by Raine Miller
“No, cara, I don’t. I just sensed it from you. And being so attracted, I was determined to have you for myself. I had to be the one to give you what you needed, and I was so desperate to win you, I would have done anything. Your father’s decline made it very easy for me, too easy, I know.”
He knew what he must ask. And he was afraid of her answer. And his heart hurt terribly. Still, he had to know. “Marianne, are you the way you are because of…Jonathan?”
Marianne gasped when the name crossed his lips. “Yes…it is because of him. He is the reason.” She got quiet again, the silence hanging, waiting for words.
Finally, she started to tell her story. “Jonathan…I failed him. I am responsible. I as good as killed him. His death is on me, and I confess it is a struggle. ’Tis why I walk on the headland sometimes, to remember him and beg his forgiveness. For my mistake.”
“Mistake?”
“Oh yes, the worst kind of error. My brother died because of me. Because of a decision I made. I was at fault, and he died for it. My whole family really.”
“Brother? Jonathan was your brother?” Darius thought his heart might leap out of his chest. Brother…He was her brother…
She nodded in reflection. “My baby brother. He was so beautiful.” She looked weary and very sad.
“I had no idea,” he breathed. “Darling, you are tired and have been through a frightening ordeal.” He kissed her ravaged hands reverently. “Your poor hands. Thank God they were able to pull you up. Precious, precious hands.” Drawing her into his arms, he found her shawl and covered her up with it. He savored the warmth of her body and the knowledge that she was safe with him now, that he had not lost her today. Thank you, God!
“Marianne, will you tell me about Jonathan? I would like to know, if you can bear to speak of him.”
Chapter Fifteen
Darius held on to Marianne, secure in his arms, and never wanted to let go. He listened to her story…
“My father was doting and amusing when I was young. He teased me, saying I could not possibly be his little girl for being so solemn. I wanted a brother or sister so badly. When I was six years old, my wish came true, and Jonathan was born. I adored that child so much. He was beautiful, the light of our lives, but very willful.” Her voice broke. “When…he was ten, Jonathan left us, and it changed everything.”
She gave in to tears then, pressing up against his chest for comfort. Darius was grateful that she seemed to need him and gladly held her securely next to his thudding heart. After a time, he asked gently, “Can you tell me, darling? I do not know the story of your brother. I want to understand.” He waited for her to continue, patiently caressing her back.
“Jonathan went out in the rowboat with some other boys when he was expressly told ‘no’ by Papa. I surprised him behind the house when I caught him sneaking off. He pressed his fingers to his lips, begging me to keep his secret.” She shook her head. “I couldn’t deny him anything, so I didn’t expose him to Papa. They went out in the rowboat and a squall came up from nowhere. The waves capsized their boat and Jonathan was swept away—his body never found. The sea claimed him.”
“Oh, darling, I am so sorry.” Like clouds parting for the illuminating sun, Darius was finally beginning to understand his wife.
“You see, it is my fault. I should have told Papa he was leaving in the boat. Papa would have stopped him, and Jonathan would be alive still. It was an appalling mistake, and I made it. The loss of Jonathan crushed Mamma. She died but a year later, and Papa began to take to drink. I tried to care for him the best I could, but I was unable to save Papa in the end anyway. Everyone I love leaves me eventually.”
“Oh, cara, I had no idea about any of this. It happened after I left Somerset.” He kissed her on the forehead, caressing the back of her head, weaving through her hair.
“Marianne, you were but a child yourself. It was a tragic accident. Surely you see that you cannot bear the burden of guilt upon your shoulders alone?”
“I was old enough to know better, and I was afraid to tell my parents that I’d seen him and let him go. No one ever knew that part of it. If they had, they would have hated me for it. I was afraid to tell them and lose their love…and be all alone…” She broke down and sobbed in great heaves against his chest, and it was some time before she could continue. He kept stroking her softly, ever patient, knowing she’d keep going when she was able.
“’Tis why I feel unworthy of you and everything you’ve given me. ’Tis why I craved for you to tell me what to do, to think, and to feel. If you tell me, I am not responsible for decisions. I am safe. I can just float in the sensation without worry I’ll make the wrong choice. If something bad happens it won’t be my fault. Do you understand, Darius? That’s why I needed you to tell me. It gave me some solace from the burden of guilt…”
She stopped speaking, and he just held her some more, hoping like hell she could feel how much he did love her. So many things were now clear about her. The mysterious detachment, her willing submission to him, her giving nature, the difficulty in accepting demonstrations of affection and gifts from him all made sense to him now. In all things, she was trying to atone for something that couldn’t be atoned.
He spoke in a dead calm, hoping to impart reason into her opinions of herself. “I understand, Marianne, but I also know you need to let that guilt go. The burden of it is killing you slowly. It cannot help Jonathan or you. Jonathan is long at peace, and you have a life to live.” He clutched her a little tighter. “I need you, and you are most worthy, in my eyes. It changes nothing. I love you still and could never let you go anyway. You’ll have to put up with me until I go to my grave.”
It was quiet for a minute or more. Who knew? He’d bared it all. His soul was laid out raw and exposed. She had demons to conquer, and only she could banish them, really. He could love and support her, but he couldn’t bring her brother back for her or force her to let go of the guilt. The silence stretched on, and with each passing second his heart sank into deeper distress.
She pulled back from his chest and reached for his face, cradling it in both of her soft hands. He felt a flicker of hope when her beautiful lips began to speak. “And then you came along, Darius, and loved me. Strangely, I know I have hope that I might be free now, and it’s only because of you. The accident today helped to show me how much I have to live for. I didn’t want to die. I couldn’t. So I fought to pull myself to safety with every ounce of strength I could muster. I had to live, you see, because I have two very important reasons…”
His breath caught. “Yes?”
She nodded, her blue eyes glowing beautifully. Taking his hand, she pressed it to the soft, flat plane of her stomach. “I must live so I can be mother to our child. A child I want very much. A child I will love, fiercely.”
“Dear God! You are certain?”
“Yes, Darius. You will be a father.” The look of joy on her face was worth more to him than anything save for the precious gift she was giving him by her declaration.
He bent down to whisper and kiss over her belly. “Our baby is here, growing inside you right now. Oh, you will be such a loving mother. Our sweet child is blessed, you know.”
He froze when he thought about how hard he’d just taken her and panicked. “Damnation! I was too rough with you. I am sorry, cara!” He looked up from her belly, nearly incapacitated with fear. “Did I hurt—”
* * * *
“—Darius, I am perfectly well. You did not hurt me, and I like your loving me just the way you do it.” She pulled him back up from her stomach to her lips and kissed him softly. “It is very early yet, and we won’t have to worry about changing our habits for some time.”
“Just the same, I intend to take very good care of you and be ever so careful.” He smiled at her, but she could detect a slight regret in the expression.
Marianne thought she knew why. “Darius, aren’t you going to ask me?”
His eyes shuttered. “Ask you what, car
a?”
“My other reason. I said I had two important reasons to live. Our baby is one reason.”
He whispered without meeting her eyes. “What is the other reason, Marianne?” His voice carried the identifiable fear to hear whatever it was, but compelled to know anyway.
His eyes stayed down as she began to speak. “Darius, I love that you make me feel cherished. I love that you want me and say I am precious to you. I love that you need my body fiercely. I love the closeness with you. I love that you want me to be the mother of your children. You’ve given all of that to me, even when I thought I shouldn’t deserve any of it. And even though it still may be hard for me sometimes…to let go of the guilt, I want to try to put the past away. I want to hold on to you and your love, for our sake and our child’s.” She brought their hands to her belly together. “You are the best of men, Darius Rourke, and there is something else you need to know…”
She altered her voice, demand evident in her tone. “Look at me, Darius. You want to look at me.”
He lifted his dark eyes, silver flecks glittering, and focused on her.
“I am going to tell you what you want to say. You want to say it, Darius. You do.” She nodded determinedly. “Say, ‘Marianne loves Darius with all of her heart.’ You want to say it, because it is the truth. Tell me, Darius. Say those words!”
He trembled a little, his bottom lip quivering, distinct against the sharp lines of his jaw. This beautiful man, her man, her wonderful, loving husband, trembled before her, and the knowledge just split her heart apart…with even more love for him.
“Say it to me,” she commanded.
“Marianne loves…Darius with all of her heart.” He pushed the sentence out on a breath, his eyes growing shiny.
“She does indeed.” Marianne smiled at her husband with all of the love she had to give, shimmering out from her like a radiant aura. “So very much, for he is easy to love.”
“Will she tell me often?”
Marianne slowly nodded.
“I don’t think I can ever tire from hearing you tell me. In fact, it is what I need,” Darius said. “I need to hear it from you as often as you need to hear it from me. I s’pose we should be awash in declarations of love!”
“Fair is fair.”
His eyes glowed at her. “Start now!”
She leaned up for a kiss, whispering at his lips, “Ti amo, Darius. I—love—you.”
He cradled her face and kept her close. “You are perfect, you know? My Marianne. My love most beloved…il mia amore più cara.”
Epilogue
Seven months later…
Darius awoke with a start. Marianne wasn’t next to him in the bed. God, would the panic of finding her missing ever abate? He doubted it. Propping himself up on his elbows, he scanned the room in the dim light of daybreak. There she was. Wrapped in her blue shawl, sitting on the chaise before the fire. She sat very still. So still he would think her asleep if her back wasn’t so ramrod straight.
He kept his eyes on her as he got out of bed and donned his robe. He could see her shoulders moving, just barely, and in a predictable rhythm that followed steady breaths. He came to her slowly and knelt on the rug at her feet. She kept her eyes closed, but he could tell she was wide awake. Her hands rested one on each thigh. He lowered his head onto her lap at her knees and felt the gentle weight of her hand touch him, beginning a soft, rhythmic pattern of trailing through his hair with her fingers.
Words weren’t necessary. Communication flowed through to their minds from their hearts, or so it seemed to him. Darius put his energy into savoring this precious moment with her because he suspected the time was very near. Everything was equipped, and had been for weeks. They’d pored over books together and prepared themselves with as much knowledge as they could glean. All that remained was the experience and for nature to take its proper course as had been done by women for millennia. He cared only about one woman though. His. He would not press her now. She would tell him when she was ready.
The finger-combing went on for a good five minutes, when she froze abruptly. He could feel her legs tighten under his cheek and her back stiffen against the seat of the chaise. Her fingers gripped a hank of his hair and formed a fist. She stayed like that until the spasm ceased, and he felt her relax.
Darius lifted his head and looked up at Marianne. Her eyes were still closed. He waited, watching her even breaths raise and lower the big swell of her belly. Their child safe inside her body. Her eyes snapped open and captured his. A very intense indigo-blue gaze held him—the gaze of a female warrior.
“Darius?”
“Yes, mia cara?”
“It’s time. Tell Mrs. West we need the doctor and the midwife. Our child will be born this day…”
The next fourteen hours were not a stroll through the garden for Darius. But he wouldn’t allow for acknowledgement of his own struggles because the strength that Marianne displayed while fighting to bring their baby into the world just stripped him down, bare to the bone, humbled at her feet. He had pause to consider how she had looked at him early this morning when she’d said it was time. He’d thought her a warrior queen then. The metaphor was an apt one because she was in battle now sure as any soldier could ever be.
Watching Marianne bear down through another pain, he felt drops of sweat roll down his back and his hand squeezed in a bone-crushing grip that defied possibility. Her strength was amazing! Hell, all women were amazing in their ability to create new life. The notion they were considered “the weaker sex” was sheer idiocy in his view. Maybe men who held such beliefs should present themselves at a birth and see if their opinions might not merit drastic revision.
He exhaled in relief when the birth-pain eased and she flopped back against him and the pillows that propped her. Marianne was set up in her bed, and he at her side, bracing her through every gripping contraction, and despite doctors’ and midwives’ disinclination to allow a father into a birthing room, he was going nowhere. Marianne wanted him, and he’d promised, so he was here for the duration. She so rarely asked for anything, that when she did so, he was more determined than ever to give her what she wanted. “So brave, mia cara.” He blotted the sweat and tears away and whispered at her ear. “That’s another done.” He pressed his lips to her damp brow. “You’re so strong. Breathe deep now, before the next one comes.” He looked helplessly at Dr. Winslow, who arched a brow at him as if to say, “I’d really like it if you took your irritating arse out of here.” Darius just shook his head in a definitive “no.”
“Thirsty…” Marianne panted, breaking through the tension and meeting his eyes, bringing him back to her.
“Of course, cara.” He held a glass of water to her lips, trying to hurry before the next pain took hold. In less than two swallows she was seized by another contraction—the biggest one so far. She bit out an agonized cry that rent his heart to further shreds.
Dr. Winslow perked up, but retained his steady calm. “Ah. There it is. The head, I can see the head now. Mrs. Rourke, time to push. Now, my dear. Hard as you can. Your baby wants to meet you,” he sang. “Mr. Rourke, sit her up please…”
What followed next was the hardest thing he’d ever had to witness, but would not have missed for anything in the world. Holding her upright and steady, he endured every cry and forceful push and streaming tear, hating that she must suffer so, and wishing he could bear it for her.
But their reward came in due time. Those last few moments of Marianne’s intense pain evaporated into greatest joy when Dr. Winslow proclaimed, “Congratulations! You have a son.”
* * * *
Marianne had never been more beautiful, nor had he ever seen her more radiant, or perceived more joy in her than right now at this moment, holding their son in her loving arms. Darius hung back at the doorway and watched, loathe to break the enchantment of the moment. He felt like an intruder.
Earlier, he’d found it prudent to excuse himself while the midwife, Mrs. West, and Martha, go
t down to the business of post-birth necessities such as bathing the baby and seeing to Marianne. Some intimacies were best left to the women, after all. Refreshed in clean bedding and wearing a new gown, Marianne had her shawl over her shoulders. Dark coffee waves spilled over the sea-blue silk, the way he’d always loved her hair best, tied with a ribbon to the side. Her twilight eyes could look no further than the infant in her arms though. She simply gazed, looking totally in love and in awe of what she held. Her thumb brushed back and forth in a soft caress on the creamy blanket that swaddled him.
“Aren’t you going to come in? We’ve been waiting for you.” Her voice was low, but welcoming, as if she could sense his hesitation, and she never took her eyes off the baby. “Your son wishes to meet his papa.”
God, how he loved her! How she perceived that he needed some reassurance and gave it so generously. He came to the edge of the bed and saw his son. He had a son! A tiny pink face topped with dark, fine curls peeked from the blanket, a miniature hand and five fingers clasping the fabric’s edge. Bow-shaped baby lips made phantom sucks as their son dreamt in his mother’s arms. Such emotion flowed into him, he’d never have believed it possible to feel so deeply. They had made this tiny person and would always be bound to him by blood. Darius would lay down his life to protect these two people, and the knowledge of that fact made his heart swell in his chest.
“He is beautiful. Just like his mother.”
“Just like his father.” She cooed at the baby. “He looks like you, Darius.”
“You think so?” He tilted his head, smiling down at his son, pride filling him.
“I know so. I’ve been memorizing his features. His chin, that strong brow are a mirror of yours. Not quite sure about his nose yet—” She stopped suddenly and looked up. “How about you come into the bed with us and get a closer look.”
He eased down next to them and was grateful for the soft cushion, for his body suddenly registered the effects of this arduous day.