Balance

They were arguing again. He should have known they would spend half the time arguing. He had warned her that Merlyn men did not treat their women well, but he hadn't reckoned on that being unacceptable to Mary Yellan. Maybe Merlyn men in the past had had the wisdom to pick their women with more easily trodden spirits. Jem Merlyn oft wondered how he had missed that, he who usually had more sense. On this occasion it was the long overdone argument about returning to Helford.

"If you go back I'm not going with you," he warned. They had progressed further than they ever had before, to the extent that she was collecting her clothes into a bag in that calm, stubborn way that she had. There was never any shouting in these arguments, just a clash of wills. He was beginning to believe that she would actually leave this time.

"Then don't," she snapped and flashed him that look, which was all fire and independence, "but I'm taking the cart."

He felt his face scowl and tried not to. He did not wish to remind her of his brother.

"Not a damned chance."

She spun to face him then, hair wild around her shoulders, hands on hips.

"Look at me, Jem Merlyn. Are you suggesting I should walk to Helford?"

His gaze grazed over her and he got that insatiable urge to kiss her again, but he suspected that wouldn't help matters, not this time.

"No, Mary Yellan. I'm suggesting you don't go at all."

She sighed then. A deep one of exasperation and the fire went from her stance, although not her eyes. She approached him and took his hand, pressing it to her pregnant belly.

"This is a baby, Jem. You were one once yourself, though you cannot remember and were probably a disagreeable sort, and in four months it will come screaming into this world. It will need food and warmth and a roof over its head – not the uncertainty of a hungry belly and rain and cold. The life of a roamer may be a fine one for Jem Merlyn, but not for his child."

"It was fine once for you too," he remarked and she looked at him in silence a moment, with those honest eyes, before responding.

"Maybe it was," she replied quietly, "or maybe it was necessary, but I can't think only of myself anymore."

He scowled, "Nor me I suppose."

She didn't answer, just turned away, back to her clothes.

"I will walk if I need to. You know I have no fear of the roads."

Nor anything else, he added in his head. She would do it too, he could see it in the set of her shoulders and her methodical packing. Damn the woman.

"I thought we agreed that no good ever came of a Merlyn and there would be no more." It was the same thing he'd said when she first told him she was pregnant and she gave the same response.

"So we did, but we neither were prepared to take the necessary measures to prevent it." She gave him that look that almost made him feel guilty and then angry at the feeling but before he could snap she spoke again. "No need to look like that. I wanted it as much as you."

The words sent a flash through him of memory at the moment when the strong, independent Mary Yellan, finally yielded to him everything, body and soul.

"Come," he murmured and captured her face in his hand, kissing her fiercely. "Stay. We shall repeat it over again. It can do no further harm," he smiled the last word with a mock and she smiled back at him and he thought for a moment he had won.

"Not even for your bright eyes will I stay, Jem Meryln, for a pair brighter still are relying on me." She pulled away and picked up her belongings and he stood in stunned bewilderment that she was walking away. "Unless, of course, you come with me." She turned to the door, "Then you can have your way all the journey to Helford."

Then she was gone. It took him a moment to realise that he was walking after her.

"And what do you intend to do when you get there?" he mocked. "Your old friends, you professed would give you a home, will take one look at your unwedded self and cast you and your sin away lest they catch it."

Mary led the horse to the front of the cart and buckled her in with a smile.

"Well, you'd best get me a ring then Jem Merlyn."

The obstinate woman. He stepped close with half a thought to undo the traces she'd done up but she threw him such a look that he did not dare. Shaken by a woman, he was glad there were no other Merlyn men alive to see this. They would beat him for his folly.

"No priest would wed us," he said finally and she did not even glance up as she replied.

"What need do we have of a priest? You know how I distrust priests." She shuddered a little in memory of the caricature that had never left her. "A ring will suffice for the story."

She glanced up at his surprised expression and smiled. "Do you think I would be so foolish as to try and make an honest man of you this way? No, I accepted my lot that first night you kissed me at Launston fair and bade me spend the night and then more acutely the moment I set foot in your cart. A ring will do with no vows attached, but if you will not give me one I shall fashion one from grass and flowers I pluck along the way. I shall fantasise the story for myself that I shall tell of how my husband dies in some way or another and left me without a penny but this babe for company." She stepped up into the cart and looked down on the remaining member of the Merlyn family, stunned in a way that no other had before, at the depth and independence of his woman. He loved her fiercely then, for all her obstinacy she had never been more desirable.

"Or you can join me and we shall weave the story together." She waited a moment and, when he did not move, shrugged a little. She drew the reins into her hands and whistled.

"Wait," he said. "Wait and hold them still." She wondered if he realised how this scene was reversed as he swung himself up in beside her.

"What now? You want me to take you? You have your back to the north, you know that?"

She saw the realisation dawn and the sullen look enter his eyes.

"I go only as far as Helford."

She smiled into the distance and nudged the pony on with the reins.

"Do you love me, Jem?"

"I believe so, Mary," he said almost reluctantly, joining in her game.

"Better than roaming?"

"I can't ever answer that," but his mood was responding to the laugh in her eyes and soon he smiled back at her. "We will have this conversation again," he warned, as he took her hand.

"I'm sure we will," said she.