Longing

by Mary Balogh

  It was to be a peaceful demonstration. No revolution, this. The men of Wales were to show to the country and to the world how they could assert their rights without trying to wrest them at sword’s point from their rulers. And the eyes of the world would be on Wales. The eyes of the workers of England would be on them. Matters would be so organized that the Welsh would lead the way and the English would follow. Massive demonstrations all over the country would follow closely upon the Newport march. They would be the leaders, but they would not be alone.

  Despite herself Siân found her attention riveted more and more on the speaker. More and more she found her emotions being swept along by his oratory. Her heart echoed the shouts of the men. Yes, oh, yes, it might work too. And they had the right, the moral obligation to stand up for themselves.

  No exact date had been set, Mr. Frost explained, as there was still a great deal to be organized and secrecy was essential. But they were to be ready to march at a moment’s notice in a month or so’s time. In the meanwhile everyone was to join the Association and keep in constant touch with the leader who would be appointed in each community. And in the meanwhile too everyone was to gather what weapons he could to take along with him and more weapons were to be made—on the sly at the works, or in caves up in the hills. Weapons would be necessary, not to make the men the aggressors, but to give them defense if anyone should try to bar their way into Newport or break up the march.

  Again there was a shout of approval.

  But Siân was clinging to her rock, feeling dizzy and nauseated. Everyone was to join the Association. It was not to be left to the individual man and his conscience to decide. Everyone would be forced to join. Coercion and violence again. And weapons! They were to make and carry weapons. They would be an army. A rabble. The potential for violence would be there, merely awaiting the spark to ignite it.

  John Frost’s speech over, the meeting was addressed by many men, some from their own valley, some from the next, some speaking Welsh, others English. The vast majority of those present seemed to approve of the plan for the demonstration. But the topic shifted inevitably to the present and immediate concerns of the men gathered there—to the fall in wages and the impossibility of feeding a family on what they could earn.

  The mood of the men was clearly for a strike. The impassioned speeches of Owen and others were not necessary in order to persuade. But they did whip up feelings already at the boiling point and succeeded in turning the general mood ugly. They would strike tomorrow, ironworkers and coal miners alike, and they would stay out until Craille and the other owners capitulated and gave in to all their demands.

  Fists waved in the air as the men roared their assent. It seemed that at any moment they would erupt from the hollow where they were gathered and stream back down the mountain. She had left it too late, Siân thought, her knees weak with fright. She should have made her escape five minutes ago. She would be lucky indeed not to be caught. She flattened herself once more against the rock.

  And then she had that unreal feeling of déjà vu as a heavy, warm weight came against her from behind, pinning her to the rock, and at the same moment a hand slid between her face and the rock and clamped hard over her mouth.

  “Hush,” the Marquess of Craille murmured, his mouth against her ear. “To our right quickly. Don’t resist me or you will be caught.”

  She already had been caught. So had they all. But when a heavy fold of his dark cloak came about her and his hand left her mouth, she ran with him without shouting out one word of warning to the men of her own kind.

  * * *

  For a while he thought that this time she had not come. It was a relief to know that she at least was safe, especially when it became obvious that peace and calm reason were not foremost in the minds of the men. The march on Newport, apparently so impressive and well conceived, was after all likely to be violent. He did not know if Frost was foolish enough to believe that weapons would be used only in self-defense when hundreds, perhaps thousands, of men would be defying law and government by marching in a demonstration of strength and solidarity. He did not know if men like Owen Parry were that foolish. But it was perfectly obvious to Alex.

  His men must be stopped from participating. They must be protected from the consequences of their own foolishness.

  But then the focus of the meeting shifted, and as Alex had feared and half expected, the talk turned to the necessity of a strike. It was while they talked that there was a rare break in the clouds and the moon shone down on the men and Owen Parry haranguing them—and on Siân Jones pressed against the rock behind which she had hidden the last time.

  The men were in an ugly mood. They would not treat kindly anyone they found spying on their meeting, even if that spy was just a woman from Cwmbran. And this was not just any woman. Siân was Fowler’s daughter.

  Damn the woman, Alex thought, afraid for her suddenly. Damn her. It took him more than five minutes to edge his way from one side of the hollow to the other—blessedly the moon had disappeared behind clouds again. But finally he was close to her—the woman had not even had the sense to make her escape while the men were still all gathered in the same place—and able to press himself against her and get his hand over her mouth before she had a chance to cry out in alarm.

  There would be no time to get her back down the mountain and safely home. He could sense that the meeting was about to break up.

  “Hush,” he said against her ear. “To our right quickly. Don’t resist me or you will be caught.”

  He wrapped his cloak about her and held her to his side as they ran across the hill away from the town. He did not stop until there was another rock face behind which to hide. He set her back against it and held her there with his own body.

  “Are you mad?” he said. “Coming up here with a light-colored shawl, like a red flag to a bull?” He found her mouth with his own and kissed her hard.

  She was sobbing when he lifted his head away. “I hate you. I hate you,” she said, pounding the sides of her fists against his shoulders. “Creeping about in your dark cloak to catch everyone red-handed. If you knew about the meeting, why did you not simply stop it? Must you trick everyone into placing his head in a noose and then spring the trapdoor?”

  “Hush.” He kissed her again and waited for some of the tension to go out of her body before removing his mouth from hers once more.

  “I hate you,” she said, the passion gone from her voice. “I suppose you will allow the demonstration to proceed too and will have an army awaiting them when they arrive at Newport. You will not get away with it. I shall tell Owen that you know—unless you plan to murder me up here on the mountain.”

  “Siân.” He kissed her once more. “I do not hate. These are my men, my workers, my people. I have a responsibility to them. I care for them.”

  “You have a wonderful way of showing it,” she said. “I suppose they will be shot at and thrown in prison and hanged and transported because you care for them.”

  “Trust me.” He leaned more heavily against her and found the pulse at the base of her throat with his mouth.

  “As I would an adder,” she said. “Let me go.”

  “Siân.” He lifted his head and looked into her eyes. Even in the darkness he could see the misery there. “Trust your heart. Your heart trusts me. Trust your heart.”

  He watched her bite her upper lip. “My heart is not to be believed,” she said. “I have seen what you are like. I have seen my people suffer.”

  There were the unmistakable sounds beyond the rock of a meeting breaking up and of men scattering. Alex turned so that his back was to the rock. He wrapped his cloak right about Siân and held her tightly to him. They were well away from the path the men of Cwmbran would take back to the town, but he was not sure about the men from the other valley. No one came their way.

  “Your grandfather and uncle were at the meeting?” he a
sked after a while. “Will you be missed when they get home?”

  “Not unless they deliberately look in my bed,” she said, her voice muffled against his coat. “They are not likely to do so. They will tiptoe past.”

  “Come.” He took her by the hand and drew her away farther to their right and upward. “We are too close for comfort.”

  She did not struggle. He was not even sure why he had left the refuge of the rock since they had appeared to be quite safe there. But they would have had to stay there quite a while since there were always stragglers at such gatherings, men who stayed to talk long after everyone else had dispersed. It would be dangerous to try to take Siân home until everyone had left. Or so he told himself.

  “Here,” he said finally, drawing her down to sit on a level piece of grass and heather quite high up. “We will see the last of them going down and then I will take you home.” He drew his cloak right about her, his arm clasped about her shoulders beneath it.

  “What are you going to do?” she asked.

  “Here and now? I am not sure,” he said quite truthfully.

  “About the demonstration,” she said. “About the strike. About the men you must have seen even in the darkness and can identify. What are you going to do?”

  “I am going to do what I should have done at the start,” he said, “and what I have been trained all my life to do. I am going to take all the responsibility for those dependent upon me on my own shoulders and on my own conscience.”

  “What does that mean?” she asked.

  “Precisely what I said.” He looked down at the valley as the moon made another brief appearance from behind the clouds. “It means that I will be doing what I think necessary. It means I care.”

  He heard her drawing a deep breath as her head tipped sideways to rest on his shoulder. “Why do I always believe you when I listen to you?” she said. “It is against all reason. Why do I believe that you care?”

  “Perhaps,” he said, “because you recognize truth when you hear it, Siân. Perhaps because your heart knows that I am to be trusted.”

  But he was not at all sure that he was to be trusted in the present situation. He swallowed and rubbed his cheek against the top of her head.

  “Or perhaps,” she said, “because I am foolish and gullible.”

  “Siân.” He closed his eyes and knew that he certainly was not to be trusted. “You have come up the mountain with me after all.”

  He waited through the silence that followed for her to turn the moment, for her to rescue them both.

  “Yes,” she said.

  His hand fitted itself beneath her chin and held there for a few moments, stroking, before he tipped it up and set his mouth to hers. Her lips trembled beneath his but did not pull away. And then she turned in his arms and one of her own came about his neck. Her mouth opened.

  “Siân.” He feathered kisses along her jaw, up her cheek to her temple, trying to impose rationality on his mind.

  “Alexander,” she whispered.

  It was the sound of his name that snapped his control. His full name, which almost no one else ever used, spoken with her lilting accent.

  And then she was on her back and he was over her, his mouth finding hers, both of them wide and hot and seeking. He searched out inner heat with his tongue, plunging it deep into her mouth, stroking surfaces, circling her tongue.

  Her hands were on him, strong and demanding, pulling him down to her, one going behind his back, the other tangling in his hair. She arched her back to press her breasts against his chest.

  He was lost, the last vestiges of his control gone. She wanted it. She wanted him. And he loved her. By God, he loved her. In his physical need he could not remember any reasons why he should not have her.

  He began to make love to her, his mouth on hers again, his hands roaming over her body, worshiping her curves, pausing at her breasts to stroke and arouse. He touched her nipples with his thumbs through the fabric of her dress and found them already hard with desire. His own need was throbbing in him like a heavy pulse.

  “Siân.” He had an arm beneath her and rolled her onto her side against him so that he could open the buttons down the back of her dress. Despite the chill of the night, her skin was warm beneath his cloak and her shawl. He moved his hands over her back. “My love.”

  She helped him remove her bodice and reached for the buttons of his waistcoat and shirt. And finally after frenzied moments he was able to draw her against him and feel the naked magnificence of her breasts against his bare chest.

  “Ah,” she said. It was almost a cry of agony.

  “Beautiful.” He kissed her softly on the mouth and trailed hot kisses down over her chin and her throat to one full breast. He spread his mouth over her nipple and breathed warm breath on it while he licked it.

  She moaned again, arching up against him and clutching his hair with both hands.

  “So beautiful,” he said, moving his mouth into the valley between her breasts and up to suckle the other.

  “Cariad,” she murmured when his mouth returned to hers. “Ah, cariad.”

  It sounded like a caress.

  And then his hand was beneath her skirt, moving up slim and strongly muscled legs. For a moment rationality returned. If she did not stop him now or sooner than now, or if he did not stop, he would be unstoppable. It would happen. But it was too late for rationality, too late for control. She wanted him, and he wanted her. He loved her.

  She lifted her hips as he withdrew her undergarments, and lay quietly gazing up at him as he adjusted his own clothing. She reached up her arms for him as he lowered his head to kiss her. Her legs and her arms and breasts gleamed pale in the faint light provided by a silver-edged cloud.

  She was very ready for him. His hand found heat and wetness when it touched her between her legs and parted folds and stroked her. He would not have to use any expertise to prepare her body for penetration.

  Siân. He did not say her name aloud again as he brought his body over hers and down onto it and felt all her soft, warm, womanly curves against the hardness of his own body. He could not see her. The moon had receded farther behind its cloud again, and he had his eyes closed. But she was Siân. Every inch of his body and every particle of his mind was aware that she was Siân. His beautiful Siân. His woman. His love.

  He pushed his hands beneath her as her legs parted about the pressure of his, and kept them firmly there, a cushion between the hard ground and the press of his body. He found the entrance to her, pushed against it, and stopped there. He held still for a few moments, unconsciously giving her one last chance to avoid what was to happen. Her arms came about his waist.

  She was slick with wetness. And soft and warm and wonderful. He drew a slow breath as her muscles clenched about him while he pushed inward, drawing him deep, contracting against him so that his control almost went. He held deep in her, regaining control, reveling in the feel of woman intimately sheathing him.

  Siân.

  He found her mouth with his without opening his eyes. It was relaxed and warm and open and inviting. He put his tongue inside.

  She moved with him almost as soon as he began to stroke her, pivoting her hips up and down, contracting and relaxing her inner muscles, setting up a rhythm with him instead of lying still and letting him set its pace and depth. There was no sense of mastery with her, as there had been with every other woman he had ever possessed. Instead there was a sense of togetherness, a sense of give and take, a sense of making love with her instead of to her.

  He found it infinitely exciting and satisfying. He prolonged it well past the time he normally spent inside a woman before spilling his seed. He wanted it to go on and on, this loving, this deep sharing of bodies, this intimate knowing and being known.

  Knowing Siân. Known by her. My love. My love, my love.

  “My love.” />
  He could feel the growing tension of her body. She was no longer riding to his rhythm, but had twined her legs about his and was pressing up against him. God, he thought, she was going to climax. It was something beyond his experience in a woman. But Siân was beyond his experience. This was all new, this loving of a woman he loved, this giving as well as taking. This yearning to give her love, to give her himself, to give her everything there was to give.

  He acted from instinct and from love. He had nothing else to guide him. He slowed and deepened his rhythm, concentrated on sensing the needs of her body, holding deep and still in her finally while he felt her tension reach a breaking point.

  “Yes, my love,” he whispered into her mouth. “Yes, come. Don’t be afraid. Come.”

  And she came with shattering force, all the tension in her muscles exploding into uncontrolled shudderings. She cried out. She called his name. He held her tightly until all the inner tremors and outer shaking had stopped and she lay relaxed beneath him. And then his body was aware again of its own hardness, of its own need for release. He moved in her once more, aroused by her very stillness, thrusting and withdrawing until the blessed moment when he spilled into her. Into woman.

  Into Siân.

  Heedless at last of the hardness of the ground beneath her, he relaxed all his weight onto her and lost himself for timeless moments.

  She was quiet and relaxed and awake when he came back to himself and disengaged from her body to move to her side. He kept his arms about her and brought her over onto her side against him. He smoothed her dress down over her legs and drew it up over her breasts before drawing her shawl about her and his cloak over them both. Her eyes were open. She was looking at him.

  “What does it mean,” he asked, “cariad?”

  “Love,” she said. “It is used as an endearment.”