by Nancy Klein
“I came back because I belong with you—I belong to you.” Taking his hand within her own, she raised and held it to her heart. “Without you, my life means nothing. Your love brought me back through the mirror, and your love will keep me here. I intend to spend the remainder of my life with you.”
His strong frame shook with longing. “You will stay with me?” he asked in a strained voice.
“If you will have me. If you still want me...”
“If I still want you!” he exclaimed. “I thought I had lost you…I thought you were lost to me forever, I—” He broke off, grappling with emotions so powerful that they threatened to tear him asunder. “And you ask me if I will have you?” He fell silent, searching for the words to convey all that he felt. He went down on one knee in front of her and clasped her hands in his. “Meg, will you marry me?” he asked, his heart in his eyes. “I could not continue to live if you ever left me again.”
Meg felt a love so powerful course through her that she could not speak. That this proud man would kneel before her! She sank to her knees in front of him, her skirts belling out about her in the fluff. “Yes, I will marry you,” she replied and was gratified to see the look of joy that softened his usually stern features. He pulled her toward him and cradled her against his chest.
They heard cheers and rude whistles, and it registered upon them that the machines had gone silent and that they were surrounded by workers observing them with great interest. Mr. Thornton did not care—the proud Master did not mind that his hands saw him on his knees before the woman he loved. Nothing mattered, now that she had promised to be his wife for all eternity. He laughed as Higgins called out, “What are you all gaping at? Get back to work!” Leaning over the happy couple, Higgins murmured, “Perhaps you should continue your ‘conversation’ in the office, so we might get some work done.”
Mr. Thornton stood and helped Meg to her feet. Clasping her hand, they hurried along the hall to his office, to the raucous accompaniment of clapping hands and stomping feet.
Chapter 24. Waking
Once they were safely ensconced in his office, Mr. Thornton gathered Meg into his arms, handling her as carefully as finest glass. In the voice of a sleepwalker, he mumbled, “Am I mad, or are you really here? Dear God, if you are a dream, I pray that I never wake up!”
She caressed his cheek, her eyes brimming with laughter. “I am not a dream, my love—I have come back to you.” He closed his eyes, relishing the soft touch of her hand, and leaning forward, kissed her. His arms tightened about her, and she murmured a weak protest.
“If I let you go,” he explained between frantic kisses, “I might…wake up…to find this …was indeed a dream.” Meg objected, and informed him once more that she was very real and had no intention of going anywhere. She clung to him, nonetheless, as he continued to caress her.
At length, he held her away from him and gazed earnestly into her eyes. “You will marry me, Meg? Know that if you accept my proposal, I will never let you leave again. You will be mine, body and soul.”
She trembled from head to foot, overcome with desire for this man. She felt an urgent need to be possessed by him; to have him put his mark upon her. “I will never leave you,” she asserted in a husky voice, and thrilled at the passion that kindled in his eyes. They kissed again and again, hot, wet kisses, and knew that each was meant for the other for eternity.
Before they were lost to reason or propriety, Mr. Thornton took a deep breath and held her from him. Meg felt lost at being separated from him, but one look at his eyes convinced her that he yearned for her as much as she did for him, and that one of them must show some restraint. They gazed at each other for a long moment, breathing deeply and each thought with awe of the potent nature of their embrace. Despite their passion, each realized that words must be spoken and plans made—and these required cooler heads.
When each had their emotions under control, Mr. Thornton released his grip upon her arms. “I believe that the sooner we wed, the better it will be for both of us.” He smoothed an errant curl from her forehead and lowered his lips to her ear. “I will not wait one moment more than necessary—I want you.” He whispered these last words, a sibilant promise, and smiled as he felt her shiver in response. “If we obtain a special license and have the banns read, we could wed as soon as possible.” She ducked her head against his shoulder and nodded, and he rejoiced to know that she wanted him as much as he did her.
“I have no desire for an ornate wedding, or new clothes, or wedding breakfasts,” Meg admitted. The only thing I want is you, she thought, and glanced up at him to find him regarding her with such an expression of delight that she realized she had spoken aloud. She attempted to turn her blushing face from his, but he would not let her.
Lifting her face with one hand, he forced her to look at him so that he could see the flush that suffused her face. “Do not hide your feelings from me. Mine are transparent as water. I am humbled to know that you feel the same way that I do.”
“Very well,” she replied. “I am without shame where you are concerned. And I do feel the same as you—John, I want to be your wife as soon as we can arrange to have the ceremony performed.”
He lowered his head to kiss her again, but she stepped away, protesting with a laugh. “No, if we are to discuss this clearly, I will stand here and you remain over there.” She untied the strings of the bonnet that hung down her back, and placed it on the desk, smoothing her hair with one hand. He shrugged, but there was a disturbing light in his eye as he settled against the desk and crossed his arms on his chest.
“What will your mother say of our marriage? She knows that I have returned.” Seeing his perplexed expression, she hastened to explain. “I met her earlier and asked her where I might find you.” Pausing with her hands on her hips, she teased, “Are you aware that you are a very difficult man to find?”
He said in astonishment, “I—difficult to find? Nonsense—I am predictable in my schedule and movements. Why do you say such a thing?”
Meg pursed her lips, but he saw the dimple quivering in her cheek. “I looked everywhere for you today. When I met your mother, she informed me that you were on your way to London, so Nicholas and I rode post haste to the train station, only to be told no one had seen you. We returned to Marlborough Mills and asked Mr. Williams when you might return from London, and he informed us that you were on the mill floor.” She tried to look stern, but her eyes danced with amusement. “To think, I might have been with you two hours earlier, if you had but stayed in one place.”
“And that is severe punishment indeed—that I had to wait to discover you had come back to me.” He moved swiftly toward her and kissed her once more.
“About your mother, John,” Meg picked up the thread of her topic after their pleasurable interlude, moving away to distance herself from him; it was difficult to think when he was so near. “She has never cared for me—not that I have gone to any pains to encourage her to know or like me,” she explained in a painful attempt to be honest. “I do not want to cause problems between mother and son—”
He held up a hand to silence her. “My mother has always wanted what is best for me,” he replied with confidence. “There is nothing I want more—I have ever wanted more!—in this life than you as my wife. Once she knows you as I do, she will love you. For now, I am certain that she will welcome you into our family.”
Meg was not as certain as he, but held her peace. “When will you tell her?” she asked with some degree of trepidation. Please do not ask me to be there.
He moved toward her and lifted one of her hands to his lips to tenderly kiss the soft underside of her wrist. His lips lingered so that his breath warmed her soft skin. “I shall tell her this afternoon—for now, I would like to keep you to myself.” He pulled her back into his arms, still not completely convinced that she was with him once more. “You have caused me many sleepless nights, my love. The past few weeks without you have been as if someone erased all color from my life—all w
as gray and drear.” His face sobered as he remembered the aching pain of a lifetime without any hope of seeing her again.
Meg’s eyes misted with tears as she remembered her own frantic travels about the streets of Milton, mourning her loss of him. She had read his journal and seen his gravestone, and believed that he was gone. At the time, she had not thought of his own pain. Hearing his confession, the full reality of what he had felt shamed her and she regretted her actions once more.
“I am sorry, my love—I should never have left you—and I vow that I will not leave you now. Without you, there was no life for me on the other side of that mirror. I promise I will make it up to you from this day forward.”
He held her close to him, and she reveled in his strength and power. “However, if I had not gone back, I would not have seen Clotho and might never have known—”
He pulled back and stared into her face. “Clotho?” he asked in confusion.
Meg smiled slightly. “Hard as it is to believe, the woman I referred to as Clothilde revealed to me that she was one of the Fates—do you remember the story my father told you about the Moirae at tea that evening? Oh, it seems so long ago!”
He smiled at her. “That was the night that you came into the parlor with your hair still damp from your bath.”
She stared at him. “You remember that?”
His smile faded, and he said in voice deepened by passion, “I remember everything. That night, I longed to unbraid your hair and run my fingers through it, and to kiss that sweet, soft spot where your shoulder slopes up to your neck.”
She was caught off balance by this confession. “You loved me as early as that?”
His gaze scalded her. “I loved you from the first moment I saw you standing on the floor of my mill. You have no idea how beautiful you looked, full of righteous indignation.”
She blushed and lowered her eyes from his penetrating glance. She was silent for several moments until he prompted her, “What about the Fates?”
She retrieved her bonnet and placed it upon her head. “Will you walk out with me? That way, I can tell you what happened—and you can gauge whether you believe me or not.”
He gazed at her hungrily. “If you told me you were a genie from a bottle, I would believe you. After all, I did watch you pass through that looking glass and disappear. One moment you were there, tears streaming down your face, and the next you were gone, as if you had never existed. And when you had gone, I realized that you had taken my heart with you.”
She reached out and took his hand in her own. “I am so terribly sorry. Please forgive me.”
His eyes grew dark. “Forgive you? Dear God, Meg, having you back is the answer to every prayer I have ever prayed. I will gladly listen to your story, since everything that transpired brought you home to me. And I will send prayers of thanks each day to your Fate, if she did indeed send you back to me.”
They walked from his office into the streets of Milton, where they strolled along until they reached the green outskirts of town. She told him little of what she had found in the Milton of the future; Clotho’s warning still rang in her ears. However, she managed to convey that life there was what she had hoped it would be—with the exception of her own life, and the emptiness she felt without him. She explained that she missed him beyond bearing, and realized she had made a mistake as soon as she had passed through the mirror. He was pleased beyond measure, and was much moved to hear her describe her frenzied attempts to return to him.
When she told him that she was Margaret Hale, and what had happened to her life, he listened carefully and asked many probing questions. His greatest fear devolved around his concern that she might be taken away again, but Meg strove to calm that fear, telling him that Clotho was well pleased with her “second” life, and had told her she had fulfilled her mission and that they would not meet again. When he still looked anxious, she told him she was where she belonged—with him. She would have no more dealings with mirrors.
When Meg finished her tale, Mr. Thornton looked at her with lively curiosity. “How were you able to return if the mirror was broken, and you did not have my gloves?”
She smiled in triumph. “I had my own gloves, which you had left for me. It was your love for me that pulled me through time and back to you.”
He reached into his breast pocket and extracted a pair of gloves identical to the ones she had worn through the mirror. “Do you mean these?” he asked solemnly, and she gasped. “I have kept them close to my heart since you disappeared, in the hopes that they would keep you close to me. And now you tell me they helped bring you back.” He raised the gloves to his lips, kissed them reverently, and returned them to his pocket before turning to her and burying his face in her hair. “I will thank God the rest of my life that you came back,” he murmured.
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Mrs. Thornton stared out of the window, watching her son and Miss Hale outside the door to the mill. She felt a leaden weight in her heart, and had done so since she had met Miss Hale that morning. She had seen them leave the mill yard several hours before and had been watching surreptitiously for their return. Anyone observing them, even from a distance, could discern the powerful attraction between them. Their bodies leaned toward one another, and John never took his eyes from Miss Hale’s face. It was obvious that she was preparing to leave, but each time she took a step away, he moved toward her again in a dance of pursuit. Watching his face, she thought he looked happier and more carefree than he had in weeks—in fact, since Miss Hale had last left Milton. She watched Miss Hale extend her hand to John, and her heart dropped as John took the proffered hand and raised it to his lips for an extended kiss. Her eyes widened as she watched Miss Hale raise her other hand and caress John’s cheek as her normally undemonstrative son turned his mouth into her palm. Moments later, Margaret slipped away, walking with brisk purpose from the mill yard. Her son stood gazing after the girl, as if nothing else were to be done on a work day but watch Miss Hale leave the premises.
Mrs. Thornton sighed and resumed her seat, her embroidery forgotten. Her deepest fears were realized—John would offer for Miss Hale again, and this time his proposal would be accepted. Miss Hale would become his wife. I will have to learn to accept her, Mrs. Thornton thought stoically. If only I could be certain she loved my son. The entire affair of the girl being seen at the train station with a strange man still rankled, and Mrs. Thornton was uneasy at the effect such a modern-leaning and headstrong wife would have on her son’s place in society. But she knew how obstinate John could be once he had his mind set upon something.
When she heard the door slam, she reached quickly for her sewing. As he entered the room, a quick glance showed he was smiling and relaxed, and she felt herself soften a bit towards the young woman who had the power to effect such a change in him.
“Well, John?” she asked expectantly.
“Miss Hale has returned to Milton,” he replied in a satisfied tone.
“Yes, I know. I saw her at the mill earlier.”
“She told me. Mother,” he said with resolution, “I have asked Miss Hale to marry me, and she has accepted my proposal. We intend to wed within the month.”
Mrs. Thornton looked up in surprise and dismay. “You would wed as soon as that?”
He nodded. “Neither of us wants to wait—we have waited ages already.” A small smile flitted across his face, softening his usually harsh mien.
His mother laid her embroidery aside and folded her hands in her lap. “People will talk, John—they will say such a hurried, patched up affair was necessitated by—by circumstances.” She saw his lips tighten but was determined to have her say. “After that incident at the railway station, her reputation is questionable—you know I only say what has been talked about throughout this town.”
He stood before her. “Mother, the man with whom she was seen at the Outwood Station that night was her brother—she was seeing him off at the station.”
Mrs. Thornton gazed at hi
m in amazement. “Her brother!” she exclaimed. “I did not know she had a brother.”
“Nor did I, but she does. He ran afoul of the Navy and lives overseas, in Spain. The family never spoke of him for fear of his being apprehended. Miss Hale did not tell anyone of his presence in Milton in order to keep him safe. He came here to see his mother before she died—it was her last wish to see him again.”
Mrs. Thornton’s face softened; she could well understand a mother’s desire to see her beloved son. Yet she could not overcome her qualms over this proposed union. “Are you certain that this is what you want? She is not a malleable girl—she is quite hard headed, from what I have seen. You will not be able to bend her to your will.”
He laughed ruefully. “No, I will not, but I have no wish to bend her to my will, Mother. I love her exactly as she is. No doubt we shall have some lively rows, but we will never be bored.” He looked at her and his expression became serious. “I love her more than my life. I do not think I can go on without her—she is a part of me now. I would do anything for her, and I know that she feels the same way. It was not Adam Bell who gave me the deed to the mill, as you believe—it was Miss Hale. She wanted me to have it because she loved me and could think of no one who deserved it more.” Remembering her words brought a tender smile to his face.
His mother exclaimed in wonder at such a gesture, and both were silent for several moments, contemplating the woman who would do such a thing. It staggered Mrs. Thornton to think that Meg would hand over the deed, given the value of the mill. She must recognize John’s worth at last, she thought with grudging satisfaction.
“Well,” she said, rising from her chair to face her son. “If you have determined that she is the wife for you, I accept your decision. I shall send a note around to Crampton and ask her to dine with us tomorrow night, if that is acceptable.” She pursed her lips and a glint came into her eye as she looked up at him. “Unless,” she added shrewdly, “you wish to carry the invitation yourself?”
