Longing (39 page)

Siân held him, though his weight was heavy on her, knowing that he slept. She had one frightening glimpse ahead to the great cold wall of impossibility, but she closed her eyes and breathed in deeply, drawing in the scent of soap and sweat from his shoulder—into her nostrils and into her mind. It was still only evening. There was still the night.

Their good-byes were not all said yet. There was time.

She was deeply asleep. Her head was on his shoulder, her face turned in against his neck so that he could feel her breath warm against it. He could feel her breasts against his chest, her arm about his waist, her abdomen and her thighs against his. When he had woken earlier, feeling guilty that he had allowed himself to use her soft body as a mattress, and had disengaged himself from her and moved off her, they had turned instinctively in to each other, touching at every part, as if only so could they sleep with the assurance that what had happened between them had been real.

They had become one. For one incredible moment—or one incredible eternity—he had been unaware of his own identity and had forgotten hers. For one moment he had been them and she had been them and they had been one. Not the plural them, but some singular form that was neither he nor she nor it. They had been one.

And so they had clung to each other wordlessly as they had both sunk into a sleep of exhaustion.

He had felt as if he could sleep the clock around without stirring even once. But he had come to the surface of sleep again. How could he not when he was holding such an armful? He smiled and rubbed his cheek against the top of her head.

He felt utterly happy. He tested the thought in his mind. Happiness was elusive and transitory, he knew from past experience. But it was definitely true—he felt it now. He held it now in his arms. He would do so forever. He tightened his hold on her so that she muttered sleepily against his neck. He was not naive enough to imagine that he could feel with her this level of intense happiness for the rest of a lifetime, but he did know something equally satisfying or even more so.

She was his happiness. All the happiness he would know in his life—whatever portion was allotted him—would center about her. Siân.

He had been so close to letting her go. Even now if he allowed his mind to start thinking with cold rationality he was not sure that
there was a truly workable way of keeping her. But he would not allow such thoughts. Not now. Not yet.

He set a hand beneath her chin, lifted her face, and kissed her mouth with soft, feathering kisses.

“Mm,” she said sleepily, and her lips pouted softly against his own.

He was being very unfair. She must be exhausted after all she had been through in the last couple of days. And after the vigorous lovemaking they had shared before falling asleep.

He turned her onto her back, moving with her, spread her legs with his own, and pushed inside her. She was warm and wet and relaxed. He held still in her, savoring the feel of woman about his masculinity. The feel of Siân.

“Mm,” she said again, and he could feel her slide her feet up the bed so that he could nestle more comfortably inside her.

He could tell that she was still not fully awake. He found the knowledge arousing. He enjoyed her participation. He could equally enjoy her passivity, provided it was the passivity of acquiescence. He would not question that now with Siân.

“Relax,” he murmured into her ear. “Lie still and let me love you.”

He loved her over many minutes with slow, firm strokes, only very gradually increasing in pace. He knew that a woman did not become easily aroused from intercourse alone, unlike men, for whom it was everything. And so he gave her time, and himself too. Time to enjoy the heat and softness of the inside of her body about his erect manhood, time to enjoy the treacherous male delight in possession and mastery, his woman's body spread and mounted beneath his own. But a possession and a mastery to be used for her delight.

He felt her muscles gradually clench involuntarily as he continued to pump rhythmically into her, and her breathing quicken and her inner heat intensify. He took her hands in his, lifted them above her head, crossing them at the wrists, and laced his fingers with hers. She gripped his hands tightly as he changed rhythm, coaxing her to
come with him again to climax. She sighed and relaxed beneath him as his seed sprang.

“Mm,” she said when he was at her side again, his arm beneath her head. “I just had a wonderful dream.”

“Did you?” He kissed her. “Tell me about it.”

“You made love to me,” she said.

“Say no more.” He rubbed his nose against hers. “I had the same dream. I'm sorry I woke you up, Siân. Blame it on this shocking habit you have of sleeping naked.”

“And the fact that you did not bring a sword with you,” she said. “Alexander? You meant what you said to Grandad and the others? You are going to go ahead with the improvements at Cwmbran? You are not going to punish them by going back to England?”

“I suppose I might have at that,” he said. “But how could I punish myself?”

“You love Wales, don't you?” she said, some wonder in her voice.

“I don't know much of Wales,” he said. “I love Cwmbran. And its people. And one of its citizens in particular.”

She set the tips of her fingers over his lips. “Hush,” she said. “If you mean me, I am not going to be one of its citizens for much longer. I am going to have my father send me away before Christmas. As soon as possible. I am eager to start my new life. No.” Her fingers pressed harder as he started to speak. “Not tonight, Alexander. Let us give each other tonight—just as if tomorrow does not exist.”

He was going to say anyway what he had been about to say. But he stopped himself. There were all sorts of things to consider—her lifelong happiness, his obligations to his line and his title, his relatives, Verity. It was not something to be blurted out during a night of passion. He had thought of it before and rejected it. Perhaps he would do so again once the night of passion was over.

He kissed her lingeringly.

“Iestyn,” he said. “He is not happy as a miner, Siân?”

“You would never wring a word of complaint from him,” she said, “or find him working one whit less hard than any other man. But when he was a younger boy, before reality intruded and set up a
wall behind which he has barricaded himself, he used to tell me his dreams. Books and school and preaching and a chapel of his own and people to minister to.”

“Was it just a boy's dream, do you think?” he asked. “One not based at all on reality? Could it have been reality if he had had the chance?”

“I used to think perhaps not,” she said. “I used to think that perhaps he was too sweet and gentle to control a congregation and to guide the moral and spiritual life of a community. But recently I have been forced to admit that there is a streak of iron in Iestyn. Nothing to spoil the sweetness and gentleness, but enough to make me realize that there is no weakness in him. None at all. In his own way I think he is stronger than someone like—well, Owen.”

“He smiled and listened to your nonsense while I was putting him through the agonies of hell setting his arm,” he said. “I think he was trying to make you feel better, Siân.”

“Yes,” she said. “I noticed.
Was
it nonsense? I did not know what I was saying.”

“Utter nonsense,” he said. “The sort of thing I used to drool at Verity before her first birthday. I could tell from the tone of your voice, though you spoke Welsh. If I take him from the mine and make him my secretary for a while so that both he and I can explore some future options for him at our leisure, would I incite a riot in Cwmbran? I never know with your people, Siân. They are quite unpredictable.”

Even in the darkness he could see the wideness of her eyes as she jerked her head back and looked up at him. “You would do that?” she said. “For Iestyn? Oh, Alexander.”

“That does not answer my question,” he said.

“It does not matter how anyone else reacts,” she said. “It does not matter how I am reacting. Ask him, Alexander. Oh, please, ask him. Oh, I love you.”

He smiled slowly. “Do you, Siân?”

She stared at him for a long time and then nodded.

“And I love you,” he said. “You must be quite, quite exhausted.”

She lay quietly looking at him.

“We must sleep,” he said.

“Yes.”

“Of course,” he said, “it does seem rather a waste to make no use of a time when we are both awake, doesn't it?”

“I hate waste,” she said.

“How shall we use the time?” He grinned at her.

“Kiss me,” she said. “Perhaps one of us will have thought of something by the time you have finished.”

He kissed her.

He had never joked with a woman before. Not, anyway, as a prelude to sex. It added a quite delightful dimension to the experience, he was finding. They were both mad. They were both desperate for sleep.

“We are mad,” he said, lifting his head.

“What do mad people do not to waste time in the middle of the night when they should be sleeping?” she asked.

“A tough one,” he said. “I am mad and cannot be expected to know the answer. Perhaps this, though.” He slid one arm beneath her and lifted her over to lie on top of him. “Shall I show you what I mean?”

“Yes, please,” she said.

Another half hour passed before they settled for sleep once more, having agreed that perhaps that was what mad people did and if so, then sane people had a great deal to learn from them.

A
NGHARAD
was to receive a pension as the widow of a man who had died in the mine. It was as well, she thought, alone in her father's house. She was left with only one house to clean and she was afraid to go to the Reverend Llewellyn's house. She was afraid he would know. If he did, he would give her a dreadful lecture. Perhaps worse. Perhaps he would have her publicly driven from chapel.

It did not seem to matter. Nothing much seemed to matter anymore.

Owen Parry was dead.

Emrys Rhys had returned safely.

It did not matter. It did not concern her.

She had gone to Josiah Barnes's house on Monday morning, her regular day there. He had been at home, the works being closed down with all the men gone.

And he knew. The Marquess of Craille had gone to Hywel Rhys's house when Gwilym Jenkins was there, and Gwilym had gone back to Mr. Barnes's and he had put two and two together.

He knew.

At first Angharad had felt only the shame and humiliation of being treated like a child when she was twenty-eight years old. Although even when she was a child her father had never put her over his knee. Mr. Barnes did, and lifted her skirt so that only a thin shift was between her flesh and his hand.

But humiliation had given place to pain and finally to an agony
that enclosed her world and had her sobbing hysterically. She would have sworn afterward that he beat her for all of five minutes. And he had a very hard hand.

Somehow, because she was not ashamed of what she had done but because she knew that in other ways she had deserved the beating and more, she managed to control her sobs and lift her chin when he set her back on her feet. She managed to look him in the eye.

It was a mistake.

He slapped both sides of her face several times, and when that did not seem to satisfy him, he used his fists.

“Go on,” he said finally, when Angharad was not even quite sure she was on her feet, “get out of here before I kill you. You are not worth swinging for. Welsh scum!”

Angharad went home and stayed there.

*   *   *

Siân
wrote a note to her father the morning after her return from Newport—and after an uninterrupted twelve hours of sleep. But he arrived in person on her grandfather's doorstep almost before the ink had dried on the letter. He caught her up in a bear hug as soon as she answered the door, despite the fact that they were in full view of her grandmother.

He took off his hat and inclined his head to Gwynneth, but she gave him only a curt “Good morning” before passing him and leaving the house. She was going to help a neighbor who had just given birth.

Siân smiled apologetically at her father. She wrapped her arms about his neck and rested her cheek against his shoulder as he hugged her again. The novelty of having a father could still make her turn weak inside even if Gran was of the firm opinion that he had done enough wrong in the past that he did not deserve to be forgiven now. She relaxed against him as if he could remove all the burdens of the world from her shoulders.

“You are back and safe,” he said when he finally loosened his hold on her. He gave her a smacking kiss on the lips. “Craille sent word last night as he did when you first disappeared. I thought I
would go out of my mind, Siân. As if there was not enough weighing on it with all my men closing down the works and taking themselves off to Newport. Ten of them have not returned. I know for certain that six of those have been arrested. There is no word on the other four. And then you going off in pursuit—it was the last straw.”

“I am sorry,” she said stiffly, pulling away from him. “You need not have worried about me. I am not your responsibility.”

He clucked his tongue. “That is my cue to say that is just fine with me,” he said. “No, we are not going to fall into that trap again. I was out of my mind because I love you, my little one.”

She came closer again and patted the lapels of his heavy winter coat with both hands. “I know, Dada,” she said. She smiled at him. “It is a good thing we are father and daughter and not husband and wife. We would be forever at each other's throats.”

“You took no harm?” he asked. “Craille brought you home?”

“I am all right.” She patted his lapels again and turned to the fire to make a pot of tea. “Take your coat off and stay a while. Dada, can I go before Christmas? Can you arrange it? I want to go soon. Or sooner.”

He took off his coat and tossed it over the back of a chair before coming to warm his hands at the fire and sit down. “He will offer only what I offered your mother?” he asked.

She set down the heavy kettle and arranged the cozy over the teapot. “He said nothing yesterday,” he said. “He offered nothing. But you know I could not accept. I believe Mam was happy. I could not be. Can you arrange something?”

“I'll write,” he said. “They will probably be quite delighted that you are eager enough to want to go early—especially if I pay your salary until the end of the year. Close your mouth again, Siân. You must not argue. I am your father.”

“Yes,” she said. “Thank you. How soon do you think it will be before they reply?”

“Come to the cottage while we wait, Siân,” he said. “Let me take you there today. Pack your things and come with me now. You can be comfortable there until I have a reply. And I will be able to call
on you every day. We have much to catch up on, my little one, and soon you will be gone.”

It was tempting. Siân poured the tea in silence. To be back in the familiar setting of her childhood. To take one step forward into her future. To take that decisive step away from him. Why had Alexander not offered yesterday even what she could not possibly accept? They had walked in near silence for hours, hand in hand. And then he had collected his horse and they had ridden the rest of the way home—it was the first time she had been on horseback. They had exchanged hardly a word. Not that words had seemed necessary. Sometimes words did not. And then he had delivered her to Grandad's and left her there amid the flurry of welcomes without a private word or look.

She had said no before, of course. He knew the impossibility as well as she. He knew as well as she that their night together had been good-bye. But, oh, she had wanted to fight the impossibility. She had wanted him to fight it. She had expected him to ask again. She had been steeling herself to say no again and had not been at all sure that she would be able to.

But he had accepted good-bye for what it was.

As she must.

He had been stronger than she.

She should pack her things as soon as their tea was drunk. She should go without giving herself a chance for second thoughts.

“Siân?” her father said.

“Give me a week,” she said. “There are people I must say good-bye to, loose ends I must tie up. If you have not heard within a week, will you come anyway, Dada, and take me to the cottage?”

He nodded and picked up his cup. “You are doing the right thing,” he said, “although I know your heart is sore. You are a strong woman, Siân, and will make a new life for yourself. You would not be happy with the life he could offer. He could probably give you little ones and you would certainly never want for anything, but it would hurt you when both you and your children were rejected by the chapel and your people. And it would hurt you when he marries
again and has children on his wife. Your mother was deeply hurt when she knew Tess was on the way.”

“Yes,” Siân said.

“Siân”—he set his cup down in its saucer on the table—“forgive me. I was married already when I met Marged the year the
eisteddfod
was in Penybont. She was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen and so I took her, wronging both her and my wife. And you. And yet, to be honest with you, I am not sure I would have married her even if I had been free. It is not done, you know, and I was never a man with the courage to break new ground. But I always loved her—and you.”

“Morality is not a simple thing,” she said, “though it should be. It sounds simple enough when one listens to sermons and reads good books. But it is not. Love and morality are not always in agreement, and sometimes love is stronger. Perhaps it should not be, but it is. How can I not forgive you? I have loved Alexander. And besides I would not be here if you had not given in to your love for Mam, would I?” She smiled.

He left soon after, having hugged her tightly again and assured her once more that she was doing the right thing. He would be back next week, he told her, unless he had a favorable reply to his letter before then.

She was not a strong person, Siân thought, sitting down beside the fire again and gazing into its dancing flames. If she were strong, she would have taken the opportunity of the cottage and gone with her father now, today. It was what she had longed for since waking up from her lengthy sleep and discovering that there was only intense pain to wake up to. It was why she had written to him. She had been desperate to get away, to put the memories behind her and the terrible danger of seeing Alexander again and bringing on more pain.

But when it had come to the point, she had not had the courage to go. She had made an excuse to stay for one more week.

It was absurd to feel that one could not go on living when there was no physical illness. She knew it was absurd. Her head told her
so. She knew that the pain would recede and that life would reassert itself. She knew that at the age of twenty-five she might still hope that life had a great deal of richness and happiness in store. But it was the heart that was ruling today.

And her heart was breaking. Her heart felt as if it could not go on beating.

Although a day and a night and part of another day had passed since their good-bye, she still felt that distinctive soreness that was not really soreness inside where he had loved her four separate times. And her breasts were still tender to the touch. She set a hand flat over her abdomen. And she still yearned to discover that she had been fruitful for him. She wanted his child to be in her womb.

Oh, yes, it was definitely the heart that was ruling today.

And yet not a word to suggest that perhaps good-bye had not been quite good-bye after all. Just the almost silent journey home—two people yearning to be one as they had been one through the night, both sleeping and waking, but now very decisively two. Two separate entities. Two different worlds.

And then the terrible anticlimax of his slipping away while Gran was sobbing over her.

Emptiness was a terrifying thing, Siân thought. It sounded harmless—emptiness, nothingness. But emptiness was not a nothingness. It was a something. It was a heavy, all-encompassing, smothering load of despair.

She felt quite, quite empty.

*   *   *

There
was much to do. There were his men to get back to work and a meeting to arrange—at the chapel again. There were arrangements to be made to bring home the body of Owen Parry. There was Iestyn Jones to talk to—the boy stood in his study, looking him steadily in the eye, and accepted the job Alex offered, promising to give it every effort of which he was capable though he had no experience of such work. The fact that his right arm was in a sling would not hinder him from beginning immediately, he explained—he was left-handed.

If the boy showed dedication and aptitude and character—all of which Alex fully expected—then next autumn Alex would send him to university or whatever type of college trained nonconformist ministers. The Reverend Llewellyn would be able to supply the necessary information.

And there were other, less pleasant matters to handle. It was not necessary to keep the mind dead, Alex found, just to keep it crowded with other matters. It would be best if he continued to do so for another two months. Then she would be gone to her new teaching post in Carmarthenshire. It would be best to let her go without another word. It would be unfair to offer what she might in a moment of weakness accept and make her unhappy for the rest of her life. She would not be happy having a function only in his bed. Neither would he.

Siân was a woman for his life, not just for his bed.

And yet he shied away from the implications of the thought. It would not be right either for her or for himself. He could not make it right just by wishing it were. But by God, he wished it. If he did not keep his mind and his days occupied with other thoughts and actions, he would go mad with the wishing.

And he might end up letting his heart rule his head. No good could come of that. Could it? But he would not let doubts intrude.

There were those less pleasant matters. He summoned Gwilym Jenkins to the castle. He suspected that just the fact of having to come there would put the fear of God into the man. He had Jenkins shown into his study and deliberately kept him waiting there a full ten minutes.

But he did not dismiss the man from his job or impose any punishment other than the visit itself and a severe tongue-lashing. Jenkins was the one who had put about the rumors that had resulted in Siân's whipping, and he was the one who had sent her off in pursuit of the marchers to Newport and into a danger that might well have proved a great deal worse for her than had been the case.