Annie leaned heavily on the table and bent her head. She wouldn’t cry. She screwed up her eyes to keep back the tears. She wouldn’t cry, for hadn’t she just won a victory? She had seen him, her adversary, crumple in front of her. His strong manly features falling apart at her words, so that he looked like a shamefaced boy.
I’m even with him, she thought. I’m even for all the hurtful things he’s said to me. But why, she wondered? Why do we fight? He’s the only man that I’ve ever dared to antagonize. God knows I never dared with anyone else, I was always too afeard of getting a beating, that’s why I always kept my lips firmly shut.
But he wouldn’t have hurt me, I should have known that. Why did he come? What was it he wanted? She went to the door and opened it wider. He was halfway down the meadow and had stopped close to Sorrel. She saw him stroke the horse’s nose, and then, she drew in a breath, he laid his head against the horse’s neck and put his arms around it.
I’ve hurt him I think. I didn’t mean to. He makes me feel so strange. I have feelings about him that I’m not familiar with, that I don’t quite understand. But I didn’t want to hurt him, and I have.
She saw him stand back from Sorrel and then he gave him a last pat on his flank and started to move away. If I let him go now, I’ll never see him again. We won’t want to face each other after this. If only he hadn’t said what he did about Toby. I didn’t want him to think that about us. Perhaps if I’d explained myself better. Should I call him back and tell him? I don’t want him to go; not like this. I don’t want him to go.
A deep agitation stirred within her, she put her finger to her mouth and gently nibbled, pressing her teeth to the flesh. She didn’t want him to go. She wanted him to come back, yet reason told her that if he did, then she had a very clear idea of what might happen. He wants to bed me. That can be the only reason why he came.
As if her eyes were suddenly opened, she saw the daylight; the sky was streaked with colour, the river was shimmering, the wave crests sparkling and dancing.
I have a choice, she realized. It’s up to me. Do I want him?
The answer unfolded like a manifestation. Of course she wanted him. She wanted to feel his arms around her, his lips once more on hers as they’d been that night in his cabin. She must have been brainsick not to have realized before. The provocation and tension within her each time she saw him, wasn’t caused by aversion – but by desire. A longing for—. What?
When she’d opened the door earlier and greeted the morning, she had been filled with a bright expectation. She had slept but little after returning from the Breeze, feeling restless after the evening’s events and her meeting again with Matt on the ship, and when she’d seen him there in the meadow, staring at her, not knowing how long he had been watching her as she made her obeisance to the day, she’d felt that fate was taking a hand, that here was her predestination. She could reach out towards it or turn her back.
She watched him striding further and further out of her reach. She was afraid. She knew men only too well. They coaxed and tempted you with sweet words, and then they changed and became bullying, abusive tyrants. The fear was real and she trembled. She took a hesitant step onto the grass. ‘Wait,’ she whispered. ‘Wait.’
You’re a fool, Annie, she considered. You’ll be hurt again. But I have to learn to trust, she pleaded with herself, or it’ll be too late!
She stepped forward again. ‘Wait,’ she shouted, her voice breaking huskily. ‘Wait! Matt. Please wait.’
He stopped and turned, hesitated, and then turned back and walked on. She started to run. ‘No, wait. I must tell you something.’ She’d explain; about her and Toby, then he’d understand. Maybe he was jealous of her being with Toby, they were fond of each other, she knew. She ran faster, the meadow sloped steeply. Maybe he was jealous of her and Toby – of Toby and her – of Toby!
Why hadn’t she thought of that before. If it was true! The possibility of such reasoning sent a warm glow through her. ‘Wait.’ Her breath was going, she felt a stitch coming in her side. Why didn’t he turn around?
She fell headlong in the grass and she gave a loud gasp, but still he didn’t turn. She picked herself up and ran again, leaving behind her shawl. ‘Please stop. I want to tell you.’
He started to turn as she almost reached him, and she felt herself falling again, her momentum pitching her forward into his arms which he opened to catch her.
‘I want to tell you,’ she said breathlessly. ‘About me and Toby. There was nothing.’ She shook her head, too breathless to go on. ‘We didn’t—’
He put his fingers on her lips to silence her. ‘It doesn’t matter,’ he said quietly.
‘But it does.’ She took his hand away from her mouth and held it. ‘We were like brother and sister. That’s how we both wanted it.’
He gave a short laugh and gently stroked her bare arm. ‘Toby!’
‘You don’t believe me?’ She stared wide-eyed at him, wanting to convince him.
His eyes were tender, why had she always thought they were hard? She felt as if she was melting beneath his gaze; her legs were giving way.
‘I was wrong to ask. As you so rightly said, it’s nothing to do with anyone else, but yes, I do believe you. It would be typical of Toby, playing at brothers and sisters.’
He gazed down at her and hesitatingly he caressed her face, tracing her cheekbones, touching her lips. He shook his head. ‘He must have been touched in the head, wanting you for a sister!’
‘But I wouldn’t have wanted to be anything else,’ she whispered. No need to tell him, not now that Toby was no more, that he had been changing towards her, that his brotherly kiss was becoming more tender and that she hadn’t wanted it.
‘You know that I want you?’ He moved a strand of hair and bent and kissed her forehead and then each cheek.
She didn’t answer, but only nodded and felt happiness filling her mind, her whole being.
‘I want you so badly that I can’t sleep for thinking about you. I’ve been so consumed by needless jealousy that I was rude and unkind towards you.’
‘So that was the reason,’ she whispered and smiled, her face lighting up. ‘I thought it was because I was just a nobody, – a nobody off the scrap heap.’
He flinched. ‘Did I really say that? I don’t know how you can bear even to talk to me.’ He took hold of both her hands and drew her closer, she saw the wisps of curl in his beard and could smell the sea in his hair. ‘Can you ever forgive me? I didn’t mean to hurt you, it was unpardonable. But what now? Will you send me on my way now that we have made our peace? Shall I come on another day so that we can start again on a different understanding?’
She was puzzled and a frown wrinkled her brows. Did he mean that he wasn’t going to stay? That he wasn’t going to take her into the feather bed and whisper sweet nothings to her, before he forced his body into hers? Did he mean that she should decide?
He gave a gentle laugh. ‘But don’t make me wait too long, Mrs Hope. I’m a man after all and my desire is strong.’
‘There’s no need to wait.’ She felt suddenly shy; she bent her head against his chest and felt the pounding of his heart. ‘You can stay.’
He lifted her chin with his finger and kissed her lips, his mouth was firm yet tender. ‘Only if you’re sure,’ he whispered.
She lifted her arms around his neck and held him in a swift embrace. ‘I’m sure.’
They walked hand in hand back to the cottage, not speaking, but merely gently squeezing fingers. She was surprised by his actions, for he made her sit down while he made a dish of tea from the hissing steaming kettle, and he finished cutting the bread which she had left on the table, and then bade her come and eat and drink. She didn’t speak but watched his every movement. What manner of man was this who didn’t want to take her straight to the mattress?
When they had finished eating, and she didn’t eat much, finding it hard to swallow, he rose from the table and put more kindling on the fire and then stood in the doorway looking out.
He turned round and smiled and held out his hand. ‘Come and look, the geese are flying in on their way to the feeding grounds.’
She stood next to him, the morning smelt sweet and pungent, the smoke from their wood fire and others from the cottages on the cliff was drifting down to the river, aromatic scents of brushwood and apple and pine cones filling the air, while above the water flew vast flocks of greylag geese and, close behind, came the long necked brent, barnacle and Canada geese.
He put his arm around her and led her back inside and closed the door. She trembled a little but he appeared not to notice, yet he led her, not to the bed but to the chair, where he sat down and drew her onto his lap. He lifted her hair from her shoulders and gently kissed her neck and throat.
‘Why are you afraid?’
She looked plaintively at him. So he had noticed. ‘I was allus afraid,’ she whispered. ‘Every time.’
‘You won’t be afraid with me.’
And she wasn’t, for every touch and caress was gentle, yet persuasive, his kisses light on her body, tempting her with their seductiveness, yet still she sat in his lap, her body soft and yielding, feeling the hardness of him beneath her. Her body was pulsating, her breathing coming faster, this was such bliss, this wasn’t something she had known before. Why didn’t he take her? She stood up from his knees and with her eyes drawn to his she lifted the hem of her shift, drawing it up above her head so that she stood naked before him.
He closed his eyes for a second and then opening them, he followed the line of her body with his hands, touching her breasts, arousing her nipples and running his fingers down the pale dappled stretch marks on her belly, round the curve of her hips and through the fine bush of pubic hair. ‘You are so lovely. I thought – I thought I could imagine how you would be, but – you are so much more beautiful.’
He rose from the chair and with a swift movement lifted her into his arms and carried her to the bed. She reached up to help him unfasten his shirt buttons and as he turned to drop it onto the chair, she gazed at his shoulders and back, tanned from the sun and sea air. But she flinched as he started to unfasten the buckle on his belt, as another memory returned, and she touched the scar on her face.
He saw the movement and bent over her, taking her fingers from her face and studying her. ‘Has someone hurt you?’ he asked quietly.
‘Yes,’ she whispered. ‘But I deserved it.’
He lay down beside her and held her in his arms. ‘No woman deserves to be hurt, though I know I hurt you with unkind words, and I shall always regret them. You’re meant to be cherished. To be loved.’
‘I know nothing of love with a man, onny with my childre’.’ She looked up at him, her eyes wet with emotion. ‘Can tha teach me?’
‘I know nothing of love either,’ he answered, kissing each moist eyelid in turn. ‘We must learn together.’