To Love and to Cherish (23 page)

“Why?”

“Because he wasn’t you. I didn’t love him enough. There won’t ever be anyone for me except you.”

They reached for each other and held on tight for a long, wordless embrace. Christy’s heart felt swollen. Love and gratitude streamed through him, and a profound humility. “I’m blessed,” he said, and Anne whispered back, “I
feel
blessed.” He thought that was a fine start.

She pulled away, dashing a hand at her shiny eyes. “I’ve not quite finished the whole sordid story. And—” she gave a forced laugh “—believe it or not, it gets much worse.”

He shifted onto his side and put his arm across her lap. “Tell me.”

“Geoffrey came back, after being away for more than two years. He looked—I can’t describe to you how much he’d changed. He’d been in Burma, he said, where he’d contracted malaria. He’d lost his
hair
, he—looked like an old man, his speech was slurred, he had lumps and swellings all over his body.” She closed her eyes, as if to block out the memory, then opened them again quickly, as if that hadn’t worked. “I didn’t like his doctor, I thought he was a quack, but we couldn’t afford anyone better. The drugs he took only made him sicker. I truly thought he was dying. It went on for months.

“But—gradually he started to get better. When he was out of bed and almost normal again, the doctor, the—
quack
I didn’t trust and couldn’t stand, told me something Geoffrey had made him promise never to tell Something that probably saved my life.”

A premonition chilled Christy; in its aftermath he wondered why he hadn’t guessed the truth before now. He didn’t move or speak. He knew exactly what she was going to say.

“Geoffrey didn’t have malaria. Why he lied, or how much longer he’d have kept lying—I don’t even want to know. What he had was syphilis. There was no telling exactly when he’d gotten it, but since I wasn’t infected, and since it had already progressed well into the second stage, the doctor concluded it must’ve been very soon after he went away.”

Christy pulled her closer. “Sweetheart,” was all he could think of to say.

“I found out why the medicine was making him as sick as the disease—sicker. He was taking chloride of mercury.”

“My God.”

“There was nothing else that would work, the doctor said, and it did seem to be helping; most of his symptoms went away and he swore he was cured. He even found another war to fight, someplace in India this time. But then he fell ill again, and they said it was mercury poisoning. And his disease came back—he wasn’t cured at all. That’s when he gave up his captaincy and came home for good. Or so I thought.”

“So when you first came to Wyckerley—”

“He’d recovered again, to some extent; he was as healthy during the months you saw him as he’d been since he first fell ill. Once again, he said he was cured. He was taking a different medication, iodine of potassium, and it seemed to be doing him good. Perhaps he was cured, I don’t know. Now we’ll never know.”

She leaned forward and put her head down, next to his, and spoke softly against his temple. “The second time he came home, Christy, it was absolute hell. You can’t imagine—I don’t even want you to know, not all of it. I’ve already told you about the violence—some of it. Enough. It was the drinking as much as the sickness that made him act like a madman sometimes. I’ve never seen anyone suffer as he did, physically, of course, but even more from despair. Just utter hopelessness. Soldiering was his life, and he couldn’t do it anymore. He couldn’t control himself, and his erratic behavior had thinned his circle of acquaintances until he was down to rotters like Claude Sully. I think he could see himself decaying, literally decaying, piece by piece, falling apart. The pox was—
racing
through him. It can go fast or slow—I’ve become something of an expert on it, as you can imagine—and Geoffrey’s case was one of the quick kind. If he’d lived, I don’t know what would’ve become of him. I doubt that he was cured. How they could have let him back in the army is a mystery I’ll never understand.”

They lay quiet for a time, softly touching, listening to the fire in the grate. Finally Christy said, “I don’t know what I could’ve done or what I could’ve said. Nothing, probably. But I wish you had told me. Or he had. I just wish I’d known.”

“I couldn’t have told you then.”

“No, I don’t blame you.”

“But you’re right—it would’ve been better if you’d known. Geoffrey loved you, Christy, in his way.”

“Do you think he did?”

“I know it. And I don’t know what you could’ve said or done either, but I think you might’ve helped him. It was such a dreadful secret, and I was such an unsatisfactory confidante. You would never ask, and so I must tell you that we were never intimate again after our short-lived wedding trip. And—he wanted me. But I—couldn’t—give him anything. My body was the least of it. I couldn’t give him
anything
of myself, there was no love in me. I was his reluctant nurse, nothing more, and the bitterness between us was an absolute nightmare; And I could add guilt to my nightmare because . . .” She took a deep breath. Tears welled in her eyes, and she said on a near-sob, “Because at the end, I think he loved me. Oh, God.” Christy gathered her up, and she wept against his chest as if her heart were breaking. “I think he did—he never said, but I think so—oh, Christy—”

“Shh,” he soothed her, holding tight, rocking her a little.

After a time, she grew calmer; she stopped crying, and used his handkerchief to wipe her cheeks. “I’ve never admitted that, even to myself, until this minute. I must’ve been trying not to believe it. It makes everything worse.”

“No, Anne, it doesn’t. If Geoffrey’s life at the end was hellish, then loving you must’ve been the only good thing left for him. How can that be anything but a blessing? It might’ve been a desperate love, maybe even twisted, but because it was love, it must have been gentle and good-hearted as well. You can be grateful for that. And glad for Geoffrey, not heartsick.”

She turned in his arms to embrace him. “I love you, Christy,” she said, and the tears were back—he could hear them in her voice when she hid her face in his neck. But her open mouth felt hot on his skin, and her hands were making short work of the buttons down the front of the shirt she wore. “Make love to me.” Bare-breasted, she yanked at the belt of his dressing gown and dragged the cloth away, then lay down on top of him. Searing heat flared in him, and he resigned himself to the knowledge that passion between them was going to be unpredictable and out of his control.
God help me
, he prayed automatically, but it wasn’t sincere: He didn’t want help. All he wanted was Anne.

She put his hands on her breasts. He kissed her while he fondled her, her body arched over him like a bow, but he had to stop when she began the soft, slow squeeze of her thighs around his rock-hard erection. “God!” he ground out through his teeth, and she threw her head back and laughed with lusty, uninhibited gladness. The sound freed him from the last restraint, and he reached for her, wanting to hold her against his heart, overcome with love.

But she glided out of his grasp. Sliding down his body, she made a curtain of her hair and caressed him with it, softly, back and forth, brushing his skin like cool silk scarves. Bent over him, she slipped her hands under his buttocks. The tantalizing hair-caress became more intimate, immeasurably more exciting, and now it was her lips and her cheeks she was nuzzling him with, humming softly with her own pleasure. He made a strangled sound when he felt her tongue circle the sensitive tip of his penis. She took him into her mouth, and he made a grab for her knees, his body jerking in stunned reaction. “Anne,” he groaned. “Oh, Jesus—Anne—”

She lifted her face; her eyes were shining with love and the thrill of power. “It’s not wrong,” she whispered. “Do you think this is wrong?” All he could do was shake his head. She laughed her sweet, purifying laugh again, and this time he laughed with her. She made a soft, slick-walled tunnel with her hands, and pleasured him with it until he couldn’t take any more.

Sitting up, he lifted her so that she was kneeling, straddling his hips. They kissed while she guided him into the warm cleft between her legs. Her surprised gasp fired him; he wanted to take her even higher, make her wild. Pulling her head back, he trailed kisses down her neck to her breasts, and thrust deep, deep inside her while he grazed his teeth across her hard little nipples, making her cry out. She felt like liquid flame in his arms, pliant and fiery, nurturing and consuming.

Holding tight, he tumbled her backward without losing their intimate joining. The edge neared. He set his teeth and slowed his rhythmic pumping, grinding himself against her. He murmured her name as he kissed her again and again, losing himself in sensation, blind and aching, so close to bursting. And then her sweat-sleek thighs slowly clamped around him. Her head fell back. Like a starving man, he feasted his eyes on the face of his beloved while she climaxed. She made no sound except for a low grinding in the back of her throat, but her lips thinned in a pained-looking grimace and her head twisted fitfully on the pillow. To give her pleasure this intense felt like a miracle; he’d have thanked God for it then and there—but the deep, gentle pursing of feminine flesh around him banished every thought that wasn’t carnal. Crushing her to his chest, he pulsed into her in time to her slow, deceptively patient rhythm, groaning, trying not to hurt her, unable to stop until he was drained and empty.

When it was over, he couldn’t speak at first, only hold her. Her eyes were closed. The tears on her lashes didn’t surprise him; nothing so intense as that had ever happened to him, either. “My love,” he was finally able to say. “Beautiful Anne, I love you.”

“I love you,” she whispered. “Oh, Christy, so much. So much. It frightens me.”

“Why, darling?”

“Because I can’t think of anything but God that could make me feel like this. It’s not natural.” She heaved a deep, tragic sigh. “I might have to convert.”

***

“I feel so guilty.”

Anne stopped beside the banks of the Wyck, in the shadows cast by the bare alder branches in the graying dawn. Hoarfrost glimmered on the sere winter grass, and over the river a milk-white mist curled. Christy lifted one heavy wing of his greatcoat and folded her inside it, pulling her next to the warmth of his body. “Why, love?” he asked.

“Because you have to go home now and worry all morning about Mrs. Weedie, then ride to Mare’s Head and do whatever it is you have to do there—”

“Meet with the deacon.”

“Meet with the deacon—while I’m going to tell Mrs. Fruit my headache is worse, not better, and then go to bed and sleep all day long.” She barely stifled a yawn against his chest; she was drooping with fatigue. “Poor, poor Christy.”

He chuckled, kissing her temple and giving her a squeeze. “I don’t mind. How will you get inside, Anne, without being seen?”

“I left the front door unlocked. I’ll just walk in and go upstairs to my room. No one will see me, and if they do, I’ll say I’ve been out for a walk.”

“At half past five in the morning?”

“They may not believe me,” she conceded. “But they’d never in a million years guess what I have been doing.” She laughed, but he didn’t join in. She found his hand and held it. “You hate this, don’t you? All the secrecy and the lies.”

“It’s not what I’d have chosen.”

She decided to shock him with the truth. “I can’t help it—I
do
like it. It makes me feel alive.” He smiled at her, but a bit wanly. “I know you wouldn’t have chosen this way, and it makes me love you all the more because you did choose it, for my sake. Christy,
please
don’t be sorry.”

“Don’t worry about me.”

He’d said that before. She touched his cheek with her gloved fingertips. “You’re not going to suffer now, are you? To—to
atone
for what we did?”

He took her hand and kissed the palm through her glove. “Sweet Anne,” he murmured. “It’s possible that you can’t have everything.”

“You mean I can’t have you,
and
have you without your guilty conscience.” He only smiled. “But if God is truly loving, why would he mind what we did? Whom did we hurt?” He didn’t answer, and she knew it was hopeless: he was going to worry and think and ponder over everything no matter what she said. Which was another reason she loved him so much. She sighed. “You won’t stop caring for me, will you?”

“You know the answer to that.”

“And we can still be together, can’t we? You’ll come to me, won’t you, Christy? In the old caretaker’s cottage? I’ll make up some excuse for why I want it aired out, the fireplace cleaned and so on. I don’t know why I’ll say I want fresh linens and blankets on the bed, though. But leave all that to me,” she assured him hastily, seeing that the subject was making him uncomfortable. If subterfuge and little white lies were sins, she would gladly take them on for him, and suffer any consequences Christy’s God might have in store for her.

“Well,” she said on another sigh. “I guess I’d better go in now.” But she didn’t move, and he didn’t let go of her. She whispered against his throat, “I love you. Please don’t have so many second thoughts.”

His arms around her tightened. “I’ve told you, you mustn’t worry about me. I’ll find my way.”

“But—”

“You make me happy, Anne, not unhappy.”

She closed her eyes in relief. That had been her only worry. He’d gone to the heart of it, and now everything was perfect.

Except that they had to say good-bye. “Kiss me,” she begged, standing on tiptoe. “Make it last.”

He did his best, but she was already missing him a second after he let her go. “I know what ‘sweet sorrow’ means now,” he told her with a sad smile and a last caress.

She stepped out of his arms and moved reluctantly toward the bridge. There she turned, just to look at him again. “Write me a poem,” she called softly, on an impulse. “Leave it in our place.”

He cocked his head, judging her seriousness; he was suspicious of what she thought of his poetry, although she’d never told him. “What about?”

She held out her arms, telling him that was obvious. “About sweet sorrow!”