He could deny himself no longer. His face shining in purest ecstasy, he pulled her against himself and greedily sought her lips. This time, there was no hesitant subtlety in his embrace, nor did Margaret quail in his arms. They reached for each other as though another instant apart might suffocate them, and together, they at last learned to breathe.
He pressed her against the back of the sofa, his hands sweeping over her precious face, tangling in her once perfectly dressed hair, and cradling her waist. He kissed her mercilessly, hungrily, as though in that moment he could devour her sweetness and take forever to himself that spark of hers which had lighted his life. Gone was the wilting lily who had come meekly to his home, uncertain of her welcome and weakened with grief and shame. In his arms now throve the wildly passionate, headstrong woman whose graceful power over him had so many times caused him to defy his better sense. Each brush of her lips, every little gasp and shiver, drove him further beyond his own control.
Her fingers splayed through his hair, twisting and caressing, and drawing him ever closer. He braced an arm behind her back, helping her to shift beneath him, and pressed the full length of his upper body over hers. “Margaret,” he sighed into her neck, nipping and nuzzling the tender flesh below her ear. A light, feminine cry of surprise and pleasure rewarded his eager attempts. He lifted his face from that sweet cleft to admire the deliciously hypnotised euphoria diffusing over her beautiful features.
“J—John,” she pleaded, “oh, do not stop.” She hooked soft fingers under his jaw to pull him lower once more. Groaning helplessly, he covered her mouth, capturing each divine breath for his own.
His free hand began to wander her delicate form, trapped beneath his. Timidly at first, he explored the line of her collarbone, visible now as she reclined against his forearm. He felt her gasp and raised his mouth from hers. Full, trusting eyes gazed openly back to him as soft fingers trailed over his cheek. He pressed another gentle kiss of reassurance to those succulent lips, then lowered his mouth to the untouched flesh, dipping just above the swell of her bosom.
She drank in a breath, her breast rising and falling in little gasping shudders. Only a glimmer of her delicious skin was bared by the modest gown she wore, but it was enough. Intoxicated and utterly beyond himself, he tipped his chin to slip teasing kisses up the ivory column of her neck, then tracing down to the edge of her laced décolletage. Her head lifted from his arm in protest, then fell back again in surrender as she breathed out his name.
How long had this very dream tormented his nights? Banished forever was the haunting nightmare of Margaret in another man’s arms, that inglorious Duessa manifested in his tortured imagination! His Margaret, his pure and faithful queen, called out only for him. The heady rapture of this realisation nearly blinded and choked him, and he braced his shaking hand against the curve of her waist to steady himself.
Margaret stilled below him, her breathing tight and shallow. She raised darkened eyes to him, granting the permission she knew he longed for. Full of reverent disbelief, his worshipful fingers followed the sweep of her black gown until his thumb and forefinger cupped beneath the soft mound pressed to his chest. She tensed but did not flinch away. After only the barest hesitation, she arched tremblingly into his touch, her breath whispering into his neck.
John claimed her mouth again, his manner gently seductive now rather than ravishing. His fingers curled, testing the layers of satin and whalebone edging between them. Her warmth and shivering approval of his advances thoroughly crowded his mind! If he continued, without checking himself, a scarce few moments would see him stripping away those last barriers to her feminine secrets and tasting for himself the treasures which had always before remained a mystery.
He swallowed hard as he opened his eyes and forced himself to look on her black gown, and to consider all the reasons for it. Panting and shaking, almost ready to fling away all other cares, he pushed himself back. “Margaret,” he choked, “we must not—not here!”
Her eyes closed, and she trapped her lower lip in small white teeth. “You must think very little of my dignity.”
“Not of yours, but of my own!” He eased his weight from her. “Forgive me. I am afraid I have quite forgotten all propriety.”
Margaret accepted his hand and raised herself to a sitting position. “There is nothing to forgive. You had sufficient encouragement, I think.”
He felt a carefree grin overcome his features, the first of such he had known in years. “Margaret! I hope you may ever continue to encourage me so! He is a blessed man whose wife welcomes his attentions.”
She blushed, her tousled hair falling rakishly low over her cheeks and her clear eyes sparking with amusement. “It is no disagreeable task, John.”
A joyous laugh rumbled in his chest. “Come, we must tend to other matters, or I will surely lose my mind once more—and I make no promises that I will be able to recall myself again.” He rose and extended his hand to help her to her feet, then pulled her into his arms. “I only ask one thing.”
Margaret sighed and rested her cheek on his chest, closing her eyes and embracing him for one last, sweet moment before they commenced their sad duties. “What is that?”
“Let us finish quickly here, and hurry home,” he murmured into her ruffled tresses.
Margaret’s arms slid up, round his shoulders, and he felt her slim body shaking in a brief chuckle. “Agreed, John.”
~
Almost nothing was settled that day of Mr Hale’s affairs. Margaret moved about the study in a sorrowful daze, more often than not with one hand twined through John’s fingers as she sought his reassuring touch. Blindly, she stood back from the ponderous bookshelves and glanced unseeingly over the stacks of hand-written sermons. At each point of indecision, John’s loving arms would wrap about her, offering solace and a good deal more.
These interruptions always began innocently enough, but after the fourth—or perhaps the fifth—such occasion, when John was giving serious consideration to the fact that Margaret’s maiden bedroom stood silent and inviting on the lower floor, he forced his aching hands down from her.
“Margaret,” he nuzzled to her ear, “I will send a few men over here tomorrow to crate up everything that is left and bring it all to a few spare rooms in the house. You need not decide in haste, but sort through at your leisure. Let me take you home now to rest.”
She sighed in relief. “I would appreciate that, John.”
With the very greatest care, he escorted her below and gave notice to the driver waiting outside that he and his Mrs Thornton wished to depart. How well that sounded! He was beaming in pride when he returned to help her into her cloak and bonnet. For the first time, he felt himself the honoured husband of a much-treasured wife—a wife who gladly bore his name and found pleasure in his company. No more blessed man could have existed in all the kingdom; of that, he was quite certain!
“Are you warm enough?” he asked, tucking her under his arm as the carriage pulled away.
She nodded into his shoulder, then straightened. “Oh, dear! I forgot my house slippers again.”
He laughed, easily enough, but a deeper timbre to his cheerfulness suggested a heat which he had nearly always before kept hidden from her. “If you can survive but a few moments without them this evening, I will see to your comfort thereafter. That is, if you will permit me.”
Her cheeks reddened. “I… that is, I should be glad of… what I mean is—”
Her stumbling attempts at a receptive answer ceased when he slipped his other arm about her and pulled her close. “Just leave the door cracked, love. I will understand what you wish.”
She nodded, and he gave her no cause to speak again until they had returned to the house which both could now call home.
~
Hannah Thornton had long been fascinated by the marvellous technology that powered her son’s mill. Well did she recall her first visit to a similar factory—the impressive power of the massive engine, harnessed and dir
ected by man’s will, was wholly unmatched in their time.
The awesome capacity for strength and creation were nothing to her, however, without the hand-thrown lever which locked all the drive shafts into play. Absent that detail, everything might remain cold and lifeless. Once that small mechanism engaged, a world of possibility expanded for the pulsing, charging beast of the whole industry.
Such were her thoughts this evening as she sat at dinner, gazing at her new daughter-in-law. Someone—none but her son, she realised with humiliation—had thrown that great lever in the former Miss Hale. The young woman who now graced the end of the table—her old place!—was not at all the broken, dejected girl who had first come to it three days prior. Her manner was bright and confident, a blush stained her cheeks, and if Hannah were not mistaken, her lips were softly full and flushed as never before. Her chin she held high and proud, and her dazzled eyes sought only John.
With fearful reluctance, she dared herself to look to her left. What would she find if she looked into the eyes of the boy she had raised? The face she encountered made her blood chill.
He was smiling. It was not the easy, carefree expression she knew from former days, nor was it the masterful gleam she had grown accustomed to as her son found success in life. This was an entirely new light beaming forth from his beloved countenance. He was at peace and overflowing with such powerful feeling that even his mother could scarcely command a second of his attention.
The couple—for such, she could see plainly, they had now become—exchanged tender, silent looks of such warmth and intimacy that Hannah felt herself quite the interloper. Some barrier had fallen during those hours in the old Hale residence. She sighed and dropped her gaze to her plate, unable to look on any longer.
John deserves this, she counselled herself. How long did he put aside his own joy? For so many years had he been her sole possession, turning to none but her when life’s cares tore at him. He had taken the diligent training in self-discipline she offered at their point of need, and crafted it into something finer, stricter, more purposeful—she did not quite like to call it prideful, yet she found her own pride in his success. He was better than the father who had lent him strength, better even than the mother who had cherished and sent him forth into this life… and he had been entirely hers.
John had suffered an attraction to women as a young man, to be sure—she could not have respected him as she did, had he not proved himself stronger than his flesh. What made the maternal satisfaction flourish in her soul was his utter victory at training his own eyes, mind, and—she had once thought—his heart. Never had women troubled him against his wishes since those long-gone days of boyhood—never, until that one day eighteen months prior when he had approached her with that bashful half-smile and asked her to call on some new ladies in town. Perhaps that was the moment when the dread began its fatal twist round her motherly heart.
She raised sullen eyes to the blushing bride to her right. Oh, yes, Margaret had secured her boy, in almost every possible way a woman could—but how long would the girl’s affection last? Had she not already proof that the lass was perfectly capable of a fickle change of sentiment? What would be the catalyst for her inevitable disenchantment; when the vain charm of her husband’s attentions faded, and the life of a manufacturer’s wife wore down that aristocratic bearing?
How such a girl’s pride would suffer, when she awakened one morning to the blast of the steam whistle and discovered her existence to be nothing at all like the fairy tale she had doubtless concocted! There would be no turning back for any of them—Margaret Thornton was to live out her days a middle-class matron. Whether she would find satisfaction in that life remained to be seen.
Hannah prodded her meal listlessly and set aside her fork. John glanced up in mild surprise. In truth, she thought in some annoyance, it was the first time he had looked directly at her all evening. Her John, her light and comforter, was lost.
She closed her eyes, scolding herself. You knew this day would come! Was it not the very outcome she had desired, and even perhaps had a hand in setting to motion when she had fairly driven Margaret from the drawing-room and into his arms the previous evening?
The battle was over, and there was nothing left for her to do but to retire from the field and hope for better days. She could scarcely look the victorious young woman in the face, and the thought of hours spent as a superfluity in the company of lovers was unbearable!
“John,” she spoke shakily, her eyes on the new bride, “I fear Margaret looks rather flushed this evening.”
Margaret traded curious glances with her husband. She looked self-consciously to the backs of her hands, trying to detect this terrifying colour which Hannah attributed to her.
“Margaret—” that familiar name still caught between her teeth—“though our evening regimen has been inflexible these ten years, it is only natural and suitable that in your state of mourning you may wish to seek some time for quiet spiritual reflection. There need be no expectation for you to join the household devotions if you prefer privacy. Perhaps I ought to have mentioned it before.”
Margaret was still gazing back uncomprehendingly, but a flicker of inspiration had certainly dawned on John’s face. Mortified, Hannah tried to force another nonchalant bite of her meal.
“It is an excellent point, Margaret,” he agreed. “If you like, I shall escort you to your room whenever you might wish to retire early.”
Hannah swallowed. She had hoped that John would allow Margaret to retreat in peaceful solitude, freeing himself to spend a final quiet hour with her by the fire before his wife’s demands consumed him. It was not to be so.
Margaret’s cheeks brightened, and she stared, wide-eyed, at her plate. “Thank you for your consideration, madam.”
Hannah only thinned her lips. It felt like the final blow to her long reign in his life, but in fact, those cords had begun to loosen over a year and a half ago. It was only strange, she consoled herself, because John had so long lived without any sort of feminine attention but her own. Perhaps she ought instead to be grateful that her son had chosen such a path when so many did not.
Six
Weston
17 October 1838
Fifteen-year-old John Thornton stopped before the door of the humble residence, jingling his week’s earnings in his pocket. It was not his own door at which he stood, but one just a row down. It was a house near which one did not wish to be seen.
For a year now—exactly a year, in fact—he had assumed the role of a man, while yet a boy. He had borne the challenge stoically, refusing to cower under his feelings of shame. He was no longer a child… and he was no longer his father’s son! That regret was long past, he had spent the year assuring himself.
The cares and labours of manhood were upon him, and with them, a new sense of himself. He had grown tall and broad of shoulder, and many mistook him for a young man of nine and ten. Nothing of his lost youth remained, and these days, he was feeling quite proud of that fact. New feelings and ideas had begun to occur to him in the past months, and in the consuming fire typical of burgeoning masculinity, he could think of little else.
It was his right, he consoled himself—his reward for this last year. He was a man now, and a man had needs. His observations informed him that he was far from the only one to bring them to this house.
His fingers twitched again in his pocket, sweating now. He was most certainly not nervous. A business transaction, that was all this was; one to alleviate his cravings and clear his head once more. He could conceive of no good reason for his throat to be suddenly parched.
Squaring his shoulders, he rapped on the door. It opened to him slowly, and, squinting, he entered. Rosemary—that was the only name anyone called her. She was in her late twenties, but the bloom had long since faded from her cheeks. She possessed other assets, however, which more than made up for her lack of innocence.
John stared at the ample flesh bared before him in the dark room. He was h
aving some trouble swallowing. He had seen ladies’ evening gowns that lavishly displayed the bounties of alluring young gentlewomen, eager to ensnare a husband, but this was more blatant, even, than that. Rosemary’s low-scooped bodice left little to his active imagination. The blood pounded in his ears and in a number of other places as well.
Mumbling his request, he dipped his hand into his pocket and emptied it on her battered table. Rouge-tinted lips smiled, and his money disappeared. Uncertain what he was to do next, he stayed… waiting.
Rosemary turned away from him, and with practised fingers, began to free herself of her outer garments. His keen gaze caught a bare shoulder, and then a glimpse of her curved lower neck as her top slipped. His eager hands reached out, but just before he touched her, from somewhere in the back of the house, a babe started to cry. He stopped, his limbs quivering.
The fallen angel before him muttered a low curse and urged him to pay it no mind. Perhaps her bit of professional courtesy might have lent another man all the courage he required, but John’s bravado shattered. Rather than the ravishing seductress he had seen a moment ago, the young lad now beheld a tired, care-worn mother, broken by other men. His forehead beaded in a sudden sweat.
He blinked, panting, and tried vainly to banish the righteous thoughts intruding upon his conscience. The rash moment of glory, however, was gone. Rosemary peered at him curiously, her bodice drooping provocatively, but John could not even bring himself to look on what he had so desired only seconds before. He twisted his head away, shielding his eyes with his hand. His breath heaved and his entire being flooded with regret and humiliation. Stammering a hasty excuse, he spun out of her door and slammed it behind himself.
John stood alone on the street, but this was not a place he could bear to linger. Not knowing quite what he was about, he began walking. He walked until he could breathe once more, and until the sweat had dried from his brow. He walked until he could hear the voices around him rather than the screaming of his own conscience in his ears. He walked until he almost forgot where he was—and then farther, until the passing humanity dissipated.
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