The Beloved One (22 page)

"Charles!"

"It is true.  Since the eighteenth of April, I have been pledged to Juliet, but do you know, Amy, how often my traitorous thoughts have turned to you instead of her while I lay awake — let alone asleep — in the middle of the night?  Do you know how I've longed for the sound of your voice, the touch of your hand, the cheerfulness of your spirit when mine could do nothing but dwell in the darkest depths of despair?"  He pressed his fingertips to his brow in a gesture of defeat and despair.  "No.  You cannot know.  And you cannot know how very frustrated I have been, at my inability to turn my thoughts, and the baser part of my nature, toward she whom I
should have
been thinking about, instead of you whom I was helpless to
stop
thinking about."

"That doesn't mean you were unfaithful.  Of course you'd be thinking about me.  I've been your eyes, your confidant, your closest friend for the past two months."

"Amy.  Dearest Amy.  Only I know the secrets of my heart.  And in my heart, I have been unfaithful, for I have thought of you as more than a friend."  He shut his eyes.  "Much more than a friend."

Amy, hearing the unbridled pain in his voice, swallowed tightly.  She wished she could make him realize that his thoughts were completely normal for a man in his situation, that he had done nothing wrong — nothing at all.  But Charles was not like other men, and as she sat gazing sadly down at him, her heart aching for him and the pain he put himself through, she began to understand just what he'd meant.  The rigid expectations he'd set for himself would allow him no happiness.

None at all.

Quietly, she took his hand and clasped it in her own, wishing there was a way to make him see that he was a far, far better man than he perceived himself to be.

"Amy, I want you to listen to me.  To be practical here.  You may, even as we speak, be carrying a child that will be a bastard if I do not wed you and give it its proper name.  Perhaps I, with both my physical and moral shortcomings, am not fit to marry you, perhaps I am repeating my previous mistake, but damn it, I cannot bear the thought of your raising a baby without a husband, a child without a father.  I cannot bear the thought that I have taken your virginity and left you a ruined woman.  And I cannot bear any more weight upon my conscience.  I swear, I cannot."

"But Charles, isn't that the same reason why you wanted to marry Juliet?  Because she, too, was with child?  It was a mistake then, Charles, and it would be a mistake now, because you're not sure you loved her, and we know that you do not love me!"

"Amy —"

"Besides that, it would never work because you're Quality, and I'm —"

"Don't say it," he warned, growing angry.

"Not Quality," she finished.  "You're the son of a duke, I'm the daughter of an Indian, and besides, I can't marry you anyhow because if I did, then there'd be no one here to take care of my family.  There'd be no one to watch over Sylvanus and make sure he had proper meals and clean clothing, no one to find his spectacles when he misplaces them, no one to help him with his sermons."

"Amy, your family does not appreciate you!  They do not appreciate you one iota as much as I would!"

"Charles, I can't do it!" she cried forlornly.  "It just wouldn't be right!"

She looked down at him.  He remained staring angrily up at her, his empty gaze directed toward a spot just over her right shoulder.

And then something happened that she would never forget.

His gaze shifted, found her face, and something in his eyes came suddenly into focus.

They remained staring at each other for a tense heartbeat of a moment.

"A-Amy?" he breathed.

"What is it?"

He had gone very still, but the focus in his blue, blue eyes was sharpening.  "I — I think — oh, dear God, I think I am beginning to see you."

Chapter 15

And see her he did.

Her image, and the rafters of the barn behind her, was shadowy.  The entire left half of his vision field was still in darkness, but the right half was there, fuzzy, a bit dim, but there, and by God, he could see her.

He could see her!

Slowly, as though touching it might destroy the image, he reached up and put trembling fingers to her forehead . . . her cheek . . . her nose . . . her lips.  The image did not go away.  It did not waver.  And as he stared in wonder and a sort of frozen disbelief, he saw the shyness and joy in the face that stared back at him.

A face that he was, after two long months, seeing for the very first time.

He saw a square jaw and high, prominent cheekbones that lent her a look of gauntness and strength; dark, velvety-brown eyes fringed by long black lashes; a shy and smiling mouth; full, dusky lips; and glossy hair the color of strong coffee, tightly braided and pinned in a coronet around her head.  She was beautiful, even if not in the conventional sense, striking, slightly exotic, with flawlessly smooth skin of a slightly bronzed tone, not unlike that of a sailor who's spent his life in the sun.

It was a lovely color.

A warm, toasted, caramel-color that made him want to put his lips to it and kiss her all over.

"Amy," he repeated, in a disbelieving whisper.  "I can see you."  He swallowed hard, and traced the shape of her mouth with his fingers.  "
I can see you.
"

And he could also see something else.  Mist in those huge, soft eyes — and a sort of awkwardness, if not fear, about his first visual impression of her.

"And just what is it you see, Charles?"

"I see a beautiful young woman — " he grinned — "garbed in the most singularly hideous gown imaginable."

"Oh, Charles," she cried, impulsively flinging her arms around him.  He embraced her in turn.  They remained like that, holding each other, both of them laughing and rejoicing and rocking back and forth in the straw.

"It was that damned horse!" he managed, setting her back to gaze into her rapt, mobile face.  "The blow must've done something, must've jarred something loose inside my head.  Don't you think?"

"Either that, or your sight was just plain destined to return anyhow.  Maybe God simply decided that the time had come for you to have it back again."

"So that I could see you!"

"So you could write your own letters!"

"So I could find my way without a cane!"

Laughing with joy, he hugged her once more, then set her back, trailing his finger down her cheek, the edge of her jaw.  Gently, he tipped her chin up so that her luminous gaze held his.  "And look into the eyes of the woman who has become my dearest and very best friend."

And look he did; then, before he even knew what he was about, he closed his eyes and kissed her.

Unlike the last time, when relief had made them both desperate with passion, this was a slow, exquisitely sweet kiss, a tender meeting of lips, a gentle wedding of souls.  His hand cradled the side of her face, holding her head close to his; his thumb caressed the hollow beneath one cheekbone and tested the dewy softness of her skin.  Her mouth yielded beneath his; her tongue shyly came out, touched and tasted his, allowed him to touch and taste in turn.  She tasted of sunshine, innocence and sweetness, smelled of bayberry and soap, and he lost himself in the kiss, the eager, but inexperienced feel of her lips beneath his, the way her hand went with shy uncertainty to his chest, and then his neck, gently curling around his nape and then sliding into the thick and shining waves of his hair.

Of its own accord, his hand drifted from her face and down her neck . . . down her bare collarbone . . . down over the lacy edge of her shift —

And froze.

What the bloody hell was he doing?

Charles jerked away.  "My dear Amy — I
beg
your forgiveness!" he said with controlled anger, getting to his feet and shoving the offending hand behind his back.

She was still sitting in the straw, her petticoats spread out around her, her face tilted up to him.  "Forgiveness for what, Charles?"

"Kissing you!"

She frowned, then she, too, got to her feet.  She took a step toward him then stopped.  As though she didn't know quite what to do with herself, she hugged herself, completely unaware that the motion only pushed against her breasts and made them swell all the more temptingly above her stays.  Charles felt his throat go dry and had to look away.

"I don't see a need for you to beg my forgiveness for doing something I enjoyed," she said, a bit defensively.

"Don't you?"  He shook his head and turned away, unable to look into those artlessly wide, innocently lovely, eyes any longer.  "I seem to demonstrate a remarkable inability to control myself when I am around you."

Needing to put distance between them, he walked a little distance away, grinding the heels of his hands into his eyes and trying to banish the memory of her sweet, trusting face.  When he finally took his hands away, blinking, he saw that she was still watching him.  He could see the compassion in her gaze, her quiet sympathy for his plight.  It was nearly his undoing.

He cursed beneath his breath and went to stand beside Contender, whose head hung over the stall door.

"Charles?"

He shut his eyes as though in pain.

"Chaaaahles?" she said again, laughter brimming in her voice as she mimicked his accent.

He sighed.  And then he turned, trying to be angry, knowing he could not be, steeling himself against all the feelings that came crashing over him just by looking at her.

This was the woman who had suffered through his surgery right along with him, who had pulled him back from the brink of death, and later, from the deepest pit of despair.  This was the woman who had helped him learn to cope with his limitations, who had always had respect and compassion for his dignity and pride, who had done all in her power to give him the independence he had needed.  She had stood by him when everyone else had deserted him, she had brought laughter and sunshine into the darkest days of his life, and now that he could see her he knew that his heart had no chance against the beauty that shone just as brightly on her outside as it did from within.

"Oh, Amy," he said, and shaking his head, he folded his arms, leaned back against the stall door, and looked down at her.

Just looked.

And Amy, smiling up at him, felt everything inside of her begin to melt as she gazed up into that clear, quietly observing stare.  He had the warmest eyes.  The warmest smile.  The warmest hands.  And, toward everyone but himself, the very warmest heart.

The Beloved One, indeed.

The power of her love for him nearly brought her to tears.

She sat there gazing up at him, growing a bit self-conscious beneath that keen stare.  "If you don't blink your eyes once in a while, you'll wear them out," she murmured, in a little voice.

"I shall never blink again," he said softly.  "I shall never sleep again.  After all these weeks of darkness, I shall never close my eyes again. 
Ever
."

He said that now, but in her heart Amy knew that his recovery was the beginning of the end of what they had together — whatever that was.  He was free, now.  Free to stay, free to go, free to do anything he pleased.  She didn't want to contemplate a life without him in it.  She could not bear the thought of saying goodbye to him.  But she was not so selfish as to chain him here, or to marry him just because he'd offered it, and that, only to satisfy his sense of honor and correct a wrong he thought he'd done her.  Men like Charles were not to be found in Newburyport.  He was priceless gold and he deserved to be amongst precious metals — not cheap tin and pewter.  He was something that Newburyport had never produced, would probably never see again, and he did not fit in here, would never fit in here.  She would not cry for what she had lost by the return of his sight.

Instead, she would enjoy what time she had left with him, and rejoice with him and for him.

Even if it broke her heart.

Affecting a cheer she did not feel, she pushed herself to her feet, took his hand, and tried to draw him away from the stall.  "Then why are you wasting your time gazing at
me
?  Come, Charles, let's go and put your restored sight to work."

"Amy, really, I —"

"Come, I want to show you everything!  Our shipyards, our churches, our streets and our people!  The grand houses on High Street, the Beacon Oak, the tide coming in, the marsh grasses swaying in the wind, the sea gulls, the sandpipers,
everything
!"

He smiled fondly.  "Everything?"

"Everything!  Why, let's put a saddle on Contender, and bring him for a gallop along Joppa Flats where we can watch the sun coming up and painting the water blue, the skies pink, the masts of all the ships in the river, gold!  Don't you want to see color, Charles?  Don't you want to see everything there is to see?  Hurry, let's go before it gets any later!"

Eagerly, she pulled him away from the stall.

"No," he said, with a rueful shake of his head, "I daresay I should like to walk, instead."

"Walk?"

"Yes."

"But, Charles!"

He raised his brows.  "Yes?"

"You haven't ridden him for over two months —"

"I know."

"Don't you
want
to ride him?"

He shrugged.  "Maybe tomorrow, Amy."  And then, offering his arm but no explanation for his strange behavior, he escorted her out of the barn, turning his back on the horse and ignoring the long, plaintive whinnies the animal gave as it watched them go.

~~~~

She had not pressed him about his reluctance to ride Contender, and though he knew she had probably guessed the truth, Charles did not bring the subject up, either.

The sounds of the stallion's distress as they'd left the barn had upset him more than he would admit, even to himself.  What was wrong with him that he didn't want to get up on the animal's back?  Why had he shunned something that he — a de Montforte! — had been doing since he was old enough to walk?  The de Montfortes were horse-mad.  It was in the blood.  And yet he had not wanted, had not been able to bring himself, to ride the horse who'd been his most loyal friend for the past decade.