He exhaled slowly. “I…I had been wed so long. I lost myself, I didn’t think. The habits of the conjugal bed—” He moved his hands up and down her upper arms in a caressing move, then he stopped and tightened them. “If it comes to that, we shall wed.”
His voice resonated with a grim, duty-bound tone. The tone of one who faces a severe penalty and must pay it.
That made her suck her breath in and a crushing sensation weighed on her. The hope she hadn’t even realised she’d been holding in her heart had suddenly vanished.
Marriage. Yes, she wanted marriage. But not with a man who wished to wed her to correct a sin. She’d learned much of these Puritans in the time she’d been here. They might be repressive, they might be strict in their habits but they respected their wives as helpmates. She wanted that. She wanted to marry a man who looked at her in such a light. It might be possible for her. But never with Thomas, for he knew her past and he held her in disdain for it. When the glow of lust wore off, his disdain would return. Oh yes, surely it would.
No matter if she loved him or not, she wouldn’t pledge herself to a man who held her in scorn.
“I cannot wed you, Thomas.” The words choked her and she had to pause and clear her throat. “I still owe Goody Wilson six years on my bond.”
“I shall buy you off her in that case.” He spoke in practical tones, as if he were speaking of buying a parcel of land or a cow.
Could there possibly be a more painful moment than for the man she adored above all others to ask her to wed him in such an impersonal way?
Especially after what they had just shared?
A lump settled in her throat. She studied his expression and saw there the hard set of resignation. Now that the glow of their shared joy had faded, nothing had changed.
He still disdained her.
He didn’t want to wed her. But he was a dutiful, Christian man. He would take responsibility for his sinful actions.
Her vision blurred and she blinked rapidly while swallowing hard.
“I don’t wish to marry you.” She spoke quickly, the lie clipping off her tongue in snappish tones. “I’d never marry you.”
“I see.” He dropped his hands from her body. “Let us hope then there are no consequences, else we shall have no choice.”
He moved away from her quickly. Stiffly. Hurt? Oh heavens, yes, hurt. Disgusted with her wantonness? Undoubtedly. She watched him walk away, moonlight highlighting every beautiful, lean, hard-muscled line of his body. Feeling too exposed herself, she cupped her hands over her breasts. He bent, picked up her shift and turned. Cheeks flaming, she dropped her gaze. His feet sounded softly on the grass. Her shift floated down to her like a white cloud dropped from heaven.
She pulled it on hastily then scrambled to her feet and began walking away.
“Rosalind…”
She stopped and turned. With his breeches on now, he stood holding his shirt.
“What?”
“You should take some time now and consider marriage with me. It would be far easier to wed before I leave for Harvard College than after. And neither of us would want to face the charge in court of a seventh-month child.”
His tone was that of a man speaking of a necessary but unwelcome task. His features once again wore that remote expression, as if they had not shared the most passionate of intimacies. He looked older. Stern. Every inch the pious Puritan who taught schoolboys in town and worked endlessly at his own farm. Duty, work, piety—and aye, obedience. That was all he offered her in wedlock. And likely a hefty helping of resentment over being forced by his lust to marry someone lesser, more wicked than himself.
A cold, hard, ball of nausea settled in the pit of her stomach.
“I told you, I have no…” her voice broke and she swallowed several times, “no desire to wed you, ever.”
His chest rose and fell, a long inhalation as if he were seeking forbearance. He practically glared down his nose at her. “I don’t favour a marriage with you either. But tonight…this lapse of all control and morality that has occurred between us takes all our free choice in the matter away.”
So that was how he termed it now? A lapse of all control and morality? Nothing deeper than that? Sickness twisted through her innards. Pure regret.
“This never happened.” The stridence of her proclamation shook through her, making her voice rattle. She swallowed and raised her tone. “Do you understand? This never happened.”
* * * *
Though every window was open, the meetinghouse remained hot and close. Unbearably so. The minister’s voice droned, mimicking the hum of the huge bumblebees outside. Thomas shifted on the wooden bench, sweaty and itchy in his black wool Sunday best. His bones felt like jelly. The deep carnal satisfaction of last night still affected him. He had forgotten physical contentment. Patience had made it clear she was prepared to be dutiful, to give him his release. However, he’d lost his taste for bedding a woman who did not want his kisses or his hands intimately on her body. He had transmuted his passion into a higher, intellectual, pious love.