And part of him was relieved. Since coming to Glandwr he had retreated into a deeply private life, and on the whole he had been happy with that life.
He smiled at her again.
“I will say no more on the subject, then,” he said. “But you must promise, please, Anne, to let me know without delay if you find after your return to Bath that you are with child. And you must promise to allow me to marry you if you are.”
She gazed silently at him.
“Promise?” he said.
She nodded.
Perhaps he ought to have asked differently, he thought belatedly as he stooped to pick up his coat and tuck it beneath his arm while he picked up his boots. Perhaps he ought to have thrown his heart into his proposal and trusted her to make her own decision without pity. But it was too late now. He had asked, and she had refused.
Yes, sexdidmake loneliness worse. He already felt his own like a raw pain.
“I’ll leave you some privacy to dress,” he said, crossing the room toward the door, taking his own clothes with him—and then of course having to set down the boots until he had opened the door. “I’ll see you downstairs.”
“Thank you,” she said.
The gig bounced along the lane and turned onto the narrow road that would take them back through the village to the gates of Glandwr. The sky was still cloudless, the late afternoon sun still hot.
Anne could feel the unexpectedly pleasant aftermath of love in her body—the slight languor, the sensitivity in her breasts, the leftover ache between her thighs, the near-soreness inside. She tried to concentrate her mind only on the beauty of what had happened. It had been undeniably beautiful—ithad.
It ought to have been the perfect end to the perfect day—and the perfect holiday.
A bend in the road sent her swaying sideways, and her arm pressed against Sydnam’s. She looked up at him as she set some distance between them again. She gazed at the left side of his face, which was impossibly handsome, though truth to tell she no longer found the right side ugly. As she had told him earlier, it was simply part of him.
“I hope the weather remains good for your journey,” he said.
“Yes.” They were back to talking about the weather, were they?
By this time tomorrow she would be far away from Glandwr.
Panic grabbed at her stomach.
She did not look away from him. She knew that in the days to come, until memory started to recede, as it inevitably would, she would desperately try to remember him as he looked at this moment—and that she would just as desperately try to assure herself that what had happened between them hadfeltas beautiful as her mind told her it had been.
But above all else they were friends, she thought, and friendship was a very dear thing.
She ought not to have offered herself to Sydnam this afternoon. It had been a terrible mistake. Loneliness and compassion and even sexual need had not been enough. And she still could not bring herself to try to explain to him. That, she believed, could only make matters worse. Besides, neither of them had said anything about its not having been quite perfect. Perhaps for him it had been.
She had refused his marriage proposal, she reminded herself. She had refused a man whom she liked and respected and admired and a man moreover who was able to support her in comfort—she, who had thought no man would ever again offer her marriage. Why had she said no?
If you wish, Anne, we will marry.
Kind words, kindly and dutifully spoken—because they had lain together.
He did not wish to marry her.
And she could not marry him even if he did—or any man. She was still too deeply wounded by the past. Any approach to intimacy sent her scurrying into her mind, where she was safe from her emotions.
She could not impose a frigid iceberg of a body on Sydnam, who deserved so much more.
Friendship would not be sufficient to offer. Only love might be—but she did not know what love was, not sexual, marital love, at least. She closed her eyes for a moment and remembered what Lady Rosthorn had said one morning out on the cliffs.
…the real meaning of things lies deep down and the real meaning of things is always beautiful because it is simply love.
But she did not trust love. Love had let her down at every turn—in the persons of her mother, Henry Arnold, her father, her sister. And her love for her pupil, Prue Moore, had led to disaster. Love had caused her nothing but pain. She was afraid to love Sydnam or to be loved by him. It was as well that there was no real question of love between them.
