He asked nothing just as she requested because he was grateful just to have her in his arms. Her head on his chest was a welcome weight to the emptiness he felt just a few minutes before. He was sure that the space next to him would never be occupied again as the day turned into night with no sign of his wife. As his arm caressed her shoulder, he felt moisture seep through his shirt to his chest. She was crying. It took every ounce of strength to keep from joining her in those tears. He wanted to ask her why she was crying. Was it for him? Or another? Another clearly her way of speaking of the young sailor who had captured her attention and quite possibly her heart. Or were the tears for her? For what she had done or not done. Tears for the fact that she came back to a life she didn't want anymore? That's what he wanted to ask her. Why had she come back?
Deep down he knew what most likely had happened with her visitor. The signs were clear as to what direction that relationship, if one could call it that, was going to take. He just held on to the belief he had in her that she would resist as she had in the past. But why should she, he asked himself? He practically through her in another's arms. The secret meeting with his first love, which in hindsight was nothing more than a final parting, was surely the straw that broke her resolve. He never thought of his wife as a vengeful person; on the contrary. She was the reasonable and logical one. The one who put up with his reckless and selfish behavior time and time again not once with a notion to return the favor by any actions of her own. Until today.
As he lay in their bed, wondering what was to become of his life if she truly had left him, he imagined what she must have gone through the night he never returned from Trenwith. Putting his children to bed, he imaged her doing the same thing with Jeremy trying to plan for a future alone. The ache in his chest turned to nausea as the thought of going through life without her, while she was off on a dalliance with some young buck seemed incomprehensible. Would she truly throw away all they had for that? Would he? Didn't he think it for a split second afterward his betrayal? To some, like his wife, the answer was yes. But in truth, there was no chance of that happening. As he told her, the night of idiocy made it clear to him who and where his true love was. And that was here, with and in her.
He felt her shift, her head moving slightly as her cheek came in contact with his bare chest. The softness of her skin against the coarseness of his body a symbol of the contrast that defined them. He raised his arm so that his fingers could feel her hair. The red curls, normally wild and often unruly felt damp and lifeless. Thoughts of where she might have been came swirling in his mind and he forced the questions back down, keeping his promise to her for now. Yet he needed to know so many things but did he have a right to ask them? He had not been open himself lately on matters that he deemed didn't concern her, including his feelings about another and even his first love. And now look where they were. Both of them broken because of each other's actions or inactions. Yet when he looked in her eyes, past the hurt or guilt, he saw what was always there. And he felt for her the same thing he'd felt since that Christmas night almost ten years ago. It may have ebbed and flowed like the tide but just the same it would never recede permanently. For him it would always be there. What had he heard once? Storms give trees deeper roots? If that were the case then he and his wife would have roots from Cornwall to London.
Turning slightly towards her, he pulled her closer to him if that was possible. His need to feel her flush against him, as if she were another appendage, was overwhelming. As was the need to say something. He wanted her to know what he'd kept silent all this time. While she was being lured away, in front of his eyes, one thing never changed for him. It might be too late to say it, but say it he must.
"Demelza?"
"Please Ross. Don't speak. Not now. Not yet," she whispered.
"I must," he replied softly.
"I don't want to answer any questions."
"I'm afraid I must ask you one," he said.
Pulling up slightly so he could see her face, the hand on her elbow moved to her chin, tilting it up so he could gaze into her eyes. The blue green orbs, now tainted with red from her crying, still glistening with hope. And love.
"Demelza? Do you know that I love you?"
She said nothing but lay her head back down, curling back into his embrace but holding on tighter than before. He waited for a response but no words came. Only the barely perceptible nod of her head against him and for now that said everything.