Don't Look Back in Anger
They talked softly for a long hour, about the progressive realization of their attachment. He told her of the time she left Milton and he thought he would never see her again, and it felt like his lungs were collapsing. All it would have taken, for him to renew his vows just then, would have been for her to look back at him from the carriage, he said, holding her hand in both of his. She chuckled softly, "and how did you know I did not, John?" She told him she had indeed looked, if privately and swiftly, and then closed her eyes in the midst of memories of the day everything had changed. "It took me a while to acknowledge that, regardless of my pride, it had been you I had come down to protect, you I had feared for, you I had wanted to embrace so instinctively." He looked at her then, with such intensity that she trembled. "When?" he asked, "When did you realize?" She paused to word her thoughts better, unraveling as she went: "Would it be strange to say that I always knew, even when I did not? You must have noticed that I would look at you often, expecting to be shocked or angered, but mostly, I think, craving the look you had sometimes, that made me jump out of my skin. At first, I was uncomfortable. It was improper for a man to look at me the way you did, and I perceived it was for all the wrong reasons. What I also perceived was how I reacted to it – I had never been conceited before, but I started searching for your eyes, wondering if they would be looking back at me. I did not think that eyes could say so much."
It seemed, just like that, as if he had never been the Mr. Thornton she had first met and disliked so profoundly. How could she reconcile his anger, his dark energy, his pride, his rough ways with the oh so sweet and soft tone he had when he called her "Margaret"? She had never imagined that a man, merely calling her my her given name, could feel so foreign, and yet so intimate at the same time. Henry had called her Margaret, and she hardly even registered it as different or abnormal then. Now, in the quiet lull of the London house, as she remembered the way he had said it first, hoarse and trembling, she felt too warm for her covers, too agitated for sleep. It had felt like a firebolt through her spine. Would it be thus when they would be married? Would she feel connected to him by this invisible cord, merely for saying her name in such a unique way? It made her feel like a new Margaret. To be fair, she probably was.
It is not that she did not remember fondly, from a few hours before, the delicious minutes that had followed the mutual revelation of their love. She could not believe he could manifest such boldness, and tender restraint, at the same time. He was still kneeling then, devoted and adoring, and she held him the way she had, the fateful day her body had betrayed her feelings before her heart and mind had even begun to acknowledge them. She now felt the obscene intimacy of covering him thus with her whole body. As she could fully appreciate now, that position meant that her breast touched his chest. She wanted to stay that way forever. And then, he had leaned even closer, and had kissed her.
She would perhaps never sleep again.
Mr. Thornton had had to go to dinner at the place where he was staying. He was not aware of it perhaps, but he automatically put on the mask that he used in society, one of careful pride and occasional coldness. He reverted to stillness. Inside, everything was burning. All he could think of was the way she had responded to his kiss, her lips opening first, and then her whole body straining closer to his, her breast now crushed against his chest. He could still feel the burning stain of them through his clothes, all the way through to his wildly beating heart. Was it possible, he thought, that aside from the mere joy of her coming to accept him, and perhaps love him, already too much to bear, she would also be as passionate as he knew to be himself? He had long been fatigued by young women who pursued him, their feigned interest in his occupation, their coquetterie. He despised their futility from the high horse of his sense of self. He had long felt himself to be a passionate man, with fits of anger and happiness, coldness and warmth passing over him like uncontrolable waves. He knew what marriage was for, but had little interest in it. A wife should be his equal or not at all. Margaret had been different from the start, he had felt it deeply, as if she pulled all the right strings in his body, even if their minds dissonated so. He now could see what his body had known all along: that, should she desire him back, it would be ardently. He suddenly realized he had missed a great deal of the ongoing conversation around him, and vowed to focus more so as not to appear strange and incite questions he did not wish to answer. He needed to keep this for themselves just a few moments longer, as they had agreed. After that, they intended to be married as soon as it would be possible, allowed, and proper. The mere thought of it sent jolts of excitement into his every muscles. Deeply, Mr. Thornton was more content than he had ever thought to be in his life, at the thought that he would get to share it with such a superior woman, that he couldn't imagine ever loving more. Even more deeply, he smiled wickedly at the thought, he needed to be held tight against her breast, entangled in her hair, buried within her as soon as society would allow it.