at the end of a happy, busy day. With no other person calling Harry’s attention from me, with no other person frightening me with the prospect of a loss of love, I was able to sit and smile and dream. And I was free at last from need. I went to bed with a chaste, fraternal kiss on my forehead and wanted nothing more. I slept soundly that night with no ache of desire and no confusing dreams of longing. I was secure at last in his affection and undivided attention and that seemed to me then so much. It even, for that one magic, easy night, seemed enough.
The next day was so lovely we decided to make a holiday of it and we rode out together up to the downs. My mourning was at last reduced and I had ordered a pale grey riding habit which suited me well. The underskirt was a soft grey worsted and the smart little jacket was grey velvet. With a matching grey velvet cap on my head, I felt I could stay in second mourning for years. Nothing in bright colours could set off my figure better.
On the top of the downs the wind was stronger and bowled my cap away so Harry and I rode a race for it. He won. In truth I reined in and let him win, and he leaned low in his saddle and scooped it up on his riding crop. He cantered back to me and presented it with a flourish. I smiled with all my heart in my eyes.
The horses walked shoulder to shoulder on a long rein along the old drovers’ way across the top of the downs and we looked south to glimpse the sea. Larks struggled up and up and up, singing out their achievement, then closed their tiny wings and plummeted to the earth. In the woods a pair of cuckoos called amorously, irresponsibly, to each other, and everywhere there was the lazy rasp-rasp of grasshoppers and the whirring drone of bees.
I was alone on my land with the man I needed, and he had eyes only for me. Today Harry was nobody’s son and nobody’s fiancé. He was alone with me and my jealous, hungry heart could be still, knowing that all day and all evening we should see no one else. No one would come into the rooms when I was longing to be alone with him. His head would lift and his eyes would smile for no one but me.
The horses rubbed shoulders as they walked, and we talked together of Harry’s latest book about farming and my comments on what might work and what would not. We spoke of the house and of the changes that would come in October. Then, without prompting, Harry spoke of Celia.
‘She is so pure, Beatrice, so innocent. I respect her so much,’ he began. ‘A man would be a brute indeed to try to force her in any way. She is like a beautiful piece of Dresden china. Don’t you think so?’
‘Oh, yes,’ I said with ready sympathy. ‘She’s as beautiful as an angel and so sweet. A little shy perhaps?’ I let my voice make a gentle question of the statement.
‘And nervous,’ Harry agreed. ‘With that brute of a stepfather she can have no idea of what a loving marriage can be.’
‘Such a shame,’ I said carefully. ‘Such a shame that such a lovely girl, that your future wife, should be so cool.’
Harry looked quickly at me, his blue eyes piercing.
‘It’s what I fear,’ he said frankly. The horses ambled into a sheltered little dell and stopped to crop the springy downs turf. At our backs the ground rose steeply and below us a hazel coppice shielded us from the north. Sitting there we were screened from everyone and yet could see half of England looking west. Harry jumped down from the saddle and tied his horse. I made no move, but sat idly in the saddle and let my horse graze on a loosened rein.
There was a singing in my ears as sweet and insistent as the lark, and I knew it was the magic of Wideacre and the hum of the spinning wheel spinning the thread of our lives together.
‘You are a man of strong passions,’ I said.
Harry’s profile, as he stood at my horse’s head and looked away from me over our land, was as clear and as strong as a Greek statue. My body ached for him, but I kept my voice steady and low.
‘I can’t help it,’ he said and his cheeks flushed red under the golden colour of his skin.
‘I understand,’ I said. ‘It is the same for me. It is in our blood, I think.’
Harry turned quickly to look at me. I was sweating with nervousness like a mare put to the stallion. I could feel the grey gown damp under my arms. But my face was calm and clear.
‘A lady can be a perfect lady,’ I said. ‘Her public behaviour can be meticulous, and yet she can feel desire when she loves and when she has chosen well.’
Harry was staring at me. I could find no words to go on. I merely looked back at him with my passion and longing written all over my face certain that he would see the truth of what was between us.
‘You have a fiancé?’ he asked in amazement.
‘No!’ I exploded. ‘And I never wish to have one!’
I sprang from the saddle and reached out my arms to him. He caught me as I slid down and I grasped the lapels of his coat and nearly wept in anger and frustration.
‘Oh, Harry!’ I said, and my voice broke on a sob and then I could not stop crying. The ache in my heart was too strong, the singing in my ears was deafening. ‘Oh, Harry! Oh, Harry, my love!’
He froze as if my words had turned him to stone. But I could not stop weeping. I was ruined and he would never love me, but I could not contain myself. I had watched and waited for his touch so long that now his arms were around me I could not play the pretty maiden like Celia. I could not stop myself from clinging to his jacket as if I were drowning. I banged my forehead against the muscled strength of his chest and moaned aloud. He still did not move, but his arms around my waist were as tight as a vice. My sobs quietened and I bit my cheeks to force myself to silence. Slowly, painfully, I pulled a little away from him and raised my eyes to see his face.
Harry’s eyes were dark with desire and his heart under my hands was thudding. His mouth was trembling, just slightly, and he gazed into my face as if he would eat me alive.
‘It is a sin,’ he said in a low voice.
The world was spinning around me. I could hardly hear him; I could hardly find words to reply to him.
‘It is not,’ I said immediately. ‘It is not, Harry. It is right. You can feel it is right. It is no sin. It is no sin. It is not.’
His head came down to me and my eyes half shut in expectation of his kiss. He was so close I could feel his breath on my face and I opened my mouth and breathed in the air from his mouth in a little shudder of longing. But still he would not kiss me.
‘It is a sin,’ he said softly.
‘Worse sin to be married for ever to a woman who is as cold as ice,’ I murmured. ‘Worse to live with a wife who cannot love you, who does not know how to love, while I wear out my days in yearning for you. Oh, pity me, Harry! If you cannot love me, then pity me.’
‘I can love you,’ he contradicted me, his voice a husky rumble. ‘Oh, Beatrice, if you knew! But it is a sin.’
He was holding on to those four words as a talisman to keep his lovely head from coming down that fraction lower to crush his mouth on mine. I could feel his body was taut with desire and yet he had himself under control. He loved me, he desired me, and yet he would not touch me. I could bear his closeness and the half-inch between our mouths no more. I lunged up to him and bit him, as hard as I could, on his teasing, tormenting mouth. My riding whip was still looped on my wrist and I slid my hand from
