...

Night at Asherton View Point

...


Barbara rolled her eyes and glared at him as if he was asking if she wanted to jump down the cliff. In fact all this felt as if she was standing on top of one. His question made her feel like there were only two ways - go back and leave it all here at the Cornish coast, forget about it, just keep a few nice memories of kissing him and have a boringly normal life again when back in London.

Or jump.

Well, probably it would be a very short extraordinarily wonderful feeling of flying but the impact would be smashing. It would not work. It could not. It was impossible. She was no lady nor would she ever become one.

They had looked at each other for a while, trying to read the other's face in the dark.

Tommy mainly saw fear and incredulity next to a secured, hidden and buried romantic love.

Or maybe I just imagine that. he thought.

Barbara saw hope, insecurity, love and longing and the desperate will to not accept a no.

How could he ask? Of course I want to marry him but that wouldn't work. Can't he see it?

In a quick movement he suddenly scooted off the bench and knelt down in the mud with one knee.

"No! Don't!" she cried. "Don't be ridiculous, Sir!" Oh, my, and when we return to Howenstow there will be mud stains on his trousers and everybody will know that he had knelt down in front of me for the important question.

"I am so very serious." He did it how it should be and took her hand. After a little kiss on its back he asked her again.

"Barbara Havers. I love you" - he raised a hand to keep her from interrupting - "I have for years though I haven't known until recently. I don't care about class issues, I don't care about what others may think about us, I don't care about the Met. I care about you and only you. You are all that matters. You've been the reason I get up in the morning for such a long time now and now I want to get up in the morning with you for the rest of my life. I want to spend my life with you, Barbara. I want to let the world know that we are one. I want you- Limpy! Get off!" Tommy frowned at the dog and then smiled sheepishly about that interruption. "I want to walk the dog with you for the rest of my life..." At that point he had to turn to the dog who - untroubled by Tommy's speech - had started to kiss his master's face now that he had the opportunity with him kneeling on the ground. "...even if it was such an impertinent bloke like Limpy... Bad boy! Off and sit!"


Barbara did not know what to feel - love, amusement, fear? She could not even cry with emotion so she just nervously chuckled. Her hand trembled. Would a future with Lord Thomas Lynley, the eighth Earl of Asherton, be exactly that? Full of love, full of humor, even full of fear?

"Okay. Once more..." Tommy's attention went back to the woman on the bench when Limpy finally had laid down with a reproachful look but stayed there. "I want to let the world know of our love. I want you to carry my ring, my name and while we're on it, yes, one day I want you to carry my child." He had not wanted to say that but it had come straight from his lips without his will. He suddenly had had the vision of Barbara carrying little Stevie to Phillip and could not have kept it to himself. He squeezed her hand. Yes, he already had had pictured her with his children quite some time before.

Barbara took a sharp intake of breath but Tommy placed his index finger on her lips to seal them. He had not yet finished.

"I want to grow old with you and raise a family and one day I want to spend our life's autumn with you here in Cornwall where we always had been so... well, emotional." He nervously laughed. "Here, where I've discovered the one word for the warm, turmoiled, soothing, desperate and very deep feelings I have for you: love. So I'm asking you once more and now that I've sensed you have objections I beg you to not give your answer now. All I ask at the moment is that you will promise me that you will think of it and sometime later give me your answer. Barbara Havers..." His voice turned even a nuance more tender. "...my dear, beloved, insubordinate Detective Sergeant Barbara Havers - will you marry me?" He smiled his most disarming smile. "Umm... will you think about the possibility of marrying me one day?"

She did not answer but just looked at his face, lit by a little bit of moonlight, watching her expectantly.

"Please say something." he croaked.

Barbara wanted to scream yes and no at the same time. How could he ask? Yes, she wanted to marry him. Yes, she even wanted to raise a family with him and tell the world about their love. But what if he was just rushing it again without thinking of it? What if he became bored of her? How would their life be with her being Lady A and hopping from one sandtrap to the other when they would attend functions and other official events? How could she be Lady A anyway? She was just an ordinary woman from the worker's areas of London. She would fail, she knew it. She could not believe in a shared future, could she?

The words from Uncle Robbie came to her mind: ...believe in yourself and believe in what you are doing then you are twice as strong as if you don't. How she wanted to believe in all this but she was so afraid to lose herself, to lose him too soon, to give up her former life though it had ended anyway when she had told him her best hidden secret, when she had told him that she loved him. But did he not tell her he loved her too? Yes, he had. But would that love be enough to cope with everything? And they even had not made love yet. He did not yet know that she had such little experience, so much less than he had. How could she not believe that she would disappoint him then? Oh, this was so scary.

"At least can I get up and give you a kiss?" Tommy finally asked when she had kept silent.

He did so without waiting for an answer. They sat on the bench, holding each other tightly, exchanging kisses and caresses that made her forget her fears again, ignoring the dog's nose resting on her thigh, wanting to take part, silently demanding caressesfor himself.


"And?" Tommy eventually asked slightly out of breath. "Remember - I love you."

"And I love you too, Tommy..." Barbara sighed and thought how she could explain that she feared to disappoint him. After a few moments of steadying breaths she silently spoke.

"I'd be going to disappoint you in so many ways, Tommy. Not only in... matters of my... inexperience - no, let me explain."

Tommy had wanted to object but knew he had to listen now. His hand went to her thigh and found Limpy's head. Instead of gently stroking Barbara and distracting her from what she needed to say he buried his hand in the fur of the dog.

"Imagine me in an evening dress with all the bloody old men and those bored Ladies. They would have their fun seeing me using the wrong cutlery, drinking out of the wrong glasses, wanting ketchup for my chips - if they serve chips at all and not only violet potatoes with parsley." She rolled her eyes and Tommy smiled lovingly at her. She's so wonderful. he thought.

"And my language, Tommy. I'm speaking plain. They would stumble upon my accent, my unability to dance, everything. I could not marry you. I am not and I don't want to be a lady. Apart from all the things I would do wrong and be a shame for you I also feel like I betray my roots. I am a working class Acton girl. And that will never change."

Tommy's heart overflowed with love. He needed to convince her that she did not need to fear a single one of those things - or change her nature or behaviour. He did not even want her to change.

"Barbara, I don't want you to change. There is absolutely no need for. You already are a lady, you're more a lady than many of those by birth that I know. Yes, you are different to my stiff upper lot, but a real lady nonetheless." He squeezed her hand trying to reassure her. "This evening when you've talked to Vicar Haines and Mayor Trescothick, well, mainly Trescothick, it seemed to me you already had decided your version of the future. Your version of being my partner. You appeared to be so at ease with the situation, so... grounded and graceful... and bold and blunt in answering his insolent questions. So very much how I want the next Lady Asherton to be."

"Bollocks, I just-"

"Yes, you just showed him that you're not my little sidekick, that you're not only my subordinated sergeant but my... equal wife. You've radiated that you're gonna be the next Countess of Asherton."

"That's ridiculous, Sir. I haven't-"

"You have shown him that you're my Lady. And I truly believe that you're going to be the best Lady Asherton ever. You'd never give up your independency, your rebelliousness. You will show the bootlickers what you think of them and you will rock this noble world. You will stand your ground. You're blunt, you're bold, you're spiky, you're strong and fiery. You will teach the old and feeble peerage where it's at. That's what I believe." Tommy broadly grinned. "That's what you have to believe too, Barbara. Believe in yourself. Believe in us."

Wow, that was some sort of a speech. Both took a deep breath.

"There'd be still so much I could do wrong."

Tommy understood that now she meant the physical part he so desperately had wanted to explore this weekend a few times already and felt that Barbara had wanted that too.

"When you love, truly love someone, Barbara, there is no chance to disappoint. No matter how inexperienced you feel, or how experienced you think the other would be. When it's real, and this is reality, and it's also new to me in so many ways, so you're never going to disappoint me. It's a new road for both of us, Barbara."

"It still isn't right." she mumbled. "I mean... that thing with marriage..."

"What makes you say no?"

"I'm not saying no, it's just..." Barbara bit her lower lip. Hesitantly she told him about the comparison with the jump from the cliff. Her fears of being smashed when she hit the solid ground at the bottom, when they finally hit the reality of every day life.

"Jump, Barbara. I'll be your life net."


.


...