, so she just pushes past him and grins at the flustered, indignant sound he makes.
“Don’t worry y’sen,” she says, as she straightens the sheets on the bed, “After you’ve had them as an occupation men are too boring for leisure. Your virtue’s safe from me, lad.”
He splutters, and she laughs, throwing herself down on the bed and raising her eyebrows at him. There is, no matter his indignation, a look of relief in his eyes. He looks at her for a second longer, and then, just as she opens her mouth to say you going to bed like that?, he starts to unbutton his waistcoat.
He’s slow about it, and blushes as he goes, but credit to him he keeps at it and doesn’t run. He slips the waistcoat off his shoulders and folds it carefully over the end of the bed, then unpicks his cravat and opens the first few buttons of his shirt.
“Will Tom-” he starts, but doesn’t finish the thought. She understands anyway, and with a fond but cold rush she remembers her first night in the tower, when Tom had run off somewhere and she had gone to bed newly married and alone. She’ll have words with him, later, when he crawls into bed and pretends he’s been there all the while.
“He’ll be here when you wake up,” she says softly.
He glances at her, smiles a little half smile, and then carries on unbuttoning his shirt.
While he undresses she gets up and into bed properly, curling up on her side.
“Gilbert,” she says.
“Yes?” his voice is slightly shaky and she looks over her shoulder at him to see him hesitantly undoing what looks to be a corset. She frowns, but only a little, and then relaxes back down.
“He likes you, you know, Tom does. Shit at showing it, but he does.”
“Do you?”
She laughs at his quickness, knowing that a few weeks ago he would never have given into the impulse. Whether it’s that she’s a bad influence or that he’s a quick study she doesn’t know - but it’s still funny.
“Aye, I do.”
He mumbles something, maybe good, and then she watches him walk around to the other side of the bed. He moves more hesitantly now, though he’s almost as dressed as he was before, in a loose nightshirt and the same breeches.
He slips under the sheets and curls up an arm's length from her, facing her but his head bent so that their eyes don’t meet.
“Light, Gilbert,” she says, slipping unthinkingly into the soft-sharp voice she uses with Tom.
He snuffs the candle with a wave of his hand and she sighs as she feels a little magic curling around her.
Darkness falls over them gently and she shifts a little closer to him.
“You don’t need to worry,” she says to the curve of him in the sheets, “I’ve seen Tom shirtless.”
“Mrs- Joan.” His voice is soft but shy, and she reaches out to rest one hand on his arm.
“Mended his corset, too. Boy’s dreadful with a needle.”
He is silent for a long time, so much so that she’s half asleep when he says “This doesn’t change-”
“Told you, men are boring. Alright for matters of the heart as it were, but boring.”
He laughs under his breath, and she slips into sleep smiling.
--
Close to dawn she wakes and rolls over, blinking blearily at Tom as he slips into bed behind her.
“’Bout time,” she mumbles, “He missed you.”
“Did he?” Tom clambers surprisingly delicately over her, slipping into the gap between her and Gilbert.
“Aye. He’s soft, you know. Softer than I was.”
“Even I am softer than you were.”
She somehow shrugs while lying down. “He regrets things, Tom. And he’s young.”
“He’s sixty-one, I believe.”
Joan lifts herself up on one elbow and frowns down at him while she adds it up in her head.
“Oh, Jesus bleeding Christ,” she whispers, with great passion, “I am an old woman, Tom. I’m seventy. Seventy, Tom.”
She flops back down and scowls at the ceiling. “Can’t believe I’m old.”
“Go back to sleep, Joan.”