by Mary Balogh
“My love?” he said.
“Yes.” Her eyes fluttered closed.
He kissed her softly.
“Say my name again, Siân,” he said.
“Alexander.” She did not open her eyes. A few moments later he knew that she was sleeping.
He closed his eyes and held her close. His woman. She was his now. He would look after her for the rest of his life. She would not wed Parry now. And he would never marry again. He would not treat her to the indignity of knowing herself his mistress while he had a wife at home.
She was his. He was going to love and cherish her forever. He was going to shower gifts on her. He was going to give her everything that wealth—and love—could give.
He loved her.
Siân.
My love.
Cariad.
16
WHEN she woke up, she was not at all disoriented. She knew immediately where she was and with whom and what had happened. Just as she had known at every moment while it was happening what it was she did. She had not at all been carried away by passion. There had been passion, yes—more of it than she had ever experienced before. But she had not been made mindless by it. She did not have that excuse.
She had given up everything, she thought, her eyes still closed, her body still relaxed against his warmth, in exchange for an impossibility. She had given up Owen—she could not now marry him—and she had given up the effort of years to belong fully to the community of her grandparents and to their religion and values. It was all gone in exchange for one night of passion with a man not of her world.
Perhaps with a cunning and cruel man. Only her heart trusted him. Her head was not sure.
She had known what was going to happen as soon as they had sat down and she had seen how far up the mountain they were and how very much alone together. Even before he had commented on it she had known. And yet she had done nothing to prevent it. He had given her the chance. He had not rushed her at all. At every stage until her body had been finally penetrated he had given her a chance. But she had wanted him. Not just physically—oh, not just that way. She would have fought if it had been only that. Her soul had yearned for him.
And so she had given up everything.
“Alexander.” She tipped back her head and looked up at him. His name made him a real man to her, a real person. She could no longer think of him as the Marquess of Craille, as that impersonal figure of authority. He was part of her. They had made love. He had been inside her body. She could see his blond hair and sharply chiseled features in the darkness. He was looking back at her.
He dipped his head and kissed her warmly, open-mouthed. She marveled that she had never known a kiss could be like this. Even when it was without passion, as it was now, it could suggest intimacy and tenderness.
“Owen is not my lover,” she felt compelled to say. “There has only ever been Gwyn. Until tonight.”
He smiled slowly at her. She could see the expression in the darkness. She found herself smiling back.
“You called me cariad,” he said. “Did you mean it?”
“You called me my love,” she said. “Did you mean it?”
He continued to smile. “Yes, I did, Siân Jones,” he said. “My love.”
“And I did, Alexander Hyatt,” she said. “Cariad.”
They had spoken the truth—she believed that he spoke it, and she knew that she did. Yet they faced an impossibility, a future that just did not exist. But there was this night. She had given up everything for this night and it was still not over. The present was possible even if the future was not.
He kissed her again, softly, almost lazily, while his arms drew her closer against him. He was splendidly tall and well muscled. She moved her body slowly against him, feeling him with her shoulders and breasts and stomach and thighs. She felt him harden with returning desire and enjoyed the quickening of sensation in her own body. But this time, she knew, she could relax and enjoy every moment and try not to coax her body to react faster. He made love slowly, giving her time to participate and to gather together the excitement of their coupling to fling recklessly to the stars when she could bear no more. And to discover what was the other side of passion.
With Gwyn, although she had always enjoyed their intimacies, she had had to snatch what pleasure she could from his hasty, lusty lovemaking.
Alexander had made her feel that he was doing something with her rather than to her.
She let his hands arouse her after her bodice had been lowered again and her skirt raised. She let him touch her in places she would have thought embarrassingly unpleasant to be touched but found wonderfully and surprisingly erotic. And she touched him and learned from his sharpened breathing that it was possible to arouse a man further even after he was physically ready for the act of love.
She knew instinctively when the moment had come for their bodies to join. She turned over onto her back and reached for him.
“Let me take the hardness of the ground this time,” he whispered to her, and strong arms were beneath her and lifting her to lie flat on top of him. He lifted her chin and set his mouth to hers.
“How?” she asked. She knew that there were different sexual positions, but she had experienced no other than the one Gwyn had always used and Alexander too a little earlier.
“Kneel astride me,” he said.
When she did so, he drew her knees and thighs snugly against his sides and positioned himself before setting firm hands on her hips and drawing her sharply downward. She gasped as she knelt upright, and threw back her head, her mouth open. It seemed impossible that there could be room. And yet there was. She drew in on him when he was deeply embedded in her. He was magnificent. Ah, dear God, he was magnificent.
His hands lifted her slightly away from him and he began to move in her with deep, bold strokes that had her gasping and arching backward against his updrawn knees. Her head was still thrown back. She did not move with him. She hovered on the edge of pain, on the edge of ecstasy.
“Siân.” He was moving more gently. His hands reached for her arms and drew her down toward him. She set her hands on either side of his head and leaned over him, gazing down into his face. Her hair fell like a curtain on either side of them. “My love. Ride me.” He stilled in her.
And so she rode him, slowly and tentatively at first, with growing boldness as she found a rhythm that brought back the pain and the promise of ecstasy and that had him closing his eyes and moaning and finally moving his hands from the grass on either side of him to grasp her hips and drive into her rhythm.
They reached glory together and cried out together. And relaxed together into the panting aftermath of passion. And slept together after he had pulled his cloak over them.
One step closer to impossibility, Siân thought as she came back to herself. But she did not care. What had happened had been beautiful beyond imagining. And it was beyond putting into words. For it had not been a purely physical thing, though that was how it had manifested itself.
She had known love, she thought, for a brief moment in time. She was privileged. Surely the vast majority of people went through life without ever having known it. She was fortunate.
One of his hands was massaging the back of her head.
“You will not be marrying Owen Parry,” he said.
“No.” There was a pang of regret but no more. Perhaps tomorrow she would feel more. Perhaps then she would feel the great weight of her loss. But not yet.
“I will be good to you, Siân,” he said. “I will love you and cherish you. I will care for our children. I will never marry again. I will not put you through that distress. You will not be sorry for tonight.”
Ah. He did not understand the impossibility. She nestled her head more comfortably on his shoulder.
“I am not going to be your mistress, Alexander,” she said.
His hands stilled. “Is that not what tonight has been all about?” he asked. “You have become my mistress tonight. My body is still joined with yours.”
“We have made love tonight,” she said. “Because we both wanted to do so and because there is something between us that had to be expressed this way. But that gives you no ownership of me. It does not make you my master.”
“Ownership?” he said. “It gives me a responsibility. I have possessed your body. I have put my seed inside you. Perhaps even now you have taken my child into your womb. I will look after you, Siân. Care for you. Support you. For the rest of my life and as a clause in my will. It is not a question of ownership. I will not be harsh with you or demanding. I will never use violence on you—or on our children.”
He made it sound so enticingly sweet to be his mistress. If it had not been for one fact, she might have succumbed. But it was that fact that constituted the impossibility.
“Alexander,” she whispered, “I will not be like my mother. I will not live in luxury and loneliness. I will not be visited by you for the sole purpose of going up to our bedroom to make love. I will not have my children brought up in isolation from other children. I will not be your mistress or any man’s.”
“I thought you loved me.” She could not tell if his tone was harsh or bleak.
“Tonight I gave up the future I had planned,” she said. “I gave it up because I could not deny the present. I gave it up because I wanted you. Not only this coupling on the mountain. I wanted—oh, I wanted to give myself to you. I wanted to know that I had done that in my life. Given all for love. But I cannot base a future on that, Alexander. I will not be your mistress.”
He drew a deep breath and let it out slowly. “This was the beginning and the end, then?” he said. “There will never be another time, Siân?”
She could not bear the thought of that, the finality of it. “Perhaps there will,” she said. “If you want it and I want it at some other time. But I will not belong to you. I will not, Alexander. I will never again be any man’s chattel. From now on I belong to myself. I will give where love leads me to give. But I will not be a kept woman.”
She felt him swallow. There was a lengthy silence. She was very much aware of the fact that their bodies were still united. He was a warm and comfortable bed. She ached with love for him. Her chest and her throat were sore with unshed tears.
“It is time I took you home,” he said at last.
“Yes.”
And yet they lay for several more minutes before his hands came to her hips and lifted her off him and turned her to lie on the grass. She pulled on her undergarments and straightened her dress while he adjusted his own clothing. He was on his feet before her and reached down a hand to help her up.
“The next time curiosity brings you up the mountain to spy,” he said, drawing her shawl about her shoulders and then flinging his cloak about her and drawing her against his side, “wear something dark over your dress, will you, Siân? I was terrified that someone else would notice you before I could get to you.”
“All right,” she said, setting her head on his shoulder and wrapping one arm about his waist beneath the cloak they shared. She was going to ask him again what he intended to do about the demonstration and the strike. She was going to ask if he intended arresting the leaders. She wanted to beg him not to. But she said nothing. She decided to trust him instead. To go with her heart and trust him.
They walked across and down the hills in silence, their arms about each other, until they came to the place just above the terrace where she lived at which they had stopped on a previous occasion.
“You will be safe alone from here?” he asked, turning her against him.
She nodded and lifted her face for his kiss. It was a long and lingering one.
“I am just beginning to realize,” he said, “the enormity of the gift you gave me tonight, Siân. Everything in exchange for nothing. Thank you. But I will give something in return. All the way down you have been worrying about your people again, haven’t you? I am going to prove to you that I can be trusted. That is a gift you will value, is it not?”
She nodded again.
“Good night.” He kissed her briefly. “Be careful.”
She turned and ran lightly down the remaining part of the slope and along behind the terrace to slip through the back gate and into her grandfather’s house. No one was stirring. Her absence had not been noted. She slipped quickly out of her clothes and into bed.
The night must be almost over, she thought, curling onto her side and pulling up the blankets warmly about her. But not quite. There was still a little of it left. Tomorrow everything would look different to her, she knew. Tomorrow reality would intrude. But there was still a little of the night left.
She closed her eyes and was again in his arms.
* * *
The men came out at the start of the early morning shift. All of them, in both the ironworks and the mine. Apparently on the issue of a strike at least there were no dissenting voices.
Josiah Barnes brought the news to Glanrhyd Castle early, while Alex was still at breakfast. He abandoned his meal in order to join his agent in the study, knowing what the news would be but rather sorry that he could not have acted himself before the strike began.
“Barnes,” he said, closing the study door behind him, “I am glad you are here. I was about to send for you.”
“The news is not good,” Barnes said. “Everyone has come out on strike. Everything is shut down. If you went up to that meeting last night, you probably know about it, unless everyone spoke Welsh. You see the danger of allowing it to happen, sir? If you had stopped it and dismissed the leaders, we would not have this crisis on our hands.”
“I will not forget,” Alex said, “that you gave me that advice, Barnes. I will confirm the fact to the other owners that none of this is your fault.”
“It is not that I am blaming you,” Barnes said. “But if you will forgive me for saying so, sir, you do not have experience with this sort of situation. You are used to gentler living.”
“Quite so,” Alex said. “You are to put wages back up, Barnes, effective immediately. And you will send Owen Parry up here, if you please.”
Josiah Barnes gaped at him. “Put them up?” he said. “All the way up to last week’s level? Oh, no, sir. That is not the way to do it. You don’t crumble at the first hint of trouble. The men will hold you to ransom for the rest of your days if you do that.”
Alex raised his eyebrows. “To last week’s level?” he said. “No, Barnes. To the level they were at when I first came here. And that is the way I will do it.”
“You will be the laughingstock,” Barnes said, aghast. “You will never have control of your workers again, sir. Not to mention the trouble there will be in the other valleys if we put up wages here. We have to act together.”
“On the contrary,” Alex said. “We do not. Not when acting together is done for purposes of greed. I have discovered, Barnes, that my profits will be down if I raise wages, but that I would still be a wealthy man even if I had no other source of income. I have discovered that I am getting very wealthy indeed at the expense of hundreds of powerless men and women who can barely survive on what I allow them, and sometimes do not do so. Too many children die in this valley. Wages will be raised. Effective immediately.”
“It will not—” Barnes began.
“Mr. Barnes.” Alex’s voice cut into his agent’s sentence like a whip. “You are an excellent agent. When I need information or advice, I know I can consult you and listen to an expert. On this issue I need neither. You will do as I have directed. And send Parry to me.”
Josiah Barnes stood staring at him truculently for a few moments before turning on his heel and hurrying out.
Alex crossed the room and stood looking out of the window, waiting for Owen Parry. Perhaps he would ref
use to come. Perhaps being on strike would give him the courage to defy the summons to Glanrhyd Castle. But he needed to talk to the man, Alex thought, even if it meant going into the town himself to seek him out.
Barnes might be right. Quite possibly he was. It was perhaps the worst of all times to correct a long-standing injustice on the very first morning of a mass strike. Perhaps he would give the indelible impression of weakness and break down all discipline forever after. But he could not justify holding out against the strikers for the mere sake of proving his will to be stronger than theirs. He could not justify starving innocent children just in order that he not be despised as a weakling.
Wages had to go up. He had realized it a week ago but had meticulously plodded through every last detail of the business before making his decision, determined not to make the mistake of acting too soon and bringing disaster on all those to whom these works meant the difference between life and death. He had waited perhaps a little too long.
But perhaps not. Perhaps if he showed himself willing to take two steps toward his workers when they asked for only one, he could convince them that he was acting in good faith. Perhaps he could win their trust. Doing so had become even more important since the arrival of the early morning post. It seemed that the government was preparing for just such a demonstration as the men of the valleys were planning. Soldiers were being sent out to major towns to back up the authority of local constables and militia. Troublemakers were to be dealt with harshly.
He must persuade the men of Cwmbran not to march. And not to make weapons.
Siân was walking up the driveway. Was it only nine o’clock? he thought. It seemed as if the day must be half over already. She looked neat and businesslike as she always did and strode along with an almost manly stride that nevertheless succeeded in looking unmistakably feminine. She did not look like a woman who had spent most of the night up on the mountain making uninhibited and passionate love.
It did seem rather like a dream, he thought. Except that in his body he recognized the signs—satiety that could easily flame into renewed desire—that he had had a woman again after a long dearth. A beautiful, desirable woman who gave unstintingly.
