"Do you want to see Dr Rothguard, Alessandra?" her mother asked her, causing a slight startle inside of her.
"Should I, Mother? Do I need to?"
"It cannot hurt to have a check-up with him, and then you can ask him any questions you might have," her mother replied and was silent for a moment before continuing. "You do not have to, Alessandra, but I am happy to arrange for you to see him if you wish."
Alessandra thought about the possibility. She had grown up with Dr Rothguard as the family physician but the thought of talking to him about bringing a child into the world seemed very odd to her. However, perhaps she could learn new things that she needed to know, so nodded at her mother and smiled.
"Thank you, Mother. Yes I think that would be good for me."
* * * * *
Later in the day she made her way into the village with Edward beside her, to show him around what little attractions there were in her home town.
Edward looked around him in amazement that such little townships existed, and he could now fully understand how it had come to be that his wife had never learned to ride. Wherever he looked, everyone seemed to be walking, and there was not a horse to be seen.
Alessandra watched his face and on this occasion it was her who found great amusement in her spouse's face. When she had originally thought about bringing him to her home she had worried and been embarrassed, but now she was glad that he was here with her, realising that he also had lived a confined life before now, having been kept largely on the estate as his parents prepared him to one day be master of it. His face said that he too was now living a new adventure, just as she had when she went to his home.
After walking around for as far as they could go before the edges of the village were reached, they returned to Alessandra's family home and found her mother talking to the family physician, the speed of his arrival immediately flustering Alessandra.
Edward was introduced to Dr Rothguard and then Alessandra was swept away to her childhood room along with her mother and the physician, where she spent some time with both of them and then further time alone with the doctor.
"All seems well with you, Alessandra, and I expect you will indeed find yourself as a mother in months ahead. Do you have anything that you wish to ask me?"
She looked at this man before her and wondered how much he knew about pregnancy, but faced up to her discomfort and thought there could be no harm in asking what she wanted to know.
"Will the baby be hurt if…" she started to ask and then blushed so heavily that the physician smiled at her softly in anticipation of the question he had found almost every mother to be asked.
"If you continue your marital relations with your husband?"
At that point Alessandra could feel the heat of her face, but she nodded, determined to continue.
"Yes."
"That is something that is often debated, but I can tell you that I have had patients who have continued intimacy right up till close to the birth, and others have decided to stop immediately when it was confirmed the wife was with child. I myself do not believe any harm can come to the child, at least not for many months yet. And when you get close to the time to give birth, you may find a level of discomfort that will naturally prevent you from wanting it. It really is something you need to decide with your husband, but for at least several months yet, you will be fine," he said as he was packing away his few medical instruments. "Is there anything else you would like to ask, Alessandra?"
"What can I no longer do?"
"Just look after yourself and the baby will be fine. Your mother mentioned that you ride a horse at your home," he started to say and she nodded. "That is fine, but be careful not to fall. That is what seems to be a common contribution to babies being lost, I am afraid. Is there anything else?"
She shook her head, having had the most pressing questions answered.
"No. Thank you for seeing me, Dr Rothguard."
"You will need to ask Edward's parents about their family physician, and if they will be able to locate a midwife for you. That is not urgent - when you are in your fifth month will be sufficient, but a midwife will help you with the birthing process."
Alessandra thanked him and walked him downstairs again, where he made conversation with her parents before saying his farewell and leaving.
Edward stood up and went to his wife immediately.
"Is all well?"
She nodded at him and smiled softly.
"Yes, I just need to find a physician and a midwife when we return to your parents' home. But he said everything was fine."
She then thought about the doctor's confirmation that she could continue being intimate with Edward, and he saw her look of desire come over her face, which immediately affected him so the two of them stood close while Alessandra contained a small, quiet giggle, and the two of them faced one another in a light embrace until he had relaxed, smiling bashfully.
"You can't look at me like that when we are in company, Alessandra!" he said, teasing her with a mock voice of sternness and making her giggle harder.
Just then her parents returned and they all sat down to begin normal conversation and see the rest of the day out.
* * * * *
In bed that night they enjoyed each other with humour, finding a different level of enjoyment without the passion they had indulged in so regularly since their wedding night.
"Curse this house being so small, with paper thin walls," Alessandra teased him openly. "I do much prefer your house, with nice thick walls that contain the wonderful noises you make when we are alone and naked," she said openly, not at all shy now in saying such things to him.
He laughed quietly at her.
"Oh, the noises I make!"
She looked at him and realised how much she loved the openness they had about their lovemaking. He had never said as much, but she had always assumed since their wedding night that it was all as new for him then as it had been for her, and she considered that if he had already been experienced, there was a great chance that they would never have been able to be like this with one another, as he would not have been as curious as she was, and it was this curiosity, she knew, that had brought them so close together.
When they quietened, she let her mind wander to other things that had to be considered.
"When should we travel back, Edward?"
"I do not mind, my love. When would you like to leave?"
"I think I am almost ready to go home," she said, making Edward feel warm inside at the realisation that she did now consider his home hers also. "Perhaps day after tomorrow?"
"I will send notice to Father tomorrow morning and let him know."
Chapter Twenty Nine
The following day Edward received confirmation of travel arrangements for the day after, and he and Alessandra spent some time walking around her little township once again.
After seeing her peer inside the window of a store on the main street, he made a note of what had caught her attention, and when she was preoccupied elsewhere he excused himself and ran back to purchase it and arrange for it to be sent to the estate as a surprise for her.
As he stood inside the shop, arranging things with the shop owner, he looked out the window again and saw Alessandra be approached by someone. His first instinct was to run out of the shop and instantly be at her side, but then something held him back and he decided he would rather stay where he was and simply watch the interaction from afar.
* * * * *
Outside and across the road, Alessandra was peering inside the window of another shop and jumped in alarm when a voice behind her called out to her.
"Alessandra?" the voice said, and she was instantly reminded of another time, before she had heard of Edward and his family. She turned to see Tom standing nearby, looking intently at her. "It is you!"
She curtseyed to him and felt her heart become heavy. She realised now, of course, that he had never been in love with her - that idea had been a childish assumptio
n and wish on her part - but she could not deny the level of outwardly handsomeness that he held, even now.
"Tom," she seemed to breathe out his name. "It is good to see you."
He came closer, making her think that he might put his arms out to her and around her, but then seemed to remember himself and stood back. But he was looking at her in a way even more intent than he had on the occasions when they had danced.
She looked him in the eye and he was taken aback by the level of confidence she now seemed to have. He had thought her endearing before but now she seemed to be exuding a different kind of self-awareness.
"You look beautiful," he said, almost as if he was thinking those words but had not meant to say them.
They looked at one another, for a moment both forgetting their spouses.
* * * * *
Edward watched his wife stand before the man in front of her. He could see the man's face clearly and knew he was what any woman would call very handsome, and this momentarily played on Edward's confidence, knowing that he was the complete opposite.
He looked at the face of the man, and then the face of his wife, and although she had never mentioned any previous loves, he suspected from looking at them that they must have had some acquaintance previously, and some fondness for one another.
* * * * *
"I have not seen you since…" Tom started to say as he began to recover from his surprise.
"Since you married," Alessandra replied for him, and saw a slight blush appear on his face.
He seemed to become tongue-tied then, before finding the words to be able to speak. As he stood in front of her he was reminded of their time together. They had only danced together on occasion and nothing had moved forward from that because he knew he was not allowed to give his heart to anyone other than the person his parents had chosen to be his wife, from a very young age.
"I could not love you, Alessandra. I had been betrothed by my parents since I was born," he said as he moved closer to her, now within intimate speaking distance. "Please don't think that I did not wish things could have been different for us."
Alessandra looked into his eyes and expected to see deceit but all she saw was what appeared to be sincerity, so she relaxed.
"Tom, I am pleased that you are happy in marriage…" she started to say, to relax things between them but he cut off her sentence.
"But I am not," he said, startling her in her thoughts and words.
Tom looked at her and knew it was true, and realised this might be the only moment he would ever have to speak to her alone.
"I'm not happy in my marriage. I do not love her, and too often I have thought about you," he said, speaking only the truth that he knew in that moment.
* * * * *
From across the road Edward watched the interaction continue. It was only a few minutes but everything seemed to be moving in slow motion. He saw the man move closer to Alessandra, and yet still he could not bring himself to move from his spot and return to his wife, eager to see what would happen between them, if anything. He had no reason to doubt her feelings for him, and yet, looking at her standing and talking to a man with such a level of attractiveness was playing on his confidence greatly.
Behind him the shop owner approached.
"Your parcel shall be delivered in three days, Sir," he said and Edward thanked him before resuming his view across the road, bringing his stare to the awareness of the shop owner.
"Ahh, young Miss Alessandra has captured your eye, I see. She was always a polite young lass who everyone respects - she and her family are loyal friends in this part of the land."
Edward heard him and took the opportunity to learn something new about his wife.
"But who is the man she is talking to?" he asked bluntly.
"Oh, that is young Tom Missinger. It looked for a time to many of us that they would marry but he up and went off to marry another young lady and this is the first time I have seen him back." After a moment of silence the shop owner continued his conversation. "Do you know the young miss?"
"Alessandra and I are married," he said quietly and the shop owner looked overjoyed.
"Oh, Sir, I apologise. I did not realise. Congratulations," the owner replied, holding out his hand to shake Edward's.
"Thank you," Edward replied as he shook the hand of the man in front of him, and then turned back to resume his view, and the shop owner turned away respectfully and moved on with his day as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened at all.
* * * * *
"You cannot say such things to me, Tom," Alessandra said to him quietly.
"And why not? I have said I do not love my wife, so why should you not know how I still feel about you?"
He knew he was being disrespectful to his wife but was not at all prepared for the look she gave him then, a look that pierced him completely.
"But I am married, Tom, and I do love my husband. He is the greatest man I have ever met and we are very happy together," she said and she saw Tom take a step back from her with a look of surprise and realisation on his face.
That is why she looks so confident, he thought to himself. She is not like my wife, hating everything of our intimate time and cringing when I touch her. She has learned how to share intimacy and enjoy it the way it is meant to be enjoyed. The thought passing through his head resulted in his heart feeling heavy, and then denial setting in that made him blunder on without thinking about what he was saying, or how he was sounding as he said it.
"But I know that you loved me, Alessandra. I do not believe that you could have moved on to love someone else…"
"Tom, listen to me," she said, moving closer to him. "I am in love with my husband. Did I think that I loved you then? Yes, I did, and if you had asked me to marry you I would have accepted you. But you did not ask me and now we are both married to other people. And that is that."
He looked at her in surprise at the level of assurance in herself that was flowing from her, and he was speechless.
* * * * *
Across the road, Edward told himself that enough was enough, and for Alessandra's sake he should be standing next to her as her husband.
He walked out of the store and reluctantly started to cross the road. Out of the corner of her eye, Alessandra saw him and gave him a smile and held out her hand for him, giving him the confidence to walk forward and come right up to her.
Once he reached the two of them he let her take his hand in hers and she spoke up as Edward could feel the eyes of the other man upon him.
"Edward, please let me introduce to you an old friend of mine, Tom. Tom, this is my husband, Edward."
The two men shook hands, neither of then actually wanting to but both falling under her spell of making happen what she wanted to happen. Then she turned completely away from Tom and toward Edward.
"Are you ready to return to my parents' house?" she asked, looking at him directly in a way that reassured him, and he nodded in return.
She looked back at Tom one more time.
"Take good care of yourself, Tom," she said and led Edward away, holding his hand firmly and not wanting to let it go.
Tom watched the two of them move away, aware of the way she had looked into her husband's eyes, and how she was holding his hand and looking up at him now. Even from this angle behind them, he could see the way they looked at each other, and inside of him, Tom regretted deeply that he had not stood up to his parents and told them how much Alessandra had meant to him.
* * * * *
The rest of the afternoon and evening was spent with Alessandra's parents, talking about arrangements to be made later for them to come to Edward's parents' home to stay when the baby was almost due.
"Are you sure your mother will not mind, Edward? We would not want to cause any imposition," Alessandra's mother was saying, although everyone in the room knew that she wanted more than anything the opportunity to be close to her daughter when her time would come to lie in.
Edward
laughed at her fondly.
"It will not be any imposition. We have enough room for you to come and stay with us for as long as you wish to," he said and paused, looking at his wife. "And I know Alessandra would like you there too."
* * * * *
Later, lying in bed, finally Alessandra spoke about earlier that day, sensing that Edward would want to question but would put his appreciation for privacy ahead of his own curiosity, even if it meant he would get twisted inside.
"Tom and I had been close for a while long before I had heard of you, Edward. I did think for a time that I was in love with him, and that he might ask me to marry him," she said and she could see relief on her husband's face as the subject was opened up.
"And what happened?"
"He married someone else. At the time I felt very let down … and stupid for having read his intentions so wrongly," she said, her memory of that time showing on her face.
"But if he had not married someone else, and he had asked you to marry him?"
She looked at him, not wanting to be anything except completely honest.
"Then I would have married him," she said and his face revealed the hurt of that. "But then I would never have met you, and I don't believe that you and I were not intended to meet and be together, Edward. I know that you are who I am meant to be with, and the only man I want to be with."
He lay quietly, not speaking, and she let him until he was ready to speak.
"I watched the two of you from across the road," he said, looking ashamed in the process.
"As I am sure I would have, had it been you talking to a woman," she said, making him look up at her in surprise.
"Would you?"
"Yes. I think anyone would take notice of their loved one talking intimately with someone as I was with Tom today," she replied honestly, and put her hand up to his face before kissing him softly. "Do not think about him again. He is from my past. You, and the dozens of children we are going to have, are my present and my future."
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