Hawthorne House, Scotland
The morning had passed slowly, time enough for Maggie to agonize over things she’d said and done. She shouldn't have come to Scotland.
She remained in her room, trapped not by good manners or blindness but by an excess of vulnerability. She didn’t doubt that beyond that door she’d have received gracious treatment. The truth was, she didn't want to be at the mercy of anyone's kindness now. She felt exposed, as if she were accidentally naked on a stage, expecting privacy and receiving an audience, instead.
This morning, after they'd made love, Richard had left without a word.
After she'd eaten her lunch, served on a tray, her feeling of being exposed slowly gave way to irritation, and then blossomed into anger.
How dare Richard assume that she would meekly remain in place, ready and willing to be summoned should he need her again? How dare she remain exactly where he'd left her, an adult woman with the hurt feelings of a child.
All in all, it was not the best timing for Harold to knock on the door and invite her to tea.
Small wonder she and Richard now sat silent in the cozy parlor.
When Richard had envisioned Maggie at Hawthorne House, it had been with her handicap in mind. He'd reasoned out their activities, wondered what would prove a burden to her, what would be interesting. He hadn't bothered to show her the television room but even television would have been preferable to the silence now. He'd counted on being her tour guide but he'd not planned to freeze her on their first jaunt.
He'd thought they would sit and talk, a pastime initially viewed without many hazards. He’d not thought of her being so companionable, an alluring woman with a capacity for humor. Take away memories of their lovemaking, and she was still a formidable, bewitching woman. And he was capable of acting like a besotted idiot.
Her face was pale, devoid of makeup, only a blush on her cheeks giving her color. Her lips were pink and full. Each of her expressions involved that mouth. A twist of them indicated annoyance, or words held back, a bitten lip her confusion or anxiety.
He wished she wasn’t beautiful.
Now she seemed constrained, dressed in a color he'd call copper that brought out the myriad shades in her hair. He wanted to tell her how lovely she looked, but memories of her naked clamped a fist across his throat and kept him silent.
Finally, after long minutes when neither of them spoke, the room growing murky with unvoiced thoughts, he leaned forward, placed his cup on the table and addressed her.
"I'm certain it will grow warmer this afternoon, after the sun comes out from behind the clouds."
"I don't require martyrs to my blindness, Richard. You evidently have better things to do with your time."
Maggie had a soft accent – part Texas, part cosmopolitan – that made Anne's sound like theatrical dialogue. It slid like treacle around in his mind, making him wonder if she enhanced it on purpose to sound more alluring. Now, her voice was hard enough to shatter the porcelain cup he’d put on the tray into a hundred lethal shards.
“I think, perhaps, that I deserve your anger,” he said.
"I’m not angry, Richard, I just don’t wish to overstay my welcome. I have the distinct impression I’ve satisfied my purpose now. But you don't need to worry, I don't make scenes. I'll leave as quietly as I came."
"Am I missing your point?"
He moved to sit beside her, brushing his hands on his knees, acutely conscious that he should leave well enough alone. Perhaps it would be better if she left now, and they never continued this dangerous liaison.
He’d not communicated well with Eleanor and not appreciably better with the other women of his acquaintance. The fact that he had no difficulties talking with his children was due mainly to their unconditional love for him.
This woman, however, made him want to be different. For that reason alone, he should be wary.
"This is all a bit of nonsense, isn't it?"
"The nonsense, Richard, is that I'm here. I made a terrible mistake."
“Coming here? Or last night?"
His wife's face smiled brightly at him from the silver frame on the table. Another farce, another role. He kept it where it was to remind him of his stupidity.
Only once had he been brutally honest and he'd pay for it for the rest of his life. Yet he was tempted now to be as direct, if for no other reason than to rid himself of the uncomfortable guilt he felt.
He could lecture on architectural renovation until people nodded off, often spoke with passion about his model programs for educating Britain's unemployed, bored people silly with his well-vocalized love of Scotland but was afraid to speak words that would reveal too much of himself.
"I'm not good at this, Maggie. I'm not familiar with explaining myself to others."
"I'm not asking you to do so, Richard."
"Aren't you?"
She would leave unless he explained, and if he told her the truth about who he was, she'd leave anyway.
"I'm not terribly good at mornings after, Maggie."
"Neither am I," she admitted. If he hadn't been sitting so close, he would not have heard those whispered words.
This morning, when he'd watched her sleep and wondered at what made her seem so real and so unaffected, Richard realized that he was like a child who tore apart a delicate clock to see how it was made, only to ensure that it never worked again.
He’d done that with Maggie.
"My wife used to say that I was a voluble creature except when I felt at a loss. Then, she said, I wouldn't speak a word for fear of it damaging my image."
"Do you feel at a loss?"
How calmly she asked him to bare his soul. Had he not done enough? But then, she couldn't know.
"Perhaps."
He stood and walked to the window, felt the chill seeping beneath the sill. Three-hundred-year-old houses tend to be uncomfortable places in winter.
"Someone once said that it was better to remain silent than to open your mouth and remove all doubt of being an idiot. I'm sure I've paraphrased that but you'll get my meaning." His hand gripped the embroidered red curtain.
"Don't bother offering excuses, Richard, I don't need any. Last night was a mistake."
He was amazed at the degree of pain she could inflict with a few words.
"Women tend to say what they think, don't they?"
"No," she said, her voice holding an emotion he couldn’t read. "Women tend to say what they feel. Men are more comfortable with logic."
"And you, Maggie, are you more comfortable with emotion?"
She didn't move, didn't squirm but he had the distinct impression that the question made her uncomfortable.
"Right now," she said, "I really don't want to tell you how I feel."
"Fair enough. Last night didn't feel like a mistake, Maggie, are you so certain it was one?"
She didn't answer.
He faced the window again, forcing himself to speak the truth. How long had he simply ignored problems, thinking they'd go away? Avoidance hadn't worked with Eleanor; he doubted it would work with Maggie.
"I was putting you in your place," he said. "I thought that if I worked all morning, it would limit your effect on me, as well as send you a message."
"Message received, loud and clear."
He glanced at her. She sat stiffly, face forward, a pose of restrained anger.
"It didn't work," he softly said.
She turned her head toward him.
"You've been in my thoughts all morning, Maggie. I couldn't escape you. No matter how I tried."
She frowned down at her hands.
"It was a mistake, coming here," she said, making a small movement as if to rise.
He went to her, put his hand on her knee, on the soft copper colored floor length skirt she was twisting with one hand. He was only too conscious of the push/pull nature of their relationship. She gave, he took. He demanded, she surrendered.
He was profoundly afraid that it was a mistake for her to come to Scotland, but not in the way she assumed. He wanted Maggie smiling, her eyes glittering, not with sadness, but with amusement. He wanted the husky sound of her laughter. He wanted to know her, the way he'd not known any other woman.
At the end of their time, he would send her away, and go about his life again. How did he confess his duplicity to her? He didn’t know. Perhaps, it would be wiser to simply remain silent.
"Don't leave, Maggie."
She sighed.
“I will have to work for an hour or two every morning, I’m afraid,” he said. “But no more than that. Forgive me." He reached over and kissed her cheek.
"I think," she said, in that low, husky voice of hers, "that we'll hurt each other, Richard."
She was probably right, but the fact that she knew it surprised him.
"Forgive me, Maggie." He raised her hand, dusted a kiss along the back of it, placed her palm against his lips, and tasting her as if she were a rare confection to be savored before eaten.
"Forgive me," he said, smiling against her fingers.
She moved her hand, fingers testing the shape of his face, his cheek, his lips. It was as if she wished to measure him against a man in her imagination. He kissed her fingers when they darted too close to his mouth, saw her delicate, shimmering smile.
"Richard, there's something I need to tell you."
She leaned toward him, pressing both hands on either side of his face, then kissed him softly, gently, so tenderly that it touched him.
"Can it wait?" he asked. "I think we've talked enough."
He swept her up, lay her gently on the Aubusson carpet before the fire. The afternoon sun might have been a deterrent to another woman, but in the endless night of Maggie's darkness, the brightness made no difference.
He knelt by her side, touched her face with the most delicate of exploring fingers, opened the buttons on her blouse one by one.
The freedom to feel was a gift she unknowingly gave him.
This woman, with her blind eyes, had the capacity to make him see into himself. She challenged, with her brashness and her candor, all the facades behind which he hid. Although she knew little of his true role in life, she’d unerringly peered behind the curtain he held up for everyone to see.
He wouldn’t be surprised if she discovered all his secrets.
He kissed the skin he'd bared, desire riding him hard again.
She wore a soft bronze silk and lace bra he found incredibly arousing. She was so responsive that his breath puckered her nipples into points, begging to be suckled. He kissed them through the silk.
Her hair was spread over the rug in riotous disarray, and he thrust his fingers through it. His hands then went to her throat, bracketed it, thumbs resting in the hollow there, measuring her collarbone, cupping her shoulders. He kissed her where her throat curved into her neck.
Slowly, he removed her clothes, rewarding her with a kiss with each piece. He marveled at her lack of artifice, at her delight in her body, and her beauty.
Until this day, kneeling on the floor of his library, with the afternoon sun pouring over them, Richard realized he hadn't truly understood passion at all.
He was harder than he'd ever been, the thought of steel running through his mind briefly and humorously. He stood and went to the door, locked it securely, wondering if he should tell her that it was the first time he'd ever done something so precipitous as to make love in this room.
He drew the curtains closed, blocking out the sun, and encapsulating them in shadows. With hands that trembled, he divested himself of his clothing, neatly placing it on a chair where he'd tossed Maggie's. He lowered himself to the floor again, a last rational thought urging him to consider his actions. Yet he felt like a child, with a child's rapacious appetite for everything delicious.
Cautions wouldn’t have stopped him.
Surprisingly, Maggie was all that mattered.