by Mary Balogh
Her head still rested against his arm; her hand was still splayed across his warm chest. His mouth tightened into a parody of a smile.
"Don't distress yourself, ma'am," he said quietly. "I have done all the taking from you that I intend to do. I shall complete the process tomorrow by taking myself permanently from your presence. My apologies for tonight. I did not intend for this to happen. And you can set your mind at rest about our daughter. She will remain with you here. I will not take her from you. She is more yours than mine. I merely begot her in a moment of pleasure. You have suffered for her."
He eased his arm from beneath her head and swung himself out of the bed. He dressed quickly and left the room.
************************************
The morning was almost over. He should have been on his way before now. Even if he left within the next quarter of an hour, he would have to ride hard to arrive home before dark. He would not, of course, take the carriage now. There was little point when he would be traveling alone. His belongings could be sent on after him, as they had when he came. There was no purpose in his delaying any longer. He had told Dodd at breakfast that he would not be at home for luncheon.
Merrick wandered on, leaving Anne's formal garden and strolling to the line of trees that bordered it on the west. The sun was shining from a cloudless sky. The air was almost warm. It was easy now to believe that spring was coming. Soon the garden behind him would be a blaze of color. And he would not see it. Anne would wander there, picking daffodils. The baby would see it. Probably by summer she would be crawling over the lawns, and Anne and the gardener would be constantly running after her to prevent her from plucking the heads off the flowers. But he would not see her.
Something caught his eye in the greening grass among the trees. It looked like a frail relic of the winter that had passed. He stooped down and looked with delight at the first flower of spring. He touched it gently with one finger.
Anne had walked out into the garden. She shivered slightly, but it was not really cold, she thought, raising her face to the sun. There was warmth today, and it was pleasant to be out of doors, despite the fact that she had neither cloak nor bonnet. She did not intend to be outside for long. She did not wish to miss Alexander when he left. She had been in the nursery all morning, playing with Catherine. She meant to bring her outside following her afternoon sleep, but this morning she had stayed indoors, expecting every moment that he would come to bid them farewell. She knew he had not left yet. His greatcoat and hat were still in the hall.
It would have been better really if he had slipped away during the morning without a word to anyone. This waiting was killing her. She would see him one more time, probably for a few brief moments only. She would have to pack a lifetime of looking and listening into those moments.
"Anne."
She looked back to the house, though the voice had not come from that direction.
"Anne," he said again, and she saw that he was among the trees, stooping down in the long grass.
She walked toward him consciously drinking in the sight of him, his thick dark hair blown rather untidily around his face, his handsome features turned toward her, his broad shoulders filling out the fine blue broadcloth of his coat. She wanted to smile, but her face felt stiff with the tension she was feeling.
"Come and look at this," he said, and he turned back to look into the grass.
Anne stepped closer and then she sank to her knees on the grass beside him, her face suddenly and unconsciously smiling. "Oh, it is a snowdrop," she said. "The first one, Alex. Spring is here." She reached out and cupped the tiny bloom in her hands. "Look. It has all the beauty of nature in it."
Merrick watched her as she gazed, rapt, at the tiny flower. He ached to touch her, to tell her that he loved her, to beg her to take him back, give him another chance. But he had renounced selfishness where she was concerned. He had told her the night before that he was done with taking from her. And he had spent a sleepless night castigating himself for what he had done to her earlier. To have forced her yet again to accept his attentions, to have put her yet again in danger of having to bear a child of his was unpardonable. Why was it that he always had behaved at his worst with Anne, with the woman whom he loved more dearly than he could ever have imagined loving anyone? He stood up.
"I shall be going, Anne," he said.
She gazed up at him blankly, her hands still cupping the snowdrop. "Oh," she said, and she stood up slowly.
They gazed at each other in silence for a few moments. Merrick held out his right hand. "Will you shake my hand, Anne?" he asked quietly. "Can we part on friendly terms? Do you think you will be able to think kindly of me after I have gone?"
Anne stared at his hand for a long while before she put her own into it. She did not answer him or look up at him. She looked at their clasped hands. Only when, finally, he moved to raise her hand to his lips did she tear it away and look up into his eyes, her own full of agony. She threw her arms up around his neck and buried her face against the folds of his neckcloth.
"Alex," she said.
His arms went tightly around her and he hugged her to him. But he did not say anything. He was stunned.
"Alex," she said, and she lifted her head and looked up into his face, panic spread all over her own. "Don't go. Don't leave me. Stay here with us. Catherine needs you. Or let us come with you. You said last year that I might come. I would not be any trouble to you, I swear I would not. You may live exactly as you please. You need not know I am there. But just so that I may see you, Alex, and know something of your life. And so that Catherine may grow up with a papa. I will not interfere with your pleasures. You may come and go as you please. I shall not even complain about your m-mistresses. And you need not take me about if you would rather not. I shall be contented to stay at home. And at night I can please you. I do please you, then, do I not, Alex? I know I do. Perhaps I can bear you an heir. That would please you too, would it not?"
She had to stop. Her sobs were making it difficult to get the words past her lips. And, indeed, she did not know what she had said. His hands gripping tightly the sides of her head made it difficult for her to hear her own words.
"Anne," he was saying. "Anne, what are you telling me? What are you saying, love?"
She could not even see him clearly. Her tears were making him blur before her sight. She blinked her eyes in annoyance. But with her clearing sight came the realization of. what she had done. She put her hands over his and tried to ease them away from the sides of her head.
"I am sorry," she said, and she could feel her face flushing hotly. "I am sorry, Alexander. I did not sleep well last night, and I always hate saying goodbye to people. Forgive me, please. I am delaying you. Let us return to the house."
"Not until you have told me what you meant just now," Merrick said. He resisted the pull of her fingers and still held her head firmly cupped in his hands. She was not allowed to look away. "Why do you wish to live with me? I thought you could hardly wait for the day when I would be gone out of your life forever."
Her cheeks still felt hot. "I am tired," she said. "I am not myself, Alexander. Please forget what I said. They were very foolish words."
"Tell me now," he said quietly, "while you are still looking at me, that you did not mean a word of what you said, that you wish me to go out of your life now within the next few minutes."
She looked silently back into his eyes until his face blurred again. "Let me go, Alex," she said.
"Tell me."
"I cannot," she said. "I cannot say what you wish to hear. I do want to be with you. But you must not fear that I shall forever be begging you to bring me to London. Once you are gone, I shall be strong again. You can be free of me, Alex."
"And if I tell you that I do not wish to be free of you?" he asked.
If only she could see his face clearly! "No," she said, "you must not feel any obligation to me. I know that you married me against your will. I know that I am plain an
d dull and that I do not fit in with your way of life. I shall be happy here, and I shall have Catherine."
"But Catherine needs a papa," he reminded her. Somehow his forehead was resting against hers.
"Yes," she said lamely.
"Anne," he said softly, "I love you."
Her hands came shakily up to the buttons of his waistcoat, which she began methodically to undo. "No," she said. "Don't do this, Alex. It is sometimes cruel to try to be kind. Go now. Just leave me here and go. Please." She started to do the buttons up again.
"I love you, Anne," he said.
"No, you don't," she said, and realizing that she was about to undo his waistcoat buttons yet again, she splayed her hands across his chest.
"Now, that I cannot accept," he said, and his hands finally came away from her head so that he could put his arms around her and draw her body against his. "I cannot have you call me a liar, you know."
"But you cannot mean it, Alex," she said, looking up again and searching his eyes with her own, which mercifully had cleared once more. "You cannot love me. I am not the woman you would have chosen."
"I have to admit that that is true, love," he said. "I would not have chosen you, and I would have shown a great deal of foolishness in not doing so. I did not love you when I married you, Anne, and I did not love you when I met you again at Grandpapa's last year. But I grew to love you there and I have loved you ever since. I have not enjoyed London since last spring, and there have been no mistresses, you know. I had to come when your time was due. And I have not been able to drag myself away since. The thought of leaving you has been breaking my heart. Is it possible that I do not have to do so? I do not deserve such good fortune. Tell me the truth now."
"Oh," Anne wailed, dashing the back of her hand across her eyes, "I cannot see you, Alex. I have been such a watering pot in the last few days."
He laughed, "Is that all you can say in a moment of such high tension?" he asked. "Anne, my whole future happiness depends on what you will say in the next few moments. Do you really wish me to stay, love? Can you bear the thought of being my wife in deed as well as in name?"
"Alex," she said, "I have tried and tried to hate you. Sometimes, when you are not here, I almost succeed for five whole minutes at a time. But almost every hour of every day I have to admit to myself that I have loved you since I first set eyes on you. I am sure that I would live without you if you were to leave now. I mean, I do not suppose I really would die of a broken heart or do anything as romantic as that. But, oh, Alex, I feel as if I would die. I mean, I would not want to live."
He clasped her to him, and her arms went up around his neck again. "Last night," he said, "I loved you every moment."
"And I you."
"And last year," he said. "When I started Catherine in you, I did so with love."
"Oh, Alex," she said, and when she raised her face to his, it was glowing and her eyes sparkling, "yes, of course, that is right. Oh, yes, and all our children will begin in the same way, will they not?"
He laughed against her hair. "Yes, love, all of them," he agreed. "But let us put off the delight of planning them all, for the present, anyway. For now I merely want the novelty of making love with you when we both know ourselves loved. Shall we?"
"Oh, yes," she said, smiling up at him.
"Soon?"
"Yes, Alex."
"Now?"
"I think Dodd would be scandalized if we both disappeared upstairs so close to luncheon time," Anne said.
"Let's scandalize Dodd, shall we?" he suggested.
"Yes, Alex."
He hugged her to him again and rocked her against him. Then he lowered his head to hers and kissed her deeply, fondling her with his hands in a way that would indeed have scandalized Dodd and the whole household staff if they had seen.
Then they turned and, with arms twined around each other's waists, set off in the direction of the house.
The tiny snowdrop, the first, frail promise of spring, bloomed forgotten in the grass behind them.
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