The Beloved One

by Danelle Harmon

  It was a lovely color.

  A warm, toasted, caramel-color that made him want to put his lips to it and kiss her all over.

  "Amy," he repeated, in a disbelieving whisper. "I can see you." He swallowed hard, and traced the shape of her mouth with his fingers. "I can see you."

  And he could also see something else. Mist in those huge, soft eyes — and a sort of awkwardness, if not fear, about his first visual impression of her.

  "And just what is it you see, Charles?"

  "I see a beautiful young woman — " he grinned — "garbed in the most singularly hideous gown imaginable."

  "Oh, Charles," she cried, impulsively flinging her arms around him. He embraced her in turn. They remained like that, holding each other, both of them laughing and rejoicing and rocking back and forth in the straw.

  "It was that damned horse!" he managed, setting her back to gaze into her rapt, mobile face. "The blow must've done something, must've jarred something loose inside my head. Don't you think?"

  "Either that, or your sight was just plain destined to return anyhow. Maybe God simply decided that the time had come for you to have it back again."

  "So that I could see you!"

  "So you could write your own letters!"

  "So I could find my way without a cane!"

  Laughing with joy, he hugged her once more, then set her back, trailing his finger down her cheek, the edge of her jaw. Gently, he tipped her chin up so that her luminous gaze held his. "And look into the eyes of the woman who has become my dearest and very best friend."

  And look he did; then, before he even knew what he was about, he closed his eyes and kissed her.

  Unlike the last time, when relief had made them both desperate with passion, this was a slow, exquisitely sweet kiss, a tender meeting of lips, a gentle wedding of souls. His hand cradled the side of her face, holding her head close to his; his thumb caressed the hollow beneath one cheekbone and tested the dewy softness of her skin. Her mouth yielded beneath his; her tongue shyly came out, touched and tasted his, allowed him to touch and taste in turn. She tasted of sunshine, innocence and sweetness, smelled of bayberry and soap, and he lost himself in the kiss, the eager, but inexperienced feel of her lips beneath his, the way her hand went with shy uncertainty to his chest, and then his neck, gently curling around his nape and then sliding into the thick and shining waves of his hair.

  Of its own accord, his hand drifted from her face and down her neck . . . down her bare collarbone . . . down over the lacy edge of her shift —

  And froze.

  What the bloody hell was he doing?

  Charles jerked away. "My dear Amy — I beg your forgiveness!" he said with controlled anger, getting to his feet and shoving the offending hand behind his back.

  She was still sitting in the straw, her petticoats spread out around her, her face tilted up to him. "Forgiveness for what, Charles?"

  "Kissing you!"

  She frowned, then she, too, got to her feet. She took a step toward him then stopped. As though she didn't know quite what to do with herself, she hugged herself, completely unaware that the motion only pushed against her breasts and made them swell all the more temptingly above her stays. Charles felt his throat go dry and had to look away.

  "I don't see a need for you to beg my forgiveness for doing something I enjoyed," she said, a bit defensively.

  "Don't you?" He shook his head and turned away, unable to look into those artlessly wide, innocently lovely, eyes any longer. "I seem to demonstrate a remarkable inability to control myself when I am around you."

  Needing to put distance between them, he walked a little distance away, grinding the heels of his hands into his eyes and trying to banish the memory of her sweet, trusting face. When he finally took his hands away, blinking, he saw that she was still watching him. He could see the compassion in her gaze, her quiet sympathy for his plight. It was nearly his undoing.

  He cursed beneath his breath and went to stand beside Contender, whose head hung over the stall door.

  "Charles?"

  He shut his eyes as though in pain.

  "Chaaaahles?" she said again, laughter brimming in her voice as she mimicked his accent.

  He sighed. And then he turned, trying to be angry, knowing he could not be, steeling himself against all the feelings that came crashing over him just by looking at her.

  This was the woman who had suffered through his surgery right along with him, who had pulled him back from the brink of death, and later, from the deepest pit of despair. This was the woman who had helped him learn to cope with his limitations, who had always had respect and compassion for his dignity and pride, who had done all in her power to give him the independence he had needed. She had stood by him when everyone else had deserted him, she had brought laughter and sunshine into the darkest days of his life, and now that he could see her he knew that his heart had no chance against the beauty that shone just as brightly on her outside as it did from within.

  "Oh, Amy," he said, and shaking his head, he folded his arms, leaned back against the stall door, and looked down at her.

  Just looked.

  And Amy, smiling up at him, felt everything inside of her begin to melt as she gazed up into that clear, quietly observing stare. He had the warmest eyes. The warmest smile. The warmest hands. And, toward everyone but himself, the very warmest heart.

  The Beloved One, indeed.

  The power of her love for him nearly brought her to tears.

  She sat there gazing up at him, growing a bit self-conscious beneath that keen stare. "If you don't blink your eyes once in a while, you'll wear them out," she murmured, in a little voice.

  "I shall never blink again," he said softly. "I shall never sleep again. After all these weeks of darkness, I shall never close my eyes again. Ever."

  He said that now, but in her heart Amy knew that his recovery was the beginning of the end of what they had together — whatever that was. He was free, now. Free to stay, free to go, free to do anything he pleased. She didn't want to contemplate a life without him in it. She could not bear the thought of saying goodbye to him. But she was not so selfish as to chain him here, or to marry him just because he'd offered it, and that, only to satisfy his sense of honor and correct a wrong he thought he'd done her. Men like Charles were not to be found in Newburyport. He was priceless gold and he deserved to be amongst precious metals — not cheap tin and pewter. He was something that Newburyport had never produced, would probably never see again, and he did not fit in here, would never fit in here. She would not cry for what she had lost by the return of his sight.

  Instead, she would enjoy what time she had left with him, and rejoice with him and for him.

  Even if it broke her heart.

  Affecting a cheer she did not feel, she pushed herself to her feet, took his hand, and tried to draw him away from the stall. "Then why are you wasting your time gazing at me? Come, Charles, let's go and put your restored sight to work."

  "Amy, really, I —"

  "Come, I want to show you everything! Our shipyards, our churches, our streets and our people! The grand houses on High Street, the Beacon Oak, the tide coming in, the marsh grasses swaying in the wind, the sea gulls, the sandpipers, everything!"

  He smiled fondly. "Everything?"

  "Everything! Why, let's put a saddle on Contender, and bring him for a gallop along Joppa Flats where we can watch the sun coming up and painting the water blue, the skies pink, the masts of all the ships in the river, gold! Don't you want to see color, Charles? Don't you want to see everything there is to see? Hurry, let's go before it gets any later!"

  Eagerly, she pulled him away from the stall.

  "No," he said, with a rueful shake of his head, "I daresay I should like to walk, instead."

  "Walk?"

  "Yes."

  "But, Charles!"

  He raised his brows. "Yes?"

  "You haven't ridden him for over two months —"

  "I know
."

  "Don't you want to ride him?"

  He shrugged. "Maybe tomorrow, Amy." And then, offering his arm but no explanation for his strange behavior, he escorted her out of the barn, turning his back on the horse and ignoring the long, plaintive whinnies the animal gave as it watched them go.

  ~~~~

  She had not pressed him about his reluctance to ride Contender, and though he knew she had probably guessed the truth, Charles did not bring the subject up, either.

  The sounds of the stallion's distress as they'd left the barn had upset him more than he would admit, even to himself. What was wrong with him that he didn't want to get up on the animal's back? Why had he shunned something that he — a de Montforte! — had been doing since he was old enough to walk? The de Montfortes were horse-mad. It was in the blood. And yet he had not wanted, had not been able to bring himself, to ride the horse who'd been his most loyal friend for the past decade.

  There is something very wrong with you, man. Something that goes a lot deeper than just the loss of your sight.

  And with rising dread, he knew what it was.

  He had lost confidence in himself.

  He, the man who, if he could have chosen one word to describe himself, would have said "capable," was now a bundle of self-doubt, rejected by everyone and everything he'd loved, plagued by the bitter knowledge that he had let people down. He had thought that if he ever recovered his sight, his insecurities would have been banished along with the darkness. But now he could see, even if not perfectly, and his confidence in himself was no stronger than it had been last week.

  He was frightened.

  Very frightened.

  And here was Amy beside him, another aspect of his life that spelled a decided and distressing lack of self-control on his part, dragging him down the street and pointing out everything under the sun to him . . .

  "Look, Charles, just there through the trees is the Merrimack River, and the fine brig that they're building for Matthew Ashton! And there is the little boat that we went sailing aboard! Oh, tell me, Charles, what do you think?"

  He swallowed and tried to focus on his surroundings, but already, he could feel the resentment building within him. Resentment because the only thing he wanted was freedom to rediscover everything that had been denied him for so long; resentment because instead, all he could think of was his shortcomings, his fears, all the mistakes he had made, the people he had hurt, and most frightening of all, of the attraction he felt for this girl breezing along beside him.

  "Charles?"

  "Yes, Amy, I am looking . . . indeed, I am overwhelmed."

  He tried to see beyond his own inner torment. He tried to take delight in the way the sunlight came through all the leaves of the maples overhead, illuminating each fragile vein, making each leaf glow from within; the way the marsh grasses all bent beneath the hand of a gentle breeze; the way the sun drew shadows beneath each clapboard of the timber-framed houses that lined this street. And since when had water showed so many variations of blue, from deepest azure to soft, pewter gray? He looked at everything — at the ships and boats in the river, the spartan New England churches whose spires rose majestically above this bustling seaport, the sun and salt-beaten piers, the humble colonial folk all going about their business in homespuns, cottons, woolens and calicos. No priceless painting in Lucien's collection back at Blackheath Castle could rival the beauty of this world that Charles had rediscovered.

  And no beauty presented to his starving eyes could rival that of the girl who walked beside him.

  He wanted her.

  He could not help but want her, even though her drab clothes did nothing to flatter her toasted-honey complexion, even though Lucien would never, not in a million years, approve of her as his wife, even though his heart was still sore from the wounds Juliet had torn in it — which was reason enough not to want any woman ever again.

  But he could no longer make his mind obey reason.

  And worst of all, he knew that Amy wanted him as well.

  ~~~~

  That night at the supper table, as everyone celebrated the partial return of his sight, asking him what he thought of this or that, asking him how it felt to be able to see once more, and, in the case of the sisters, posing, preening and doing everything within their power to gain his attention, Charles had had eyes only for Amy. She had had eyes only for him. The tension between them, the force of the desire each had for the other, was like an invisible thread growing tauter with every veiled look, every furtive glance. She watched him when she thought he wasn't looking; he did the same, noting that her dark gaze was mischievous one moment, laughing the next, and, on those occasions when she thought herself unobserved, wistful and adoring and maybe even a little sad. But Charles had been watching. Wishing. And wanting, more than anything, to unwrap those coils of dark, shining hair from around her head; to loosen and comb them out with his fingers; to find out just how long that hair really was —

  And to see it spread out on a pillow beneath her.

  By the time the evening ended, Charles was in hell.

  Long after everyone went to bed, he left the house and walked down to the riverfront that he had visited so often in his prison of darkness. Under the faint glow of moonlight, he could see the broad surface of the Merrimack, and the low, dark hills of Salisbury, holding up the sky beyond it. The stars looked down on him, twinkling brightly, making him feel that there was no one else in this world but himself.

  No one else in this world but himself.

  The answer came to him.

  He had never known the bitter taste of failure, but he knew it now — and he could not cope with it. He could not cope with its aftertaste of disappointment, he could not cope with the thought of letting people down, and he could not cope with the physical and emotional reactions he'd had to Juliet, and now felt himself having toward Amy. They were feelings he could not control, feelings that made him feel weak and vulnerable and overwhelmed. As a man accustomed to having control over everything, it was a horrible and frightening thing to be buffeted about by such a mixture of passions. He was like Mira's boat that day the rudder had snagged and the tide had swept them nearly out to sea.

  He was not the man he had once been. His confidence in himself, which he had always taken for granted, was gone. He would not regain it here in Newburyport. He would not regain it in Boston. He would not regain it in England, where Lucien's disappointment in him would probably end up killing him.

  And he could not stay here and risk hurting Amy as he had hurt Juliet.

  As soon as he was sure she wasn't pregnant, he would put a saddle on Contender, and go away.

  Far away.

  Where he hoped that God, and introspection, and most of all distance from all temptations and hurts, would restore him to the man he had once been.

  Chapter 16

  October, 1776

  Nearly a year and a half had gone by since Charles had left Newburyport, and for those he left behind, he seemed to have vanished without a trace.

  He did not go back to England. He made no attempt to contact the family, the army, or the fiancée who had rejected him. Instead, he had bade a solemn goodbye to the Leightons, thanking them for all that they'd done for him and steeling himself against the tears in Amy's eyes before finally riding away, perhaps never to return.

  He'd had no idea where he was headed. He had simply let Contender carry him where he might, looking for a place where he could come to terms with all that had happened to him, retreat from society, and avoid the hurt and suffering that relationships and attachments had brought him. Eventually — perhaps by accident but more likely by some hidden design — he'd found himself in Maine, the vast wilderness where Juliet had been born and raised. There, he had fallen in with a pair of French fur trappers and made a humble, lonely living. There, in the endless forests of cedar, pine and fir, where granite boulders were the size of houses, and the trees were so densely packed that day became night, he had thought he
might find peace. That his physical skills and mental resources would be tested such as to prove himself capable once more. That he would be able to forgive himself for all the mistakes he had made, for the disappointments which had reduced him to this wretched, insecure shell of the quietly confident, supremely capable man he had always believed himself to be.

  And that there, if anywhere, he would forget about Amy.

  But no. About the only thing he regained was, eventually, the full use of his sight.

  For Charles, an aristocrat raised to pomp and privilege in a gentle, mild country, had not been made for the brutally harsh climate of Maine. He had cursed its summer, filled with vicious swarms of mosquitoes, midges, and biting flies that plagued him both day and night. He had shivered his way through the longest and most bitterly cold winter he had ever known. He had lain awake in the darkness beneath the stars, his flintlock cradled in his arms, unable to sleep as he listened to the endless and eerie howling of wolves. And twice, because he had little sense of direction in the vast woods, he had to be rescued by the grinning Frenchmen when he didn't return to their camp by dark — a biting humiliation which stung him as a man, as a soldier, and as an Englishman.

  The trappers tried to dissuade him and send him "back where he belonged," but Charles, angry with himself for his inability to adapt, stubbornly persevered. He lasted through another Maine summer, learning to live off a diet of venison and berries and, when they entered a town and sold their pelts, enjoying the finer things like decent meals eaten off equally decent china, before venturing off into the forest once more. And each time they left one of those little outposts of civilization behind and returned to the wilderness, Charles felt an increasingly larger part of him straining to stay behind. Wanting only to remain in those warm, cheerful taverns drinking cider and sugared coffee, instead of huddling around a smoking campfire slapping mosquitoes or trying to stay warm. Wanting only to sleep in a decent wood-framed bed with a feather or even a corn-husk mattress, instead of wrapped in a blanket with pine needles and moss and granite beneath him. And as the days began growing cold at the obscenely early date of mid-September, and he found himself hating this bearded, buckskinned, shamefully unkempt creature that he had become, he realized that clinging to this venture just for the sake of his pride was nothing short of insane.