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feel loved here. Here I will not be a fallen woman or my child a bastard. I cannot marry you, Gerald. I
would always be burdened by the knowledge that you had married me because of who I am and
because you had got me with child. And you would always be burdened by the knowledge that you had
been forced into something that you had never wanted in your life."
After all she did not want him. He had hoped. He had done more than hope. He had dreamed ever
since his realization of the truth at Severn Park a week before. Even more so since his visit to Kit's. He
had dreamed throughout his journey from London, picturing it all, the way it would be, himself the hero of
the dream.
He drew a package from an inner pocket of his coat and handed it to her.
"It took me almost a week to get this," he said. "It is not an easy thing for a mere baronet to do. But I
did it. I thought at last I would be able to use it."
She looked down at the special license he had put in her hands. He was that serious, then. The idea of
marrying her had not been a spur-of-the-moment thing. He had spent a week getting a special license.
The words on the paper blurred before her eyes for a moment.
"Gerald." She handed it back to him. "Thank you, dear. You have always been very good to me. But I
will not burden your life with a wife you have never intended to take. Come and visit our child if you
wish as often as you like. I hope you do. But we must not marry. I know you were fond of me. I would
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prefer to keep that, to be able to think that you will remain fond of me. Perhaps you can do something for
our child when he is older send him to school, perhaps. Or her."
"Priss." He stared at the license before taking it back and returning it to his pocket. "I want to marry you.
I asked you because I want it."
She shook her head.
"Well, then," he said. "There is no more to say, is there? I'll go back to London tomorrow. I'll return
when the baby is born. You will let me know?"
"Yes," she said.
He turned without another word, stumbling against the chair he had been sitting on earlier, and found his
way to the door. He was outside, with the door closed behind him, before the tears came. He strode off
to the cliffs rather than walk back along the street to the inn where he had put up and risk having to pass
someone.
And Priscilla, inside the cottage, sat back down on her chair, her hands resting on the swelling beneath
her bosom, staring at the kettle, which was humming on the fire again. Two cups of tea grew cold on the
table at her elbow.
Fool, she told herself. Fool.
Heaven had been within her grasp and she had rejected it. All of her most impossible dreams could have
come true. She could have been married the very next day. To Gerald.
And she had sent him away. Because he had asked for the wrong reasons. Noble reasons, perhaps. But
the wrong ones.
Fool. Fool. Fool.
And just a short while ago she had been so happy to see him. He had seemed to be a part of the
contentment that her life in the village and her advanced pregnancy had brought her. But a little more than
the contentment, too. He had been the missing something that held contentment back from being perfect
happiness.
Her lover had come to her again and she had been completely happy. She had not expected
permanence, only a brief visit. But then she had never expected permanence with Gerald. She would
have been contented with a few hours or perhaps even a few days of happiness. She could have returned
to her contentment afterward.
Yet, now she felt bereft. Empty, as she had felt the day she left him. Raw with the pain of loneliness and
loss.
The light of late afternoon turned to dusk in the room. But she continued to sit and stare into the dying
fire.
The lamp had been lit, the fire built again, the teacups cleared away and washed together with the dinner
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dishes. Priscilla had forced herself to eat. She sat down finally with her favorite book and read the sonnet
he had studied at school.
"Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?" she read. "Thou art more lovely and more temperate."
There was a knock on the door.
Who? she thought as she got slowly to her feet. Gerald? But she did not want him to come hack. It had
taken her a few hours to pull herself free of the dreadful lethargy that had kept her sitting in a darkened
room and staring into glowing ashes. Please let it be someone else, she prayed silently as she pulled back
the bolt and opened the door.
"Priss?" he said. His face looked haunted.
She found herself doing what she had always done when he came to her. She held out her hands for his.
"Gerald," she said. "Come in."
"I just thought of something," he said, coming inside and releasing her hands to close the door. "I was
sitting in my room at the inn when it struck me. I should have thought of it sooner. I never could think fast,
could I?"
"Gerald," she said. He was gazing at her with eager, anxious eyes. She reached up without thinking to
cup one of his cheeks in her hand.
He covered her hand with his. "It was because you weren't convinced, wasn't it?" he said. "You thought
it was just because I knew who you were and because of the baby. You did not quite believe it was
because I love you, did you?"
"You did not mention love, Gerald," she said. She brushed at the lapel of his coat with her free hand.
"I did," he said frowning. "I did, Priss. It is the only reason. I must have said it."
She shook her head.
"I can't live without you," he said. "I don't know how, Priss. I keep thinking to tell you something or ask
you something. Or I keep thinking to come to you with some problem or with a headache or a cold or [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]