I wonder it so much that when I start back down to the barn I can feel it trying to fight me. I have to brace my shoulder against it, and the effort hurts. It burns behind my eyes, too intently for me to turn when I realise he isn’t following me. He’s still standing on that bluff overlooking an ocean of green, hands in the pockets of his big fancy coat. Gaze like cold fire, searing strips off my back.
Though still I don’t stop.
It hurts too much to – until he speaks.
And then the pain is so vicious it almost feels like a relief.
‘You should know by now that you can never fool me, Molly. Even if I pretend that you have, or let you go without saying a word, I still see almost everything, and every way that you can possibly be. I know when you stay quiet even though you would like to speak; I know when you are sad, even though you smile.’ Every word makes it worse and worse until finally I’m crying. I’m crying so pathetically I can’t possibly turn now, but, by God, I’m glad I don’t. If I had I might have blurted out something stupid, and never got the rest of this heart-shattering speech.
‘I wish I could tell you that I will one day find it easy to be affectionate. That I will hold you easily and with grace, and answer the same when you are generous enough to tell me you love me. But I simply cannot make that promise. I can give you everything else – I see that now. I see how easy sex can be, because of you. Yet still there will be certain things that elude me. I am sorry for them, but there is nothing I can do.’
I turn without even thinking about it. Suddenly it doesn’t seem to matter if he sees me crying, because the pain I thought I should hide is not the one he’s talking about.
He thinks this is all some other thing – some daft thing I never even thought about.
Is it really about some daft thing I never even thought about?
‘You think…you think I’m sad because you didn’t say you loved me?’ I ask, and after I have I can see that this is indeed the case. His expression shifts from the hard line he thought he was taking to a kind of confusion he obviously isn’t used to experiencing. He thought he had the reason down pat, and now that he hasn’t he doesn’t know what to do.
He just nods and waits.
He waits for me to explain.
So I do.
‘I never expect you to say you love me. Not even for a second, not even for the tiniest moment. Why would I, when I know what loving is to you? You told me. You said that he smacked it out of you, and I don’t think that the healing power of my virtuous heart will suddenly bring it back. I know it doesn’t work that way.’
‘And that hardly bothers you?’
‘It bothers me, but only in so far as it affects you. I want you to be happy, Cyrian – as much as you can be, anyway. So the very last thing I would attempt is some love blackmail or love guilting or whatever you think this is.’
‘Guilting is not a word, Molly.’
‘You know what I mean. Or do you? Maybe you really have no idea at all, if you think I would be sad because you never expressed something you’re incapable of,’ I say, sure that this must settle it before we move on to other things. He might even let me skip the other things if it seems like this is all smoothed over – and for just a second that appears to be the case. He goes very still in that way he has whenever I nail him for something. And his expression is one of obviously dawning comprehension.
Or at least I think so. I think so.
But then he speaks.
‘I am not incapable of it,’ he tells me, in a rush of something that might be fear and could be realisation but is most likely shock. He is shocked, I think, by this new understanding. And I understand why. It rocks me almost to my core when he finishes the idea off. ‘I just want to be. More than anything, I want to be. It hurts to feel – like cranking up a machine that has run to rust and ruin from long disuse. But I would do it for you, my lovely one. By God, I would do anything for you.’
‘Cyrian…’ I say, though it doesn’t sound like his name.
It sounds like the dark glass, as it melts away.
‘No one has ever been more generous to me than you, and it moves me more than I can say. Some days, I wish it were not true. But still, it remains,’ he tells me, and then I just blurt it out. Guilt makes a fool of me, not him.
‘I’m sorry. I’m sorry that I was upset, that I thought something stupid. But we can forget it now. It doesn’t matter at all, it wasn’t important.’
‘Of course it must have been. Anything you feel is important to me – do you not understand that by now? I might not be able to deal with emotions properly, but at the very least I can honour yours,’ he says. But I suspect he still doesn’t know what this is going to be about. He seems to tighten all over when I tell him that I saw him at the house.
And all he can reply is:
‘I see.’
After which everything just pours out of me in a great flow.
Quickly, like the ripping of a bandage.
‘And I just thought…I thought that you might have kept all that from me because maybe you’re ashamed. You have this big, secret Lordly life and I’m just so clumsy and silly and common. People like that would never understand me. That woman with the fancy hair would think I was a nightmare. I could never talk to people like that or fit in with that life and though I know – I know – you kind of hate it anyway I just…I had to wonder. I mean, you said that about not exposing them to me –’ I blurt out.
And am so, so glad when he cuts me off.
‘I said I did not wish to expose you to them.’
I had no idea how much it had been playing on my mind, until he just made it so clear. I had it the wrong way around all along, and now I know that I can go to him. I don’t even care about the embarrassment of it. I just cross that last small distance and stand by his side.
‘Oh. Oh. Oh, you meant…’ I say, but he still does not disappoint me.
I’m starting to think he might never do so, in any ways that matter.
‘Yes, I meant I would rather pluck out both my eyes than have to endure those hideous people picking you apart. Though I want to stress, this is not because I feel any shame over the person you are. Quite the contrary: I am ashamed of them. Could you not tell that I am ashamed of them? You must be slipping, Molly.’
I love the way he looks when he says this. He gazes at the glorious scenery, as though the matter is so simple it barely needs his attention.
And he looks way too beautiful – that hair, all wild and tangled, and those eyes now bright with an ever-ready gleam.
‘I’m always slipping around you. I don’t know why you think I’m so clever.’
‘I think you are clever because you see right through me, not because you are always and forever right about everything. Honestly, what fun would it be if you were?’
‘Probably as much fun as if you always understood me.’
‘We are not psychic, you and I. We are simply…’
‘Simply what?’ I ask, and hold my breath.
I don’t know why I do. As soon as he glances down at me I understand what is coming, and after that it’s just a matter of bracing myself for impact.
‘Soulmates,’ he says, as though it was always that simple. We were made for each other, he and I. Not perfectly, but in all the ways that mean the most. I know we are, because when he meets my gaze I see all the things he can never say. It practically sings out of him, so warm and good I feel my eyes overflowing again. I have to swallow seventeen times just to keep the tears down, but even then my voice sounds insane.
It strains over a concept I didn’t even realise was paining me until it comes out.
‘I don’t even know your real name. Cyrian isn’t your real name, is it?’ I ask, but he doesn’t look away. He takes in all of my messy emotion, and he doesn’t look away.
‘The groundsman’s daughter could not pronounce my real and frankly ridiculous one. She turned St John into Cyrian, and so I simply adopted it. To be clear,
though, this adoption had nothing to do with you. It is only a representation of the person I wish to be, instead of the one I actually am. And when I met you, when you spoke to me as you did in the library, I could never have given you anything but the sweet dream, instead of the reality,’ he says, and I just have to laugh. Partly because of the utter perfection of his name being St John, but also with a kind of joy I never thought I would feel.
It sings through my soul. It shows in my voice.
‘Cyrian is the reality. I know that now. I could never doubt.’
‘Even though I am hideously and ridiculously wealthy?’
‘Even though. Even though everything.’
‘And if I can never be the man you deserve?’ he asks, but only because he is as blind as ever when it comes to knowing what he’s really worth. Not that that matters now, here, as I take his hand – because from this point on I will always be there to tell him.
‘Oh, my love,’ I tell him. ‘You already are.’
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Sweet Agony Page 17