by Mary Balogh
“Siân—” he said, his mouth an inch from her own.
“Make love to me,” she said, closing her eyes, bringing her arm up about his neck. “Let there be one final good-bye. But let me go, then. Let me be able to remember that you set me free.” She was crying.
He turned her in to him, crushing her with his arms. “Not as my mistress,” he said. “I am not asking you to stay as my mistress, Siân. I am begging you to stay as my wife.”
She felt as if all the air had been knocked from her lungs. “No,” she said. “No.” The dream was too painfully sweet to contemplate.
“I love you,” he said. “You know I love you, Siân. And I know you love me.”
She buried her head against his shoulder, her mouth open in her agony. “Alexander,” she said. “Alexander, we can’t. It is an impossibility. Please. I have accepted that. I must go tomorrow. Let me go. Please let me go.”
He cradled her in his arms, rocked her against him. He said nothing for a while. She knew he was waiting for the tension to go out of the moment. But she knew too that he was not going to let her go. She knew he was not going to accept the impossibility as she had. I am begging you to stay as my wife. Had he really spoken those words? My wife. Alexander’s wife. His friend and companion. His lover. Mother of his children. His wife.
She relaxed against him.
“We are both widowed,” he murmured against her ear. “We have both recently been freed of engagements. We love each other. We are lovers. Tell me why we should not take the logical step of marrying, Siân.”
For a few moments she could think of no reason. There seemed only to be every reason why they should marry. But there were reasons—several of them, each an insurmountable barrier.
“You are the Marquess of Craille,” she said. “I am a nobody, and an illegitimate nobody at that. There are those who would say that you had looked too low even for a mistress if you took me.”
“And I would remind those impertinent persons that my life and your life are none of their business,” he said.
“Alexander.” She drew a deep breath. “It is not as simple as that. You know it is not.”
“No, it is not.” He set a hand beneath her chin suddenly and lifted her face. He kissed her warmly and deeply. “It is not a simple matter at all. It would not be easy for you to feel at ease in the sort of life I am accustomed to and expected to live in England. And I know it is very possible that you would not be readily accepted there. I know that here it might be difficult for you suddenly to be lady of the manor. I know that in time our children may find themselves having to fight against well-bred contempt at their birth. I know that you are the one who would do most of the suffering and that I would suffer knowing that you did and that I had caused it. But, Siân, think of the alternative. Are you really willing to live with the alternative?”
A month or two in the cottage in which she had lived with her mother. And then strangers and a strange place and a new teaching job. A new life. And no Alexander.
“You would be ashamed of me,” she said.
“Never!” His answer was quite vehement. He still held her chin. He was gazing into her eyes. “That at least will never be one of our difficulties, Siân. You must know that it won’t be. Marry me. Our lives are controlled so much by rules and social conventions. I have been asking myself during my walk on the hills why it is we are usually so willing to put the rules before people. Siân, are we willing to part today, never to see each other again, when the only obstacle between us is a rule? And not even quite that—a social expectation. A lifetime without each other because we were born into different social strata. No other reason. There is nothing else, is there?”
She could think of no answer. If she could look at anything except his blue eyes perhaps she would be able to think clearly. But his hand was firm beneath her chin. Short of closing her eyes, there was nowhere else to look.
“Alexander,” she whispered. And then she thought of something. “Verity?”
“Now you are grasping at straws.” He smiled unexpectedly. “The prospect of having you as a mother will have her running up hills and down hills for three days at a stretch, transported by delight.”
She laughed despite herself.
“Is there any chance you are with child?” he asked.
She shrugged and felt herself flush. “I suppose so,” she said. “There is a chance, though it was only one night.”
“And four separate assaults on your fertility,” he said. He was actually grinning. “If we only knew for sure, Siân, there would be an end to the matter without further discussion. I insist that all my children be legitimate, you see.” His smile softened. “I want children with you, my love. I want to give you a son to console you for your Dafydd, though not to take his place. He will always be your firstborn, as Verity will always be mine. But I want sons and daughters with you. I want a life with you. That is not an unrealistic ambition, is it?”
Her womb was throbbing with need—for him and for his child. She shook her head.
He looked deeply into her eyes. “No, it is not unrealistic?” he asked. “Or no, you will have none of me.”
“Alexander,” she whispered.
He drew her head to his shoulder again, wrapped his arms tightly about her, and waited. She knew that he had come to the end of his arguments. She knew that he could use one more method of persuasion that would surely work. He could make love to her. But she knew that he would not do so. Not until her answer was given.
He had given her her freedom after all. Freedom to decide for herself. It was the reason too why he had brought her head to his shoulder. He would not use even his eyes to make her decide in a way that she might regret. It was her choice now.
She relaxed against him, breathing in the distinctive smell of him. “We would live most of our lives in England?” she asked.
“Hardly any, I think,” he said. “Even before I got to know Cwmbran, Siân, I felt a strange feeling of homecoming here. I felt it again this afternoon when I was deciding to take Verity back to England so that you could stay here. I would not be going home, I realized. I would be leaving home.”
“You were prepared to go away so that I could stay?” she asked.
“And still would,” he said. “If one of us must leave, Siân, it should be me. You have more right to be here than I do. And more to lose by leaving.”
She thought about it. “No,” she said, “we have an equal amount to lose, Alexander. Each other.”
His arms tightened a little.
“I loved Gwyn,” she said. “He was a decent, caring, hardworking man. And I loved Owen. If you had not come, my love for him would have been enough to have seen us through a lifetime. It would have been enough to have helped me over the difficulties there would have been—there was much over which we did not see eye to eye. But you did come. And I have discovered with you what I believe few people are privileged to know in a lifetime. It is the sort of love immortalized in great literature. In poetry. I am not exaggerating, am I?”
“No,” he said.
“It is a love worth fighting for,” she said.
His arms tightened still further.
“I want to fight for it,” she said. “It won’t be easy. Not for either of us. And not for our children. But if you think there is a chance for us, Alexander, I want to take it. I think our love is a precious gift. I don’t want to throw it away. I won’t throw it away.”
He kissed her cheek, the only part of her face exposed to him. “I’ll call on your father tomorrow and ask for you,” he said.
She chuckled against his shoulder and then sobered again. She lifted her head and looked into his eyes. “Will you, Alexander?” she asked. “It will mean so much to him. And to me.”
“And then I will call on your grandparents,” he said, “and ask them. A more thorny matter, I beli
eve. If I get past those hurdles, I will take you to Glanrhyd and we can ask Verity together.”
She smiled slowly at him. “Alexander,” she said, “are you sure? Are you quite, quite sure?”
“Yes,” he said. “Are you?”
She nodded. “Yes, I am sure.”
He kissed her then and they clung together, breathless with the realization of how close they had come after all to cowardice, to giving in to the fear of facing down the unknown and stepping firmly into an impossibility.
“It is dusk already,” he said. “Darkness has fallen while we have been sitting here.”
She was aware of her surroundings for the first time in many minutes. “It comes early at this time of year,” she said.
“It is chilly up here,” he said. But his words were more question than statement.
“But not too chilly.” She lay back against the ground, drawing him down with her. “It is not too cold, my love.” She smiled into his eyes, so blue, so intense with his love, so close to her own. “My love.”
He smiled back as his hands began to love her, before his mouth followed suit. “Cariad,” he whispered. “You are going to teach me Welsh, Siân. My vocabulary is severely limited. But I learned the best word first.” He rubbed his nose against hers. “Cariad.”
But then for a long time he did not need words at all.
Historical Note
THE failure of the demonstration at Newport in November 1839 spelled the effective end of Chartism in the British Isles, though it limped on for several more years.
Of the many men who were arrested after the demonstration very few were actually put on trial. Of those who were, most were jailed for a year. Some were transported.
The three leaders—John Frost, Zephaniah Williams, and William Jones—were all sentenced to death. However, at the last moment they were reprieved and sentenced to transportation for life instead. Only John Frost ever came back home.
I have taken two deliberate liberties with history.
Some women did attend the Chartist meetings and take out membership in the Chartist Association. For the sake of my plot I have made it seem as if women were forbidden to have anything to do with the movement.
The mayor of Newport was wounded in the shooting at the Westgate Inn. I have been kinder to him. In my story he is still hale and hearty enough to entertain my hero after all the shooting has stopped.
Read on for a look at the next book
in the Survivors’ Club series,
Only a Promise
by Mary Balogh
Available from Signet in June 2015.
THERE could surely be nothing worse than having been born a woman, Chloe Muirhead thought with unabashed self-pity as she sucked a globule of blood off her left forefinger and looked to see if any more was about to bubble up and threaten to ruin the strip of delicate lace she was sewing back onto one of the Duchess of Worthingham’s best afternoon caps. Unless, perhaps, one had the good fortune to be a duchess. Or else a single lady in possession of forty thousand pounds a year and the freedom to set up one’s own independent establishment.
She, alas, was not a duchess. Or in sole possession of even forty pence a year apart from her allowance from her father. Besides, she did not want to set up somewhere independently. It sounded suspiciously lonely. She could not really claim to be lonely now. The duchess was kind to her. So was the duke, in his gruff way. And whenever her grace entertained afternoon visitors or went visiting herself, she always invited Chloe to join her.
It was not the duchess’s fault that she was eighty-two years old to Chloe’s twenty-seven. Or that the neighbors with whom she consorted most frequently must all have been upward of sixty. In some cases they were very much upward. Mrs. Booth, for example, who always carried a large ear trumpet and let out a loud, querulous “Eh?” every time someone so much as opened her mouth to speak, was ninety-three.
If she had been born male, Chloe thought, rubbing her thumb briskly over her forefinger to make sure the bleeding had stopped and it was safe to pick up her needle again, she might have done all sorts of interesting, adventurous things when she had felt it imperative to leave home. As it was, all she had been able to think of to do was write to the Duchess of Worthingham, who was her mother’s godmother and had been her late grandmother’s dearest friend, and offer her services as a companion. An unpaid companion, she had been careful to explain.
A kind and gracious letter had come back within days, as well as a sealed note for Chloe’s father. The duchess would be delighted to welcome dear Chloe to Manville Court, but as a guest, NOT as an employee—the not had been capitalized and heavily underlined. And Chloe might stay as long as she wished—forever, if the duchess had her way. She could not think of anything more delightful than to have someone young to brighten her days and make her feel young again. She only hoped Sir Kevin Muirhead could spare his daughter for a prolonged visit. She showed wonderful tact in adding that, of course, as she had in writing separately to him, for Chloe had explained in her own letter just why living at home had become intolerable to her, at least for a while, much as she loved her father and hated to upset him.
So she had come. She would be forever grateful to the duchess, who treated her more like a favored granddaughter than a virtual stranger and basically self-invited guest. But oh, she was lonely too. One could be lonely and unhappy while being grateful at the same time, could one not?
And, ah, yes. She was unhappy too.
Her world had been turned completely upside down twice within the past six years, which ought to have meant if life proceeded along logical lines, as it most certainly did not, that the second time it was turned right side up again. She had lost everything any young woman could ever ask for the first time—hopes and dreams, the promise of love and marriage and happily-ever-after, the prospect of security and her own place in society. Hope had revived last year, though in a more muted and modest form. But that had been dashed too, and her very identity had hung in the balance. In the four years between the two disasters, her mother had died. Was it any wonder she was unhappy?
She gave the delicate needlework her full attention again. If she allowed herself to wallow in self-pity, she would be in danger of becoming one of those habitual moaners and complainers everyone avoided.
It was still only very early in May. A largish mass of clouds covered the sun and did not look as if it planned to move off anytime soon, and a brisk breeze was gusting along the east side of the house, directly across the terrace outside the morning room, where Chloe sat sewing. It had not been a sensible idea to come outside, but it had rained quite unrelentingly for the past three days, and she had been desperate to escape the confines of the house and breathe in some fresh air.
She ought to have brought her shawl out with her, even her cloak and gloves, she thought, though then of course she would not have been able to sew, and she had promised to have the cap ready before the duchess awoke from her afternoon sleep. Dratted cap and dratted lace. But that was quite unfair, for she had volunteered to do it even when the duchess had made a mild protest.
“Are you quite sure it will be no trouble, my dear?” she had asked. “Bunker is perfectly competent with a needle.”
Miss Bunker was her personal maid.
“Of course I am,” Chloe had assured her. “It will be my pleasure.”
The duchess always had that effect upon her. For all the obvious sincerity of her welcome and kindness of her manner, Chloe felt the obligation, if not to earn her living, then at least to make herself useful whenever she was able.
She was shivering by the time she had completed her task and cut the thread with fingers that felt stiff from the cold. She held out the cap, draped over her right fist. The stitches were invisible. No one would be able to tell that a repair had been made.
She did not want to go back inside, despite the cold. Th
e duchess would probably be up from her sleep and would be in the drawing room bright with happy anticipation of the expected arrival of her grandson. She would be eager to extol his many virtues yet again though he had not been to Manville since Christmas. Chloe was tired of hearing of his virtues. She doubted he had any.
Not that she had ever met him in person to judge for herself, it was true. But she did know him by reputation. He and her brother, Graham, had been at school together. Ralph Stockwood, who had since assumed his father’s courtesy title of Earl of Berwick, had been a charismatic leader there. He had been liked and admired and emulated by almost all the other boys, even though he had also been one of a close-knit group of four handsome, athletic, clever boys. Graham had spoken critically and disapprovingly of Ralph Stockwood, though Chloe had always suspected that he envied that favored inner circle.
After school, the four friends all took up commissions in the same prestigious cavalry regiment and went off to the Peninsula to fight the forces of Napoleon Bonaparte while Graham went to Oxford to study theology and become a clergyman. He had arrived home from the final term at school upset because Ralph Stockwood had called him a sniveling prig and lily-livered coward. Chloe did not know the context in which the insult had been hurled, but she had not felt kindly disposed toward Graham’s erstwhile schoolmate ever since. And she never had liked the sound of him. She did not like boys, or men, who lorded it arrogantly over others and accepted their homage as a right.
Not many months after they had embarked for the Peninsula, Lieutenant Stockwood’s three friends had been killed in the same battle, and he had been carried off the field and then home to England so severely wounded that he had not been expected to survive.
Chloe had felt sorry for him at the time, but her sympathies had soon been alienated again. Graham, in his capacity as a clergyman, had called upon him in London a day or two after he had been brought home from Portugal. Graham had been admitted to the sickroom, but the wounded man had sworn foully at him and ordered him to get out and never come back.