A Loveless Marriage

Chapter 21: Mary

The room remained silent. I knew I should speak, but all I could do is listen to the beating of my own heart. His gaze held mine, searching my face for a reaction but I remained frozen. His words had seemed sincere and yet I could not believe they were true. How could Fred Wilkes of all people love me? After my mother, after Daniel, after Harriet... How could anyone love someone who was so broken and damaged inside? My interior was the only thing that he could value, it was lust not love, I lied to myself.

He exhaled impatiently, but it was not impatience I saw in his eyes but vulnerability. I hated myself for the pain I was causing him. I was guarding my heart at the cost of his, in tormenting myself I was tormenting him. My poor Fred, my dearest Fred. The silence grew heavier between us and at last, he turned away. I could not bear it.

"Fred," I said, at last, unsure of what I should say next.

He looked at me but said nothing, the disappointment in my cowardly silence was clear on his face. I stepped towards him, wanting with all my heart to flee from the room. I wanted to let him go, to feel the pain only on the surface before my love took root in my heart.

"I'm scared," I said as though this confession would absolve me of my guilt.

"Scared of me?" he said, his eyes widening. "I would rather die than cause you pain."

I hung my head low, the whispers of my past surrounding me so I could not think of how to explain my heart to him. Everyone I had loved had hurt me, everyone had betrayed me. Fred took my face in his hands and brought my gaze up to meet his, he would force me into confronting his pain.

"I'm scared of it all," I said. "Love, marriage, childbirth, death."

"Who hurt you so much, my darling?" Fred said frowning.

"It doesn't matter," I said.

"It does, because if I ever learn who it is," he said with increasing anger in his voice. "I will beat him within an inch of his life."

I gasped at the ferocity of his words. There was a darkness in his face that I had never seen before and it scared me.

"I hate him for what he has done to your heart", he said. "Making you so cold and incapable of love."

"I am not incapable of love!" I said.

"So you are just incapable of loving me?"

The anguish on his face burned into me, I was torturing him. I was going to lose him.

"No! Fred, I love you," I said, tears rolling down my cheek. "I love you more than I have loved anyone and that is what scares me.

There were no words, just a kiss. A trembling but powerful kiss. I wrapped my arms around him, allowing the flood of emotions to swallow me. I loved him, he loved me. I would let that love consume me until all that was left of my heart was ashes. He was all that mattered at that moment. That love was all that mattered.

"I love you," he whispered, liberated by his words.

"I love you too,"

The kiss increased my boldness. I took him by the hand and led him to my room, he laughed as he tackled my buttons and cursed the elaborateness of my tailoring. I tried not to mind the deftness of his undressing, trying not to feel jealous of his experience. I knew there had been other ladies before me, perhaps even during our marriage and I knew that jealousy was considered petty and bourgeois but now I loved him, I wanted him all. I wanted my kisses to erase any memories he had of another's, I wanted him to worship my body with a deference that he had never shown them. I wanted my love to eclipse theirs, to consign them to the shadows and make him believe the only light he could see was mine. I wanted him to forget their names.