Anne stared at his hand for a long while before she put her own into it. She did not answer him or look up at him. She looked at their clasped hands. Only when, finally, he moved to raise her hand to his lips did she tear it away and look up into his eyes, her own full of agony. She threw her arms up around his neck and buried her face against the folds of his neckcloth.
"Alex," she said.
His arms went tightly around her and he hugged her to him. But he did not say anything. He was stunned.
"Alex," she said, and she lifted her head and looked up into his face, panic spread all over her own. "Don't go. Don't leave me. Stay here with us. Catherine needs you. Or let us come with you. You said last year that I might come. I would not be any trouble to you, I swear I would not. You may live exactly as you please. You need not know I am there. But just so that I may see you, Alex, and know something of your life. And so that Catherine may grow up with a papa. I will not interfere with your pleasures. You may come and go as you please. I shall not even complain about your m-mistresses. And you need not take me about if you would rather not. I shall be contented to stay at home. And at night I can please you. I do please you, then, do I not, Alex? I know I do. Perhaps I can bear you an heir. That would please you too, would it not?"
She had to stop. Her sobs were making it difficult to get the words past her lips. And, indeed, she did not know what she had said. His hands gripping tightly the sides of her head made it difficult for her to hear her own words.
"Anne," he was saying. "Anne, what are you telling me? What are you saying, love?"
She could not even see him clearly. Her tears were making him blur before her sight. She blinked her eyes in annoyance. But with her clearing sight came the realization of. what she had done. She put her hands over his and tried to ease them away from the sides of her head.
"I am sorry," she said, and she could feel her face flushing hotly. "I am sorry, Alexander. I did not sleep well last night, and I always hate saying goodbye to people. Forgive me, please. I am delaying you. Let us return to the house."
"Not until you have told me what you meant just now," Merrick said. He resisted the pull of her fingers and still held her head firmly cupped in his hands. She was not allowed to look away. "Why do you wish to live with me? I thought you could hardly wait for the day when I would be gone out of your life forever."
Her cheeks still felt hot. "I am tired," she said. "I am not myself, Alexander. Please forget what I said. They were very foolish words."
"Tell me now," he said quietly, "while you are still looking at me, that you did not mean a word of what you said, that you wish me to go out of your life now within the next few minutes."
She looked silently back into his eyes until his face blurred again. "Let me go, Alex," she said.
"Tell me."
"I cannot," she said. "I cannot say what you wish to hear. I do want to be with you. But you must not fear that I shall forever be begging you to bring me to London. Once you are gone, I shall be strong again. You can be free of me, Alex."
"And if I tell you that I do not wish to be free of you?" he asked.
If only she could see his face clearly! "No," she said, "you must not feel any obligation to me. I know that you married me against your will. I know that I am plain and dull and that I do not fit in with your way of life. I shall be happy here, and I shall have Catherine."
"But Catherine needs a papa," he reminded her. Somehow his forehead was resting against hers.
"Yes," she said lamely.
"Anne," he said softly, "I love you."
Her hands came shakily up to the buttons of his waistcoat, which she began methodically to undo. "No," she said. "Don't do this, Alex. It is sometimes cruel to try to be kind. Go now. Just leave me here and go. Please." She started to do the buttons up again.
"I love you, Anne," he said.
"No, you don't," she said, and realizing that she was about to undo his waistcoat buttons yet again, she splayed her hands across his chest.
"Now, that I cannot accept," he said, and his hands finally came away from her head so that he could put his arms around her and draw her body against his. "I cannot have you call me a liar, you know."
"But you cannot mean it, Alex," she said, looking up again and searching his eyes with her own, which mercifully had cleared once more. "You cannot love me. I am not the woman you would have chosen."
"I have to admit that that is true, love," he said. "I would not have chosen you, and I would have shown a great deal of foolishness in not doing so. I did not love you when I married you, Anne, and I did not love you when I met you again at Grandpapa's last year. But I grew to love you there and I have loved you ever since. I have not enjoyed London since last spring, and there have been no mistresses, you know. I had to come when your time was due. And I have not been able to drag myself away since. The thought of leaving you has been breaking my heart. Is it possible that I do not have to do so? I do not deserve such good fortune. Tell me the truth now."
"Oh," Anne wailed, dashing the back of her hand across her eyes, "I cannot see you, Alex. I have been such a watering pot in the last few days."
He laughed, "Is that all you can say in a moment of such high tension?" he asked. "Anne, my whole future happiness depends on what you will say in the next few moments. Do you really wish me to stay, love? Can you bear the thought of being my wife in deed as well as in name?"
"Alex," she said, "I have tried and tried to hate you. Sometimes, when you are not here, I almost succeed for five whole minutes at a time. But almost every hour of every day I have to admit to myself that I have loved you since I first set eyes on you. I am sure that I would live without you if you were to leave now. I mean, I do not suppose I really would die of a broken heart or do anything as romantic as that. But, oh, Alex, I feel as if I would die. I mean, I would not want to live."
He clasped her to him, and her arms went up around his neck again. "Last night," he said, "I loved you every moment."
"And I you."
"And last year," he said. "When I started Catherine in you, I did so with love."
"Oh, Alex," she said, and when she raised her face to his, it was glowing and her eyes sparkling, "yes, of course, that is right. Oh, yes, and all our children will begin in the same way, will they not?"
He laughed against her hair. "Yes, love, all of them," he agreed. "But let us put off the delight of planning them all, for the present, anyway. For now I merely want the novelty of making love with you when we both know ourselves loved. Shall we?"
"Oh, yes," she said, smiling up at him.
"Soon?"
"Yes, Alex."
"Now?"
"I think Dodd would be scandalized if we both disappeared upstairs so close to luncheon time," Anne said.
"Let's scandalize Dodd, shall we?" he suggested.
"Yes, Alex."
He hugged her to him again and rocked her against him. Then he lowered his head to hers and kissed her deeply, fondling her with his hands in a way that would indeed have scandalized Dodd and the whole household staff if they had seen.
Then they turned and, with arms twined around each other's waists, set off in the direction of the house.
The tiny snowdrop, the first, frail promise of spring, bloomed forgotten in the grass behind them.