Simply Love

Had he not realized from the moment she kissed him in the rose arbor that she had steeled herself to show him compassion, to assure him that in her eyes he was a normal man? Had he not realized too that her offer of herself had come out of her terrible loneliness? She ought to have been married years ago to a man of her own choosing, but circumstances beyond her control had made her virtually unmarriageable.

Perhaps, he thought, they had both got what they deserved from this ill-advised ending to their afternoon together-and to their acquaintance. Loneliness was not a good enough reason for what they had done together-not when each of them was lonely for commitment and permanency. Yet it was impossible for them to find such things together.

That had just been made painfully obvious.

He wished the matter had not been put to the test.

Too late he realized that sex did not take away loneliness. It probably made it far worse. The next few days would reveal the truth of that to him, he suspected.

He did not want to turn his head to look at her. He would, he thought, find that Anne Jewell, his friend and confidante, the woman with whom he supposed he had allowed himself to fall in love during the past few weeks, was gone, to be replaced by a stranger with whom he would feel uncomfortable because they had been intimate together when there was after all no real intimacy between them.

And tomorrow she would be gone-literally. When he next returned here, he would come to this room and stand just here and try to pretend that he could turn around and find her asleep on the bed.

Or perhaps not. Perhaps he would stand here and wish he could forget that she had ever been to Ty Gwyn with him.

He turned. She was lying with the covers drawn up under her arms, those arms and her shoulders bare, her glorious honey-colored hair in a shining tangle about her head and shoulders and over the pillow. Her crowning glory, he thought, though he did not say so aloud. It was too much of a cliche. And the time for such words was past anyway.

She was looking steadily at him, her expression unfathomable. She was probably hoping he had not noticed that their mating had not been good for her.

He smiled and said what he had not known he was going to say though it was what he realized must be said- later even if not now.

“If you wish, Anne,” he said, “we will marry.”

It was not much of a proposal. He realized that as he spoke the words. But how could he ask her any other way? How could he lay an obligation upon her by speaking of emotions that would doubtless embarrass and even dismay her? He certainly did not want her pity.

“I am well able to support you,” he added, “and your son. I think it might be a good idea. Don’t you?”

It struck him that it was possibly the worst idea in the world.

She gazed at him for a long time before answering.

“I think,” she said then, “that friendship and need and some mutual attraction have been justification enough for what we have just done together. But they are not a good enough justification for marriage.”

“Are they not?” He felt a terrible sorrow-and an enormous sense of relief. “Not even friendship? Is it not desirable that a man and his wife like each other and find it easy to talk with each other? And laugh with each other?”

“Yes,” she said. “But there ought to be very much more than just that.”

Love? It was such an overused, underdefined word. What did it mean? But he did not think she was talking about love. There should be a physical attraction between husband and wife-that was what she meant. Or at the very least, there should be no actual revulsion.

It would not be possible for her to marry him, to share a bed with him for the rest of their lives. But he had always known that it would not be possible for any woman.

Had she said yes to his tentative marriage proposal, then he would have pressed forward with wedding plans. Had she even looked as if she wanted to say yes, he might have assured her that his feelings were engaged, that he was not merely making an honorable offer because he had bedded her. He might then have proceeded to a proper marriage offer.

But she had neither said yes nor wavered.

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, sex did make 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-it had.

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 had felt as 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