Unrequited Love

by Rebecca King

  Sian physically shook with indignation and felt sick with the force of emotion that coursed through her, but she daren’t slow her pace. She daren’t look back or retrace her steps so she could return home and lambast her father for his autocratic behaviour.

  “Why shouldn’t I?” Sian ground out through clenched teeth. Without further ado, she spied a gate in a field to her right and decided to use it.

  “Where do you think you are going? You are behaving like a heathen,” Wilhelmina spat indignantly. “Don’t think I won’t inform your father about your childish outburst.”

  “Think what you like, I don’t care,” Sian replied off-handedly. She climbed the gate and jumped into the field before leaving the pair of them far behind.

  “Sian! I demand you come back here at once, do you hear? At once!” Wilhelmina screeched.

  “If I could keep walking and not stop until I was far away from all of them I would. I would walk to the ends of the earth to get away from them if I could. The whole house is going downhill and there isn’t a damned thing I can do about it. I don’t want to be a part of it anymore,” she whispered miserably.

  In fact, it was difficult to remember a time in her life when she had felt so helpless and pessimistic about her future. She wasn’t at all sure what she should say to her father. In her mind, she tried to think over her argument very carefully, but it was difficult when she was battling with the pain and hurt caused by Ryan’s behaviour.

  She was breathless, windswept, and furious by the time she reached home. Slamming into the house, Sian threw the basket she clutched into the corner of the hallway and stormed toward her father’s study.

  “Sian?” Her mother appeared in the doorway to the parlour.

  Sian didn’t even look at her mother. She stalked into her father’s study and slammed her fists onto her father’s desk before piercing him with a hard look.

  “Is it true?” she hissed.

  “Sian?” Her father barely looked up. He was frantically dabbing the ink he had spilt when the banging of the door had made him jump. “What in the Devil’s the matter?”

  “Tell me!” Sian shouted. “Is it true?”

  Arthur froze. “What? Is what true?”

  “Have you sold me to that harridan and that slimy little fop, Cedrick?”

  “Sold you?” Arthur gasped.

  “Tell me, father. I want the truth of it. Now.”

  Arthur paled. He stared at her as if he had never seen her before in his life. His mouth opened and closed.

  Sian knew that he had at least discussed it with Wilhelmina, if not Cedrick as well.

  Had Cedrick been telling the truth when he had told her it had all been arranged with her father this morning?

  “God, you are reprehensible,” Sian spat in disgust. “I have never been as disgusted with anybody in my life as much as I am with you right now. You sicken me.”

  “Now, Sian.”

  “That witch turns up at this house in the middle of the night, puts demands on everybody, and then orders you to force me into marriage to that – that – oaf, and you just sit there limply and agree? How could you, father? How could you sell me? Does this family mean nothing to you?”

  “That is enough!” Her father bellowed.

  But Sian was not going to be silenced. “No. It is not enough. It is never going to be enough. I am sick of being quiet in this house. I am sick of everybody tiptoeing around you while you sit in here keeping everything to yourself, stubbornly refusing to tell anybody what trouble this family are in. Do you not consider that whatever has gone wrong involves all of us? Have you not bothered to consider that if you fail to sort out this family’s finances, we are all going to be out on our ears? Or do you expect to live off the riches selling your daughters will bring you; you and that spiteful, rude, ungracious sister of yours, and I am going to call her that because she shall never be worthy of being my aunt.”

  “I said that is enough!” Arthur slammed a fist down on the table.

  Sian folded her arms but refused to do as he told her. “Do you know something? I am sick of being a biddable daughter. I have done everything you have ever asked of me, when you have asked it of me. I have been quiet whenever you have told me to be, and for far too long. What has it earnt me? You don’t respect me. To you, I am nothing more than a commodity to be sold off to the highest bidder. I have kept my mouth shut and fretted and worried with your wife and my sisters, while we all sit and wonder if we are going to have a home to live in at the end of the year. You, meanwhile, have done everything possible to behave like a draconian workhouse master. Sit here, do that, talk to this person, go there, say something, don’t speak. All orders, all commands, to your army of servants here to do your bidding while you fritter away the family finances pretending you are going to improve things eventually, all the while that witch of a sister of yours takes every penny you own.”

  “You have no idea what you are talking about,” Arthur growled. “I am not having any more of this, Sian. Get to your room.”

  “Oh, so I am old enough to be married off but have to be treated like a child whenever I say something you don’t like to hear? God, you hypocrite. Well, guess what, father? You cannot and will not have everything your own way, no matter what you think. I am an adult now. I am a fully fledged grown up and it is about time you realised that. If you think for a second that I am going to allow you to use me to bail you out of the mess you have arrogantly gotten yourself into and let you sell me to Cedrick then you can think again. I can promise you this much, father, I shall ruin you before you succeed.”

  Arthur, who had paled significantly during her outburst, slumped down into the chair behind his desk. He stared at her for a moment, completely dazed, before his gaze fell to the desk before him.

  “You don’t understand,” he began.

  “Oh, I know an arrogant oaf when I see one,” Sian hissed. “And before you ever make any arrangements for me to marry anybody, remember that you may lead a horse to water but you shall never force it to drink. Make whatever plans you like but you will have to marry Cedrick yourself because I never shall.”

  “You will do as you are told,” Arthur snapped.

  “That’s enough,” Mabel ordered from the doorway. “She has said no, so take that as her answer. No, Arthur, and that is the end of it. You are behaving like a monster. Shut up and sit down.”

  But Sian wasn’t done yet. She rounded on Mabel. “Your problem, mother, is that you always think that everything is enough. There is enough food when there quite clearly isn’t. There is enough living, thinking, breathing, regardless of the fact we live in this house nothing more than mere shadows of what we used to be. Nobody dares to laugh anymore in case we disturb him. Nobody dares voice an opinion in case he objects. Nobody dares speak out of turn unless we get told off for having a voice. There is enough of a marriage, when you two barely speak to each other and when you do you bicker like children.”

  “What would you know about marriage?” Mabel snapped.

  “I know that I see two people who do everything possible to avoid each other. I have seen the looks you two give each other. It is as if you really don’t like each other very much anymore. After last night, I warn you both that you cannot even begin to pretend that everything is all right. We all heard you two arguing. I think the entire county heard you. We know this family is in dire financial straits. We all heard you discussing marrying us off to help your finances. How much worse do you want things to get before this family destroys itself? Do either of you care?”

  “I refuse to be sold either,” Lucinda cried from the doorway. “I won’t do it.”

  “Me neither.”

  Sian closed her eyes when she heard Martha behind her. She didn’t need to look over her shoulder to know that they were crying. Their tears were evident in their voices.

  “God, how could you even consider being so cruel? Does our happiness not count for anything to you? You are miserable, that much is
quite clear. So why would you want to subject us – your daughters – to an equally loveless marriage that will make us just as miserable as you?”

  Arthur’s gaze slid to his wife, who stood quietly beside the door. She was pale and drawn but made no objection to Sian’s statement. It was clear that theirs was indeed a loveless marriage.

  “Well, you might be prepared to do it, but I shall not allow you to condemn me to the same Fate, no matter what either of you think. You might feel arrogant enough to make your business deals while you sell us to the highest bidder. You can even put an advertisement boasting of your success in the newspapers. You can blast it to the entire country if you want to. You can book the wedding, invite the congregation, and make your monetary transactions as you sell me off like chattel, but I can promise you this, father, I shall never marry. I shall never say those words at that fateful moment, and I don’t care if you end up looking like the worst fool in Christendom.”

  Sian’s voice was so clipped and forced that she didn’t sound like her even to herself. She physically shook with the ferocity of her statement and was struggling so hard to keep her tears at bay that she didn’t see anybody behind her when she whirled around to leave. Consequently, she slammed into Ryan with an ‘oomph’ of surprise.

  At some point during her statement, he had entered the house because nobody had heard him knocking. He had heard every emotion-filled word Sian had just said. Sian, painfully aware of the warmth of Ryan’s palms, looked deeply into Ryan’s eyes. This was the closest she had ever been to him. It was a dream and a nightmare. It was wonderful, but heart breaking at the same time. Sian stepped back not least because of the blossoming pain that spread outward from the centre of her chest and overwhelmed her. After the last few moments, she knew that her future lay in tatters. She suspected that she was going to end up miserable no matter what happened. Ryan didn’t want her, and she was now even more likely to be forced into marriage if only so her husband could be a ‘steadying force’ that would ensure she adhered to stringent rules that suffocated her freedom. Sian suspected she knew who her future husband was, and it wasn’t the man she loved.

  Everything is so hopeless, so what is the point?

  Sian doubted she would ever be able to make decisions of her own, have a life of her own, or even future happiness. If she was lucky, her father would find her a suitor she could at least survive with but still, she would be sold to someone she really didn’t like very much. The thought of what came next was enough to make her want to wail at Fate for being so cruel.

  Before her, right before her, mere inches away, was everything she had ever wanted in life. The man of her dreams: Ryan Terrell.

  “What is there to lose?” she whispered.

  Ryan frowned because he was more concerned than ever now. The desolation he saw in her face was horrifying and made him angrier at Arthur than he ever believed he could be. But, before he could say anything, for the first time in his entire adult life Ryan was rendered speechless.

  While everything within her was screaming at her not to do it, a hidden wayward part of Sian wanted to know what it would be like to kiss him. The worst she could do was embarrass herself, but that couldn’t make her situation any worse, not given how much everyone else had embarrassed her in front of him today. Ryan’s opinion of her couldn’t be made any worse. He already thought she was betrothed to someone else. Without giving herself time to think, Sian shoved all her doubts aside and placed firm hands on either side of his head. Tugging his unresisting head toward hers, Sian stood on tiptoe and pressed a bold kiss to Ryan’s lips that was driven by all the frustrated adoration she had felt since the dawn of her maturity.

  The second her lips touched his, though, she realised she had made a colossal mistake because she was captivated, ensnared, trapped, and didn’t want to step back again. His hands instinctively lifted to her waist to steady her, or hold her closer, she couldn’t be sure which. She couldn’t think beyond the coolness of his lips - until the unmoving way they held firm against her began to break through her tumultuous emotions.

  It was only when he didn’t offer any response, that Sian knew she had no chance of ever getting Ryan to see her as a potential mate. Thoroughly humiliated, she released him, stepped back and barged past him. Without stopping, she raced through the house and straight out of the back door.

  “I am so sorry about that,” Arthur growled as he rounded his desk to stand before Ryan. “I don’t know what in the blazes has gotten into her.”

  Ryan opened his mouth to assure the man that it was fine, but it wasn’t. He shook his head and ran a hand through his hair.

  “We will go and find her,” Martha and Lucinda offered.

  “No. With your permission, Arthur, I think I should go,” Ryan interrupted.

  Arthur froze. “I don’t think that is at all wise, do you? Sian is being a little wayward right now.”

  “She is a little too old to be wayward, don’t you think?” Ryan snapped. “She is not a child anymore. You cannot order her about as if she was five years old and still in the nursery. I warn you now that if she is betrothed to Cedrick, you are going to lose her, and not to matrimony.”

  “I didn’t realise that she had discussed it with you,” Arthur began awkwardly, a little unfamiliar with discussing the family’s intimate affairs with the neighbour.

  “I was brazenly told by that sister of yours that she had arranged for Sian to be engaged to that friend of hers, Cedrick, and in the middle of the street, no less. Arthur, what were you thinking?” Ryan demanded. “Do you not want to repair your problems?”

  “Of course.”

  “Then don’t say another damned word about marriage, to Wilhelmina or Cedrick, or anybody else for that matter, especially Sian.” It wasn’t a request.

  “I have to do something.”

  “You are, and it won’t require you to sell anybody. For God’s sakes man, I thought you were reputable.”

  “I am,” Arthur replied, looking horrified that Ryan might think otherwise.

  “Then don’t be so draconian. Stay here,” Ryan sighed. “I will go and see if I can find her.”

  Leaving a stunned silence in his wake, Ryan turned to go. He was angry, with Wilhelmina and Cedrick, Arthur, and Sian, especially Sian. Having her take control in the middle of her father’s study with her family watching was not how he had envisioned their first kiss to be. He was furious, not least because he didn’t want her to view him as some sort of alternative to matrimony. Ryan had no idea what had compelled her to do what she had but didn’t want to think about it too much. He wasn’t at all sure what he would do if he didn’t like the answer he came up with. What he did know was that he had to do everything possible to ensure that this ridiculous business about Sian being married to Cedrick, of all people, stopped instantly.

  “Let me just ask you, Arthur. How bad is it?” Ryan demanded, not least because the shares Arthur owned in his father’s mill were at stake.

  Arthur looked at the women gathered in the doorway. He motioned for them to go by waving his hand.

  “God, you never listen, do you?” Mabel threw him a dour look before she ushered the girls out of the door. Rather than follow them as she would ordinarily have done, she remained in the room. “I demand to know.”

  Arthur studied the woman he had been married to for the better part of five and twenty years. Theirs was a co-habitation rather than a marriage, but he didn’t say as much in front of Ryan.

  “I am going to have to sell my shares in the mill,” he admitted, as if the words were being wrenched out of him.

  Ryan nodded. “Father will buy them, or I will.”

  “You don’t understand,” Arthur whispered. He was humiliated, not least because pride refused to allow him to openly admit to how wrong he had been with practically all the decisions he had ever made. “I wonder if I am capable of deciding anything anymore.”

  “What’s gone wrong?”

  Arthur looked up. He ha
d known Ryan all his life and had watched the young boy grow up to be a fine upstanding gentleman of means any father would be proud of. He knew he could trust Ryan with his life, but still something stopped him from taking him into his confidence.

  “Nobody can help you if you don’t tell people what’s wrong,” Ryan warned. “This can be sorted out, Arthur. Tell me, is the bailiff about to call?”

  Ryan half expected the man to keep denying the problem was that bad. Instead, Arthur looked almost saddened. “He will if I cannot clear the latest round of bills.”

  “Oh, God no,” Mabel whispered, slumping in disbelief into the chair closest to the door.

  “You need to sell the shares to pay the bills.” It wasn’t a question. “How much do you intend to make from them?”

  Arthur named a sum that was a fair price, if a little under their true value.

  “What do you intend to live off then? How much do you owe?” Ryan squinted when Arthur slowly opened the top drawer to his right and removed a sheaf of papers that was shockingly thick. He threw them onto the desk and leaned back in his seat. Ryan, at Arthur’s nod, picked them up and rifled through them. “Why are these for shops in London? Do you not shop locally?”

  “London?” Mabel picked the papers up when Ryan dropped them back onto the desk and rifled through the papers herself. “These are Wilhelmina’s bills.”