“What do you think I was doing when I dragged you halfway across India?” Patrick said. “I wouldn’t let you die because I couldn’t face living without you. I would gladly give up everything I have, and watch my house crumble to the ground around me, but I will not be content with a life of loneliness.” It was his turn to pant and heave. “You told me once that you were lonely, and I told you I understood. But maybe I didn’t. When I looked you in the face that day on the beach, I had no idea what it meant to feel real loneliness because I had no idea how it felt to have someone. But I know how that feels now, and I don’t want to face one day—let alone the next fifty years—without you.”
Tears ran down Linley’s cheeks as she listened to the man she loved pour his heart out. What a perfect fool he was to give up everything for her sake.
“It won’t be easy,” she said. “We’re both too stubborn to give up our separate lives. We might only see each other three or four times a year. I could never ask such a sacrifice from you.”
“I would bear it. I would do it gladly,” he told her. “Just confess to me the one thing I’ve wanted to hear since that day on the beach in Morocco. Since our kiss in the British Museum. Since the night I first made love to you.” He searched her eyes with his. “Tell me you love me, and I can endure anything.”
“I love you,” she said. “You know I do.”
“Then marry me.” Patrick smiled and ran his fingertips along the tearstains on her freckled face. It had been those freckles that first drew him to her, but it would be her heart that would always keep him. “This could be one of those real moments you told me about,” he said, grinning at her from across the pillow. “I’d hate for you to look back and realize you missed your one chance at really living.”
Epilogue
Patrick closed his eyes against the glare of the sun and let the warm breeze play against his hair. He smiled at the sound of Linley’s voice as she strolled down one of the garden paths ahead of him.
He once told her if he ever came to Malta, it would not be for the views. She had blushed then, but when he showed up on her doorstep for a surprise visit a week ago, modesty appeared to be the furthest thing from her mind. They barely made it upstairs before they were both out of their clothes and sprawled across the floor.
It was harder to travel with the war on, but Patrick had been determined to see her before he went to the front.
The clicking of Linley’s little heels against the flagstones told him she’d grown tired of waiting at the end of the path and come back for him. Patrick wanted to prolong that moment—the sting of the sun and the salt air, and the smell of the flowers—for as long as he could.
“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” she asked.
Patrick opened his eyes. He tried to imagine the harbor without the warships at anchor and their coal smoke blackening the sky.
“I’m sorry it isn’t Morocco,” he said. “I know you had your heart set on spending our anniversary there.”
She shook her head. “No, Patrick. This is perfect. I could not have asked for a better day.”
“Truly?”
“I know traveling to Rabat is an impossibility right now.” Linley reached up to run her fingers along the collar of his thick khaki uniform. “And with everything you had to do in Kyre, it’s a wonder you even made it at all.”
Patrick smiled and took her hand. He knew she was angry with him for joining up. They had argued about it at first, but in the end Linley had been a good sport.
“I’d be a terrible husband if I missed our first anniversary all because of some bally war.”
They both smiled.
It had been a good year. They had their share of ups and downs like any newly married couple, and it seemed like a lifetime ago since they said their vows in that tiny mission camp, but somewhere between his responsibilities and her career, they found time to make a life together.
Or they had, until everything changed.
“Promise me,” Linley whispered. “When all this is over, you’ll come back to me.” She forced her eyes to look up and meet his. “I don’t want this to be our only anniversary.”
“Linley…”
“No. Promise me.” She held his gaze. “I did not marry you just to become a widow.”
“I have every intention of coming back,” Patrick said. “Besides, I’ve already played the hero enough for one lifetime.” He tried to laugh at that, to keep his spirits up. He needed to be brave enough for the both of them. Brave enough to walk away from her and get on that ship, and to do what was right for his home and his country, even if Linley could not understand it.
“You’re going to be late,” she said, pulling on his lapel. “Time and tide won’t wait, not even for a marquess.”
“Why don’t you go to Kyre?” Patrick asked, covering her hand with his. “Wolford Abbey needs its marchioness.”
Linley shook her head. “You know I can’t leave Papa,” she said. “Not with Schoville gone, and Reginald and Archie leaving for Cairo any day now.”
“But Malta is too close to the fighting. I would feel better about it if I knew you were somewhere safe. And with the war on, there won’t be any more expeditions.”
“It’s no use, Patrick. He will never agree to go to Kyre, and I will never leave him.”
Patrick admired her determination, even if he wanted to strangle her for it sometimes. But he was certain that very same stubbornness had kept her alive through the typhoid, and he was certain that, if anything happened to him, she would be all right in the end.
He checked his watch one last time. “I have to go.”
Goodbye could not be put off any longer. Linley reached up and took his face in her hands. “I love you more than anything.”
She leaned up and kissed him. She pressed herself against the rough fabric of his Army uniform as he wrapped his arms around her waist. It seemed they were always saying goodbye, only this time it felt like she would truly never see him again.
Linley pulled back, trying to wipe the tears away before he saw them. “Do you have the picture I gave you?”
“Right here.” Patrick patted his breast pocket, just over his heart. “Do you have yours?”
She smiled, thinking about the photograph of him that saw her through so many lonely nights. “You know I never go anywhere without it.”
“Will you walk down to the docks with me?” he asked.
Linley shook her head. “I couldn’t bear it.”
Patrick took her in his arms and kissed her one last time.
“Be careful, won’t you?” she asked.
He smiled and straightened his cap against the sea breeze. “I’ll be the most careful man in France.”
With that, Patrick turned and walked down the garden path. Linley watched him go until she could not see him anymore. She wanted to run after him, to throw herself at his feet and beg him not to go, but she knew he had to do this. Her husband was just as stubborn as she was, in his own way.
And in the year and a half that she’d known Patrick, Linley had come to understand one thing: Real love wasn’t about happy endings. It was about the moments spent together, and what you made of them.
Want to learn more about Linley and Patrick?
Visit Allyson’s website for an in-depth look at her characters, their world, and what lies ahead at
www.AllysonJeleyne.com
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Copyright
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblence to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
A LOVE THAT NEVER TIRES
Kindle Version 1.0
Copyright © 2014 by Allyson Jeleyne
Fifty Forty Productions
All rights reserved.
Cover design by James, GoOnWrite.com
; This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the author.
ISBN: 978-0-9908946-0-5
Table of Contents
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A Love That Never Tires (Linley & Patrick Book 1) Page 34
