Once Beloved

by Amara Royce

  “I envy you.”

  “What do you mean? Why on earth?”

  So many reasons, he thought. I envy so much of your life.

  “Because you had the love of your life. Because you are bent by your grief but not broken. Because you chose a difficult path but have no regrets.”

  “You make me sound . . . I was a selfish girl. I wouldn’t trade the life I had, but the way I behaved was terrible. Immature. Selfish. What you all must have thought of Isaiah. He was such a good man, such a noble and kind man, and I do have regrets. I regret that the way I left, the actions I chose, made it impossible for people here to see his goodness, for my parents to welcome him into the family properly. It all could have been so different, so beautiful, if I hadn’t run away like a petulant child.”

  “Will you come to me tomorrow?” he asked, loath to leave her side.

  “This isn’t something we can keep a secret for long, not in a town like this. Your brother would be furious beyond reason if he found out we were engaged in an affair.”

  “He needn’t find out.”

  She scoffed. “After he found me in your bedroom, I’m sure he must already harbor suspicions.”

  “Let him. I don’t care. What I care about is learning how to please a woman.”

  “I would say you’ve achieved that. It seems you’re a quick study.”

  “Call it a point of pride. If there’s something I wish to master, I’m highly motivated. But I’m sure I need more practice in order to excel.”

  “What makes you think I have any interest in your tutelage?”

  “I may be uneducated in this area, but my instincts have not gone completely awry. I see your pulse throbbing at the base of your elegant neck. I see the pretty pink that flushes your face when I mention pleasuring you. Plus, you have a natural incentive for me to improve.”

  “Just once more,” she agreed.

  “Speaking of once more . . .”

  As he practiced what she’d taught him, her moan clawed through him, dragging across his nerves. Yes. This was what he wanted, her splayed out before him, completely open to him. But not just bodily. She’d exposed herself to him, made herself vulnerable to him, and his entire being reveled in her trust. The heat of her skin seared him wherever they touched—lips, chest, hips, everywhere.

  Even as the voluptuous sounds walloped him, he refused to shut his eyes. Helena. No one else. No other memories would intrude on this moment. Her first peak eased some of his unrelenting drive to claim her. His thrusts gentled as she breathed deeply and slid her hands across his shoulders, down his arms, along his chest. She smiled up at him, an expression so unexpected he froze. His lungs forgot their function. When she levered her head up so she could touch her lips to his, the world resumed spinning, but at a faster rate than normal. He deepened the kiss, pushing her back down to the pillow as he devoured her mouth and moved deep inside her. Quick, hard pulses that made her body convulse every time he rubbed against that magical spot within that made her cry out. He ground against her, determined to wring every drop of pleasure from her body. When she moaned, her back arching against him, her nails digging into his forearms, his hips jerked harder against her body as his control slipped.

  Her body loosened as her head lolled against the pillows. When it became clear that he wasn’t done with her yet, she said, haltingly, “Too much . . . I can’t. . . . It’s so . . .” Then she could do nothing but moan and whimper.

  “I need you,” he said. “Look at me, Lena.”

  When she opened her eyes and looked at him, her gaze remained unfocused, hazy with pleasure. “I . . . I . . . oh . . .” And then, “Yes. Take me. Take what you need.”

  The roar in his head drowned out all thought. He pounded into her, and feminine gasps and cries fed the bonfire that raced through him. When she screamed his name, he cried out in triumph before the waves of ecstasy drowned out all his senses. His last thought before losing consciousness was Stay.

  As she drifted back to earth, the silence was interrupted only by the occasional and remarkably expressive bleating of sheep in the distance.

  “Such a simple life they lead, those sheep,” she said, idly. “They’re guided from birth, kept from going astray, protected and well-fed. Feeding and wandering and playing without fear of being lost. These sheep knew nothing of loss or want. Only the beauty and freedom of open space.”

  “Don’t paint too pretty a picture. We’ve had lean years. We’ve had losses.”

  “But have they felt the losses, you think, beyond the moment, beyond fleeting instinctive hunger?”

  “They’re not as mindless as you might think. I’ve seen the ewes worry for their lambs—seen them give their own food to their young. I’ve seen them mourn their dead. At the end of last year’s lambing, we lost a ewe when she wouldn’t stop searching for a lamb we sold. She kept escaping, and one day we couldn’t get her back. It’s not always easy looking into the eye of a mother after having lamb stew, I’ll say.”

  “You don’t just see them as cattle, do you?” She remembered. Even in his youth, he’d had a tendency to name all the animals. In a flock of hundreds, he’d know each sheep by name.

  “Men must harden their hearts for slaughter when needed.”

  Women too, you dear man. Women too. She straightened her spine, knowing she had to be firm, possibly even cruel. But she had to shear herself away from this man and this town. And she had to start cutting herself away now. A clean cut with a sharp tool. The chill of the night seeped through her shift, and she rolled away from him to cover herself more completely.

  “Daniel,” she said hesitantly, trying to gather her resolve and find the right words, “you have been an invaluable help to me, but we have no future together. Look at this place. We live worlds apart. You belong here, and while I am overjoyed to again be welcome, I belong in London. That is where my heart lives.”

  “You are where my heart lives. I know you feel the same. Admit it,” he insisted. “In your touch, in your eyes, in the way you watch over me and anticipate my needs, in the way your body responds to mine, I see that you care for me deeply. Tell me what you feel. Even if we cannot be together, at least give me the truth.”

  She shook her head. She dared not say the words. If she said them, this would be real. It couldn’t be.

  “Marry me.” His tone made it a statement, not a question.

  “Don’t mock me.”

  “I am not. Marry me.”

  “That’s ridiculous. Why?”

  “Because you love me.” His conviction squeezed her heart. She couldn’t say it, couldn’t allow it.

  “I don’t.”

  “You do, whether you are willing to say so or no.”

  “I don’t.”

  “I could make you admit it.”

  “You . . . wouldn’t.”

  “And that is why you love me.”

  “No, that’s not it. I love you because—”

  “Aha!” A blend of triumphant joy and abject relief filled him. “I knew it! Now marry me.”

  “It wouldn’t work. My life, my family and friends, everything is in London.”

  “You’ve managed to make the trip more than once now. And I hear there are these remarkable machines called trains that make the trip quite speedy. Indeed, they are a modern marvel of efficiency.” He clasped her hand in his, his grip warm and firm but careful not to overwhelm her. Could it be that he was trembling? When he lifted his other hand to stroke her cheek, she definitely felt a fine tremor. She could so easily gut him, but she had no choice.

  “People need me there,” she said quietly.

  “I need you too, Helena. I need you, and I have never needed anyone. I don’t want you to give up the life you have, I swear I don’t, not if it makes you content. But there must be a way to fit me into your life as well.”

  She shut her eyes as if she could shield herself against his words. No, she couldn’t do this. It simply wouldn’t work—for either of them.
<
br />   “My sons . . . I cannot uproot them,” she said, her voice sounding weak even to her own ears.

  “We can spend the bulk of the year in London and return here for the weeks when I’m needed at Lanfield. Gordon’s sons can help him with the daily work. We can come for lambing and shearing. It would do your citified boys a world of good, you know.”

  She couldn’t ask that great a sacrifice from him. The farm was his life, his home. Literally, he’d built his home there with his own two hands. It was true that she couldn’t simply relocate her family, but she also couldn’t possibly uproot Daniel. Not now. Not when she had seen for herself how drastically her selfishness had once before devastated so many people. She shook her head and pulled away from him. “Do not ask for what I cannot give.”

  Chapter 24

  Creak. Creak. Creak. Auntie Helena had returned. Hours earlier, when she’d heard her aunt creep stealthily down the stairs, Vanessa had been able to glimpse through the bedroom window a cloaked figure moving in the direction of the stream. Not a woman inclined to a midnight dip, her aunt could only be going to one destination. Now the moon still shone through the curtains, but she could hear early birds calling to one another.

  When the footsteps reached the landing, she quietly opened her bedroom door and blocked her aunt’s path. “Where have you been, Auntie?”

  Stifling a scream, her aunt replied, “Nowhere, dear. I couldn’t sleep and so I decided to take some air.”

  “You were gone for hours.” She wasn’t such a naïve girl as to be fooled by that weak story. She’d told lies infinitely more believable than that about her outings with Billy, and her parents had never suspected. It was strange that she hadn’t really thought much about Billy in recent days. She missed him, of course, but then he didn’t need to occupy every waking moment, did he? Her aunt’s irritated stammering reclaimed her attention.

  “I—you—Vanessa, really! You should be in bed asleep, not spying on me. I’m an adult and have no need for a nursemaid. Now get back to bed!”

  She nodded but otherwise didn’t move. “I love you, Aunt Helena, but now I have a sense of what my parents must feel. You cannot run out into the fields in the middle of the night. It’s dangerous. You could be injured, and no one would know. We wouldn’t even know where to find you.”

  Her aunt ducked her head. Oh, that was a telling clue.

  “Or is there someone who would know without a doubt where you were? Someone of whom you’ve grown quite fond? Someone who lives nearby?”

  “That’s quite enough,” Auntie snapped uncharacteristically. “I do not need to report to you or justify my behavior. We are not equals, my dear niece, and I do not answer to you. Now go back to your room.”

  She backed away, alarmed at the ferocious tone, and hot tears welled in her eyes. She blinked rapidly and couldn’t meet her aunt’s gaze. When she was back across the bedroom’s threshold, she whispered, “I’m sorry for my forwardness, Aunt Helena. It’s only that I was concerned about you. I couldn’t bear to see you hurt . . . in any way.”

  Her aunt gave her a grim smile before tapping her chin affectionately and saying, “You’re a sweet girl, Ness. No need to worry over me. All will be well.”

  She’d heard that refrain countless times from her aunt, her mother, and all the Needlework ladies really. This time, more than ever, she hoped it would be true. In her aunt, she saw all the signs of a girl’s growing infatuation with none of her typical caution or deliberation. She felt a new sympathy toward her mother at being able to see inevitable heartbreak and yet being helpless to prevent it.

  Chapter 25

  Daniel felt as though he’d been gutted. Not that he knew what being gutted actually felt like, but he thought the sharp, stabbing pain in his belly, along with the contradictory feeling that he’d been hollowed out and sucked dry, might be a close approximation. He turned the paper over and over in his hands, wanting to tear it to shreds, wanting to toss it in the fire, wanting to stomp it into the ground. But he couldn’t bring himself to do any of that. He looked around the room, stripped of all signs of his faithless erstwhile wife, and still he couldn’t destroy this single sheet of paper. He cursed long and loud as he read the letter yet again.

  My Dear Mr. Lanfield,

  First and foremost, I must beg you to forgive me for being such a terrible wife to you. I prostrate myself before you in apology for leaving the way I did. I must own that I knew as well as you did how poorly we suited one another, and I despaired at the thought of spending our future so unfulfilled. I should have spoken with you rather than running away like a criminal. I hope the intervening years have made the farm a great success and brought you the satisfaction that I was never able to achieve.

  I write to you now not only in remorse but also in supplication.

  For many years, I wished simply to be free of Marksby. I strove to live as an adventurer. I have engaged in activities both exciting and life-threatening, to my exceeding joy, yet they are experiences you never would have allowed your wife to seek. I only hope you feel such unadulterated excitement and joy in your life, in your own way. In all this time, I never sought or had any expectation of affection, and yet I recently found someone with whom I can share this love of exploration.

  We wish to go to America for a fresh start. If you have maintained any hopes of our reconciliation, I am deeply pained to say with certainty that it will never happen. I beg of you to grant me a divorce a mensa et thoro. I am told this would nullify our marriage in the eyes of the church without the exorbitant cost of a divorce through Parliament. I would willingly swear upon a stack of Bibles that I shall never remarry, as my lover and I seek simply to build a future together, without legal encumbrance or formal labels, unorthodox as that may seem.

  As you and I have not shared bed nor board in a decade, I dearly hope that you will see fit to grant this request, the only request I have made of you in all the time we’ve been called husband and wife.

  In the hope of your compassionately affirmative response, I remain your humble and imploring,

  Mrs. Nancy Lanfield

  As he neared the end of the letter, he felt ravaged, eviscerated, the pain as devastating now as it had been the day Nancy deserted him. Shadows lengthened as the sun set. Darkness filled the room, the dwindling fire in the fireplace too weak to defend against it. His mind noted the minute changes in the room, but none of it registered. He sat and stared at the paper in his hands.

  Gordon burst into the room with an air of urgency. “Danny, I need you to make a run to Leeds.”

  “Now? It will be dark before I get there.”

  “Yes, now. I received a contract by post; it must have been delayed because the order is due in Leeds by tomorrow. It’s lucky that we have the wool to fulfill the order right now.”

  He hesitated. “I’ve a commitment tomorrow. I need to be back here in the morning.”

  “All the more reason to leave immediately. Whatever this appointment is, surely it can keep for a day, if worse comes to worst.”

  Fine. He’d take the bloody load to Leeds. He’d do whatever anyone damn well wanted him to do because the Fates obviously had no love for him.

  Every step that brought her closer to Daniel intensified her anticipation but also her dread. Just catching sight of his candlelit windows from a distance brought her bittersweet glee. Their last night together. Every night she’d spent with him, she’d cursed the dawn. How much harder would it be tomorrow, when she had to leave for good? Letting herself into the house, she spied him sitting in the rocking chair in front of the fire.

  Something wasn’t right. He didn’t stand to greet her, didn’t react at all. Perhaps he felt as conflicted as she about this final tryst. With his back to her, she couldn’t even see his expression.

  Then a chill shot through her as she realized . . . it wasn’t the right Lanfield.

  “Where is Daniel?” she asked hesitantly.

  “That’s quite familiar of you, calling him by his
Christian name,” Gordon replied. He still hadn’t moved from his seat. “My brother is on his way to Leeds.”

  “That’s peculiar. We recently discussed the possibility of him driving me and Vanessa to Bradford in the next day or so. Why didn’t he say he was already going to Leeds?”

  “It was an urgent matter that came up suddenly,” he said firmly, as he finally stood, a shadowy bulk outlined by the firelight. An ominous sight that only a fortnight ago would have sent her into near-hysteria. “I can’t say whether he’ll be back by tomorrow. You and your lass will need to find someone else to cart you around.”

  His snide, bitter tone lashed at her. Something was very, very wrong.

  “Gordon, since you are here, there is something I feel I should say to you.” She braced herself. This had been too long in coming, and seeing him face-to-face didn’t make it any easier. But she owed him this. “I never wanted to hurt you. I wish you could understand—it would have been so much more of an insult to you if I had stayed and married you without affection, especially after having that first brilliant taste of bliss. Did I place my happiness above yours? Yes, I cannot deny it. Yes. But I also meant to free you to find your own happiness. You would not have found joy with me as your wife. And I swear I did not know how terribly my departure would affect the economic future of this village.”

  “If you had known, would you have stayed?” he asked, his voice neutral.

  She couldn’t meet his eyes, but she saw his hands clench and unclench at his sides. Her exhaustion overruled her fear. “I cannot say. I’d like to think I would have pressed Isaiah to slow down and court me properly over a more acceptable period. I would have tried to cajole and convince my parents. In the rashness of youth, I couldn’t bear to be parted from him. I was a silly girl, afraid he would forget me when he moved on to other towns and saw other, prettier, more accomplished girls. I could have stayed at least temporarily.”