Once Beloved

by Amara Royce

  “Even leaving your parents?”

  “I would have left their home eventually, wouldn’t I? And I never truly let go of them. Until they died, I sent them letters every month with news of their grandsons. I don’t know if Elizabeth did the same, but I never received any responses. None. Their rejection cut me to my soul, but even worse was their refusal to acknowledge their grandsons. I would have loved for them to know my boys—for Father to teach them how to carve and how to fish—but if I hadn’t chosen a life with Isaiah, I wouldn’t have my sons. I wouldn’t have had those glorious years with my husband. I wouldn’t have the life I have known—one of love and purpose and joy.”

  “How do you know you wouldn’t have come to love my brother or borne him equally fine children?”

  “I’d known you and your brother all my life. I admired him; he was a good man, respectful and hardworking.”

  “So what was he lacking?”

  “It wasn’t a matter of lack. What I realized with my husband was that it was a matter of suitability. Seems like such a weak word, but Gordon and I didn’t suit. When I met Isaiah, as improbable as it may seem, we fit. I don’t mean anything crass or physical. I mean that we were uniquely compatible. He understood me, and I him. With him, I felt safe and encouraged and bold and true.” She’d known from the first moment they spoke to each other that she couldn’t marry Gordon. Even if she hadn’t eloped with Isaiah, she’d become too keenly aware of how out-of-joint she and her betrothed would be. They might have made a stable and respectable marriage, but they wouldn’t have made each other whole.

  “From the first moment we met, Isaiah made my heart soar. With him, I felt safe. With him, I felt I could be bold and honest. Your brother was always proper, always decent, and so was Isaiah. But your brother never showed that passion for life that I craved. I didn’t even know how deeply that craving ran until I met my husband. I have no doubt Gordon is a fine husband, and I am so pleased he built a good life for himself, but I doubt very much that we could have had what I had with Isaiah.”

  He listened so patiently and yet . . .

  “Daniel, I’m sorry. This wasn’t what either of us intended for tonight.”

  “This night is whatever you and I wish it to be. The way you describe your marriage and your husband—I’ve never had that, never felt that with another person. You’ve given me tantalizing glimpses of the kind of love we read about in poetry. There’s a pleasure in sharing these quiet moments with you, even if we never go further.”

  She stood to face him, and the weight of his eyes on her made her heart race. “I need you.” She couldn’t tell if she’d said the words aloud, but she felt them deep inside, her core tightening in response.

  “Show me,” he whispered with eager conviction. “Teach me how to touch you, how to bring you to that point. I want to know everything.”

  “This . . . what we’re doing . . . this goes beyond . . . it isn’t just . . .” She didn’t know how to say what she wanted to say, but suddenly she wanted some sign that this was more than a tawdry night of sexual education.

  “This isn’t simply lust, is it?” she asked, feeling suddenly insecure.

  “No, Helena, it isn’t. I don’t know what it is, but there is nothing simple or base about it.”

  His confident response reassured her only slightly. She looked at him pointedly, but he refused to look down, refused to acknowledge the interest so obviously stirring again below his waist.

  “It is not,” he repeated more firmly. “This isn’t some rash, mindless coupling in a haystack. I want to keep you in my life.”

  “That isn’t possible,” she said, but this time, when he wrapped his arms around her, she didn’t pull away. The beat of his heart beneath her cheek was strong, as she nuzzled into his embrace. They could still enjoy this companionship, however temporary. When his hand stroked along her spine, she arched her body against his. That was all it took to light the flame.

  “Put out the light, would you?” she asked quietly when they moved to the bedroom. She didn’t even look at her own body much anymore. She was no longer young and fresh, and her flesh bore the evidence of childbirth and age. Internally, her body tingled with anticipation and an intense need she hadn’t felt in so very long, but she didn’t know if she could go through with this if he could see all of her. The sensations felt exquisite, but her mind kept intruding. Don’t. What of your marriage? What of your vows? She couldn’t quiet her thoughts, but her body was equally insistent. Now. Please. I need this. Darkness might keep it all at bay, if only for a little while.

  Daniel didn’t hesitate as he snuffed out the candles. When he went to the window, he left the curtains partly open, just enough for faint ribbons of moonlight that made the bed linens seem to glow.

  “Is that sufficient?” he asked, a low, disembodied voice in the shadows.

  “Yes, it’s enough,” she replied, moving gingerly in the direction of his voice, unbuttoning her blouse as she went. The dim remaining light would be sufficient to guide their way.

  Once she’d passed through the beams of moonlight into darkness again, she slipped off her top and let it fall to the floor. Her eyes closed as shame and insecurity rose within her. His deep intake of breath was her only warning before his hand touched her waist above the band of her skirts. That small touch consumed her attention—the heat of his palm, the roughness of his fingertips, the gentleness with which he slid his hand around her. As he stepped closer, the warmth of his towering body radiated through her. All thought ceased as she reached for him and became a creature of feeling, consumed by stunningly keen need. Wrapping her hands around his thick shoulders, she pressed against him from chest to knee and pressed her lips against his. He responded with a passion that left her breathless. She couldn’t say how much time passed as they explored each other; she simply wallowed in this overwhelming sea of pleasure, of want. Before long, she’d shown him everything she knew, everything she fantasized about, and he’d returned the favor.

  “Helena! Come out to me, love! You must see this!”

  She stared around the bedroom, disoriented by the gloom, and realized Daniel was calling her from outside. What on earth? The strangeness in his voice made her rush to don her shift and one of his jackets. He didn’t sound alarmed, but his tone was one she couldn’t recall hearing from him before. A mix of excitement and awe. What on earth could agitate him so?

  The moment she stepped outside, she knew. Glowing ribbons of pale green, shifting from emerald to peridot, shimmered and rippled in the night sky, illuminating everything in a soft, surreal light. She stopped a few feet away from him, enraptured even more by his rapt expression, his eyes fixed on the heavens than by the lights themselves. “Aurora borealis,” she whispered. Decades ago, the first time she’d seen it, from her family’s garden, she hadn’t had a name for it. She knew now what it was called, and yet the words seemed less like science and more like an incantation. Shrouded by the fog and lights of London, she never expected to see this sight again. And Daniel appeared as delighted by them as she felt. She stared up, letting the breathtaking phenomenon wash over her.

  “You are so lovely.” Daniel’s words, low and close, seemed to come out of nowhere and took her breath away. He slipped behind her, and his arms stole around her waist, bracing her so she could tilt her head back even farther. She felt enveloped by the luminescent night. Could she truly feel the heat of his body behind her? Surely, that must be a trick of her imagination. She closed her eyes against a surge of emotions she dared not recognize. She had to be clearheaded, had to be reasonable. Just like the fleeting light show above them, whatever this was between them couldn’t last. It was a beautiful illusion, but still an illusion.

  “I must return to my family soon. The day after tomorrow appears to be our best opportunity to take the train from Leeds.”

  “I can take you and Vanessa back myself next week,” Daniel said in a strangely diffident voice. Before she could respond, he continued, �
�I thought perhaps I could even stay in London for a time . . . if there was cause to do so.”

  His suggestion immediately alarmed her, but she couldn’t pinpoint why. His arms stiffened around her, and she could tell he’d noticed her hesitation. Gently, she said, “No, you mustn’t. You’re needed here. I couldn’t, in good conscience, take you away from Lanfield at such a crucial time.” Before he could reply, she pressed one hand to his chest and admitted, “I am a changed woman from the one you met weeks ago. You cannot dream of how terribly I feared the future I saw unfolding before me. Every day it seemed I was sinking further into a quicksand of fear and immobility. Every day I came closer and closer to never leaving my rooms. Every day regretting how I was robbing my sons of so much life, how I was fading into a shadow.”

  “You would have come to see your grandmother even if I had not crossed your path.”

  “No, I don’t know that I would have. I would have wanted to, certainly. But, that day, when you came to offer your cart and your company, Elizabeth almost convinced me not to leave London. I was already terrified, and she knew it. She knew all my greatest fears and made them plain. She wasn’t trying to hurt me. I needed to know what to prepare for. But when she articulated all the chaos, the activity, the people, I really wasn’t sure I could do it. It would have been easier to stay there, easier to control my environs and stay with my boys. But that wasn’t what I really needed.”

  “I agreed entirely with your sister that you shouldn’t take such a trip. From the little I knew about your condition, I thought it would be too much of a strain and too upsetting for you to see her under the circumstances.”

  “Your reaction ultimately convinced me to go. I needed to prove to you, to all of Marksby, that I could return undaunted and unashamed.”

  “I expected you to be brought down a peg or two when you arrived,” he admitted, pulling away from her. When she turned to look at him, she could see the pain and guilt in his entire being, even in the dim lights.

  “I know,” she said. “You were honest and direct about your harsh feelings against me, and you accurately predicted how people in Marksby would react. Your feelings weren’t without cause. I don’t fault you for them now.”

  “By gow, I want you, right this minute, more than I’ve ever wanted anything in my life.”

  “Here? Now?” She said it teasingly, but the moment she said the words, she was overcome by the desire to be joined with him in full view of the night sky. To meld with him as the beauty of the aurora borealis shone down upon them. Oh, yes, she wanted that.

  “Lord, yes,” he whispered fervently, and he pulled her down to the ground with him unceremoniously. He yanked off the jackets they wore and spread both out on the damp ground, and then they celebrated the natural wonders of the heavens in stunningly creative ways, ways she’d never imagined. At one point, he coaxed her astride him, her back to his front, and then drew her down to lay upon his chest. Oh, the sweet majesty as they both stared up at the undulating skies, which matched the rhythm of their bodies, their skin slick and hot as the pleasure flowed over them in beautiful waves. The scent of earth and crushed grass and arousal combined with the visions above and his groans in her ear to shoot her to an unbearably intense zenith. Her screams must have been heard for miles.

  “Dawn comes too soon, love. I am loathe to let you go.” Daniel said, as he stroked her hair. It was all the activity he could manage as the first threads of light wove across the sky.

  “Gran is recuperating rapidly. Her heart is still weak, but she gets stronger every day. She keeps telling me to go, but I cannot. Now that I see her, it pains my heart to leave. Isn’t that odd? I never, never thought I’d see this village again. Yet now, even with my sons, with my friends, with my work—all I have worth going back to—the thought of leaving destroys me.”

  “You miss your boys?”

  “With all my heart! I received a charming letter just yesterday from them. My sister has them practicing their writing.” She smiled. “They sounded fine, still enjoying the novelty of staying with their cousins. Surely, they are staying up too late.” She shredded more grass. “I feel that if I go, I will truly never return. All I have left of the Thorton family will be gone.”

  “The house and remaining property will surely go to you and your sister when the Grand-dame finally gives up the ghost.”

  “Ha! She’ll probably outlive us all. Anyway, it would be impractical for us to keep it from so far away. We’d best sell it.” Her voice cracked before she could get all the words out. “How morbid! Talking as if Gran is at death’s door.”

  “These past weeks, you’ve had to prepare yourself for that possibility,” he said. He tucked a stray lock of hair behind her ear, and a shiver of pleasure skittered down her back.

  “So much has changed, Daniel, and yet this is still my home. Every day, the truth looms that I will lose all this . . . lose her . . . far too soon.”

  “You could rent it out. Then it would still belong to you, and you could gain revenue from it.”

  The idea of strangers living in her family home, working her father’s field, turned her stomach. “We know nothing of landlording. And we couldn’t manage the tenants from afar.”

  “You could sell it to Mrs. Weathers.”

  “No, if you can believe it, she’s already said her family is planning to move closer to Manchester. Her children are determined to go for work.”

  “I could keep it for you.” He seemed as shocked as she by his suggestion, but he continued, “’Appen one of your boys or Mrs. Addison’s children may want it someday. You couldn’t sell their legacy out from under them. Anyway, we own the rest of the land. It wouldn’t be much more to manage.”

  Shock upon shock. “Daniel, you couldn’t do that.”

  “Why not?”

  She sputtered and grasped for responses. “You have your own land, your own home, to manage.”

  “We took over much of the land years ago. What’s left wouldn’t be much more to manage, and it could remain yours. I could live there and let Gordon’s oldest boy have my house. He’s old enough.”

  The thought of Daniel living in the Thorton house warmed her, although she couldn’t begin to imagine why. She refused to delve into those murky corners in her mind. He’d serve as an excellent caretaker. He’d walk in her footsteps, in the footsteps of her parents, and the home would be preserved. Suddenly, the image of him leading his future wife through the house, perhaps a woman with whom they’d grown up in the village, struck her with a sharp bolt of emotion. The vision of him taking the faceless woman’s hand as they ascended the stairs—no, no. That wouldn’t do.

  “I could not ask that of you. It would be unreasonable to yoke you to our property, especially if you were to remarry. Your bride would want control over her home, over its furnishings. She wouldn’t want to live in someone else’s home. And I couldn’t bear . . .”

  She’d meant to say that she couldn’t bear to have her childhood home altered, her family’s things removed, but that wasn’t entirely what she meant. She couldn’t bear the thought of him remarried. And that was a horribly sparkling gem of truth newly unearthed—she didn’t just desire him. She cared for him. Such a strong, honest, beautiful man—why shouldn’t he marry again? Why shouldn’t he build the family he hadn’t had with his first wife? He deserved better. He deserved more. But the thought of him with that fictional other woman, that fictional family, tore at her—the sharp-beaked eagle tearing at the gut of Prometheus, helplessly chained to a rock.

  “Do you think, after the taste I’ve had of marriage, I would seek that misery again?”

  “Not all women are like her.” His bitterness tore at her heart. He was such a good man, and he deserved more than this solitary, work-driven life.

  “I don’t place all the blame on her. Clearly, I was a terrible husband as well. I have no need and no interest in such a future. I would only be your family’s caretaker, and I can just as easily work Lanfield from th
ere.”

  “Have you ever wanted to do anything else? The stargazing, for instance?”

  “That’s a pastime. It’s entertainment. The farm’s in my blood. It’s me. I owe it to my brother, to my father—I owe it to Hal and the other bairns.”

  She wished it could be otherwise, for his sake. What, after all, was owed to him?

  “This . . . with you . . . this is very different from what I had with . . . my husband,” she admitted. “You know, for a time, I felt his death, especially the way he died, was a betrayal. He’d sworn to be by my side, to devote his entire being to me—but in the end, his dedication to the cause, to his ideological fantasy of harmonious labor, mattered more than I did, more than our family did. At least, that was what I thought back then.”

  “I blame her too.” Blame. Present tense.

  “As well you should, though. She actually did betray you.”

  “You talked of fit. Of suitability. I knew she and I were flawed from the start and took her to wife anyway.”

  “That doesn’t excuse her faithlessness.”

  “It was clear that she wanted more than the farm, more than this country life. Like you, she had the spirit of a wanderer, but she found no encouragement in me.”

  “She chose to wed you.”

  “It wasn’t as if she had much choice.”

  She observed, “We always have a choice. They aren’t always easy, and sometimes none of the options are desirable. But we always have a choice to do the least harm.”

  “I think she gambled that I would become unsatisfied with my life and become more like her. She told me more than once I should get out from under my brother’s thumb. We never truly understood each other. I can only be thankful that children didn’t enter the picture. It was best that she left.”

  “I do believe you’ve just said more words now than I’ve heard you say in the past three weeks combined.”