Page 75 of The Seductive Love of a Lady
After three dances, Andrew leant and whispered in her ear, ‘I have had my fill of playing happy families, Mary, darling. Do you mind if we go outside?’
‘Of course not.’
They escaped through a French door that stood ajar to cool the room. The evening air outside was tepid but not cold, and a full moon hung in the sky illuminating everything.
She walked backwards towards the terrace’s balustrade as he withdrew a cigar and a match from his coat pocket.
‘The night is lovely, the stars are beautiful.’
‘You are lovelier,’ he answered.
She leaned her bottom against the balustrade. ‘Idle flattery will earn you nothing.’
‘So you said when I sent you that damn poetry.’ He struck the match on the stone, and lifted the flame to the cigar’s tip, illuminating his face. She had quite liked him with his beard earlier, his handsomeness was always borne of rugged masculinity.
He shook the flame out and tossed the match away. ‘Poor Peter put so much effort into those words. They were mostly his. If you would ever like prose, tell me and I will call on Peter. I have asked him to be godfather, by the way. I hope you do not mind.’
He rested his buttocks on the balustrade, one hand on the stone, the other holding his cigar.
‘I do not mind.’ In the moonlight, beneath the stars, their story felt a little like a fairy tale, only she had not fallen for a prince. If it was a fairy tale, it was beauty and the beast.
‘Are you surviving?’ she asked him.
‘Your family?’ A low, deep, mocking sound slipped from his throat. ‘Yes, they are a little overpowering when one is not used to them. Though, I surprise myself at times, I think I am coping admirably. I surprised myself when I wrote out those letters too. I thought I could not write sweet nothings, but when I sat down and rewrote what they scribbled half drunk, the emotions flowed into my words.’
She frowned. ‘Your words? Your friends wrote them.’
‘The last paragraph of the second letter was my own, and the letters thereafter.’ He gave her a self-deprecating smile.
“‘My Mary, you are, you know, mine. You always will be,’” she quoted.
His lips twitched, a smile hovering but not forming.
“‘You and I are meant to be one, half to become whole. Put us together, make us one, a single being. I want you,’”she progressed as he sucked on the cigar and blew the smoke upwards, away from her.
Mary’s heart thumped hard against her ribs.“‘You and I are meant to be one, hand and glove, half and whole. Put us together, darling, make us one, a single being…”Were they your words?’
A frown creased the skin of his forehead. ‘Yes, probably, I do not remember them in that much detail. But I sat down that morning and they came spilling out of me. I did not want to lose you.’
She had read those words again and again in the last few days. Even though she had believed they were not his, she had clung on to the sentiment in them.“‘I cannot say I love you, not yet, I do not even know what on earth love is, but I do know that I cannot sleep for thinking of you or avoid dreaming of you. I think of you and I lose my breath. I see you and my heart begins to pound. I hear you and my spirit wants to sing. I am yours, Mary. Be mine…
‘“Think of the possibilities. If this is love? If this is our only chance? If we are meant to be, would you throw that away? Throw me away?”’
He smiled his roguish grin and shook his head. ‘You memorised those letters. No wonder you were so hurt when you found out they were not written by me.’
‘I did not memorise that other nonsense, but those words… They were yours?’
He sucked on his cigar again, eyeing her with amusement. ‘Yes.’
‘It was only those words that made me believe you.’ Tears misted her gaze.
‘I wanted it to be like this,’ he said.
‘Like this?’ She straightened up and turned towards him. ‘I am sure you did not imagine us here, with my family a few feet away.’
‘No.’ He laughed. ‘I did not imagine them. But you loving me, as I loved you, that is what I longed for.’
‘That you have always had,’ she answered.
