Rose(87)

Rose’s masses of curly brown hair flowed over her shoulders and the pillow like the spilling of a cornucopia. It was like an invitation to bury his face in its bounty. He’d always thought she was beautiful, but now, in the dim light, against an all-white background, he realized her greatest beauty lay in her simplicity. Her lashes weren’t overly thick, her lips weren’t overly full, her eyes weren’t deep and hypnotizing. But everything fitted together as a part of the most enchanting, human, kind, warm, and inviting face he’d ever seen.

He noticed the dusting of tiny freckles over her nose and cheekbones. He ought to keep after her to wear her sunbonnet every time she left the house, but he would hate to see her face and hair covered up for the sake of a few freckles. He didn’t mind them. In fact, along with her riot of curly hair, the freckles made her seem girlish. When the imps of mischief danced in her eyes and she started to play with Zac or tease Monty, she was just like a tomboy.

But there was nothing tomboyish about her tonight.

Like some earth mother, she invited him to lean his head against her breast, to rest for a moment in her arms, to replenish his strength from her deep well of constancy. Even as she surrendered herself to him, admitted her weakness, she became his strength.

George didn’t understand how that could be. Maybe he would understand better when his head didn’t feel like a block of wood. He did understand that Rose had issued an invitation he wanted to accept, but his senses had started to feel dull, his body heavy. He tried to revive the surge of desire that had coursed through him when she issued the invitation, but his body only felt more leaden. Even his mind seemed to want to give up the struggle, to save it for another day.

Rose smiled to herself. She had always seen George as a commanding personality, sure of himself, impressive because of his size and his self-confidence. She had felt relatively small, weak, and ineffectual.

Now the roles were reversed.

“I never thought about my wedding night,” George said after he’d closed the door behind him. “But if I had, this certainly wouldn’t have been the way I’d have come to my bride.” He didn’t approach the bed but remained standing a few feet away.

Rose felt as if he were asking permission to come to their bed.

“It’s more important that you came.” She folded back the covers and patted the sheet.

He hesitated.

“I’m ashamed to come to you this way.”

Rose patted the bed again. “You haven’t, yet.”

George crossed to the bed. “The husband you deserve would have come to you full of pride and confidence.”

“The husband I want has come to me. But like the rest of us, he carries a load of guilt, mostly heaped on him by someone else. I want to help make that burden lighter.”

George dropped down on the bed.

“I don’t deserve such understanding.”

Rose reached out and grasped his hand, pulling him gently toward her. “Let’s not talk of deserving. Let’s talk instead of what I want to give you, what you want to give me.”

George leaned toward her until his cheek rested on her shoulder.

“I hardly know what I can give you,” he said. “As far back as I can remember, I made up my mind never to marry. The change came so quickly it caught me unprepared.”

Rose pulled him down until he rested against her. The feeling was absolutely delicious. She had waited so long to cradle him in her arms, to have him close, to know he belonged to her. She wanted to savor the moment, to wrench every bit of sweetness from it. She wanted him to make love to her. She wouldn’t feel their union   was complete without it, but she realized that this feeling of closeness, of sharing of himself, this opening the door to the past which still tormented him, was even more important than sharing his body.

“I wouldn’t even let myself daydream about being married to you,” George said.

He spoke softly, slowly, one arm under him, the other across her belly, their hands clasped together. She wiggled a little until his head rested more comfortably in the hollow between her breast and her shoulder.

“But I used to dream about it.” He chuckled softly. “My brothers were always our children.”

“I don’t think Monty would like that.” Rose felt reassured. If he wanted children in his dreams, it wouldn’t be too long before he wanted them in real life.

Her feeling of contentment continued to grow.

“We lived in a big house, a lot like Ashburn. You had servants and all the dresses you wanted.”

“I never wanted those things.”

He didn’t respond right away. Rose thought he sounded a little sleepy.