A/N: Promises fulfilled!
"Margaret is leaving Milton," Fanny announced, barging into Thornton's study.
Thornton looked up sharply. He had just returned home that evening after a short business trip to Liverpool and had been putting back some of the papers. It had been a week since Margaret had slammed the door in his face.
"She is returning to London tomorrow," she continued.
Thornton kept the papers on his desk with unnatural slowness and deliberation.
"What happened?" she asked, looking genuinely confused. "Why is she leaving?"
Thirty minutes later, Thornton was standing in front of the house in Crampton to find the answer. He climbed the steps and knocked. It was when he heard the sharp sound of the knock that he realised the lateness of the hour. This was hardly an appropriate time for a visit but he stood rooted to the spot when he heard movement behind the door. He heard the lock turn.
It was Margaret.
Margaret stared at him in utter astonishment.
Margaret was no longer angry. But she had been angry and heartbroken when she had written to her aunt. She had busied herself with closing the house, packing up things and all the other details that it wasn't until she received Aunt Shaw's letter informing her that Dixon would arrive in the morning to accompany her back to London that Margaret realised the enormity of what was happening.
She didn't want to leave but she could not stay here anymore. Not after everything.
The whole thing felt unreal to Margaret—the events that led to this moment and this decision. She found herself desperately wishing that she would wake up from this horrible dream. And now all of a sudden, he was here as if she had conjured him up.
She dumbly stood aside to let him in. They stood in the hall regarding each other quietly and without a word to say to each other.
Thornton was relieved that she was no longer obviously angry at him. The moment Fanny had told him that Margaret was leaving Milton, he had decided that he could not let her go, he would not let her go—not until he heard from her own mouth that she wanted to leave Milton and him.
Margaret quietly walked into the study, and he followed her into the room as if on a string.
She had been packing the books. The rest of the items in the study had been boxed away, except for the furniture. Margaret glanced at him as he took in the bare walls and the crates. Standing in the empty room, he seemed somehow larger.
She was suddenly hit by the shocking impropriety of the situation. It wasn't that she had never been alone with him before but ever since she had been living on her own, he had always made sure that Mr Bell was present when he visited.
"So you are leaving?" he asked.
The question seemed to echo in the nearly vacant room.
Her response was to pick up some books from the table and place them in the box.
As Thornton watched her, he remembered when he had first met her. It was in this very room, except then she had been placing the books on the shelf. She had been perched rather precariously on a stool when he had entered the room. Was it then that he had fallen in love with her? He distinctly remembered feeling something shift and change in him when he had gazed up at her. And then, of course, she had sparred with him and he had been hopeless after that.
He picked up a few books. "I thought you intended to live in Milton," he asked as he handed them to her.
He saw her stiffen her spine. She took the books from him and put them in the box without a reply.
"What about the school?" he asked, undeterred by her silence.
"The school will be fine," she finally spoke.
He regarded her quietly as she carefully closed the box. It was the last one. She looked up to see the empty shelf.
"I am donating the books to the school," she said, mostly to swallow away the lump in her throat.
"Won't you be keeping a few for yourself?"
She nodded.
"Is Le Morte d'Arthur among them?" he asked.
"Paradise Lost as well," she added after a moment.
"I think Mr Hale was trying to make a point with that one," he said.
"Pride goeth before a fall?" she asked with a slight raise of her brow.
"Something like that," he acknowledged with a wry smile. Pride was the beginning and the end with them. He doubted if they will ever learn that particular lesson.
An unwilling, disbelieving smile found its way on her lips. She was past the point of comprehending how he could break her heart and then calmly talk about books and make her smile.
She remembered another book that she had kept aside. She had been planning to have it delivered to him but now that he was here, she thought she might give it herself. Margaret picked up the small parcel lying on the corner table and gave it to him.
"It is father's Plato and… you should keep it," she finished a bit weakly as she remembered why she had wanted it delivered.
Margaret backed away and watched in horror as he began opening the package. She hadn't thought he would open it now, in front of her.
As Thornton removed the wrapping, he found Mr Hale's copy of The Republic. A nostalgic smile played on his lips, but the look on his face turned to puzzlement when he found another item—a pair of gloves.
He looked up questioningly at Margaret and found her looking uneasily at him.
He inspected the gloves. They belonged to him, he realised. But it was hard to fathom why she would keep such a personal item of his. Where did she even get it from?
He looked up at her again.
"These are mine," he said.
She nodded.
"Where did you find them?" he asked.
For a moment, he didn't think she was going to answer. But then she haltingly replied, "You forgot them here... that day."
That day. So much had happened on that day, so much had been lost. He had very nearly lost his mill and he had most certainly lost her—nobody would have spared a thought to a pair of misplaced gloves. He couldn't even remember missing them. But she had kept them.
Margaret's eyes were fixed on the gloves, her hands were nervously clutching her skirt—something he had never seen her do. She had kept them since that day—since that long. She had never mentioned them, never returned them. Thornton felt his chest tighten as realisation began to dawn on him but he needed to hear it from her.
"Why did you keep them?" he asked.
The moment he had opened the package, she had known it would lead to this question. She didn't want to tell him why she had kept it—how could she—but she made the mistake of raising her eyes and looking him. He was looking at her with such expectant intensity that she found herself telling the truth.
"I wanted to keep something of yours."
Margaret immediately dropped her gaze, feeling naked and exposed and… foolish. It was such a silly, sentimental thing to do. It was even more painful admitting it now. She also suddenly felt angry that he had managed to get her to say it, that he finally knew the truth.
"And now?" he asked, somewhat unsteadily.
She looked back up at him accusingly. Her anger returned. "Now? I don't know who they belong to anymore," she said in a voice choked with frustration and emotion. "I don't know you anymore. You have become someone I do not understand. You are not the man I loved. How could you… I… "
She broke off and turned away from him, overwhelmed and horrified by all the words that had come out of her mouth.
"Margaret, I never—"
"You never what?" she bit off in anger and spun on her heels and then fell silent.
He was standing in front of her—inches away. He had crossed to her while her back was turned. Margaret stood frozen on the spot. He was standing so dangerously close to her, she ought to step back but she didn't. Her anger kept her rooted to the spot, refusing to let her back down. She had swallowed all of her pride, she had laid bare her heart. It was his turn now. She looked up at him and waited for him. Waited for him to finally say something. Anything.
"Margaret," he finally said. All the regret and love and longing in his soul wrapped up in that one word.
Thornton slowly brought both his hands to hold her face, lifting her face to him. He heard her gasp softly at his touch. Her eyes were looking at him with hope and trepidation.
"Margaret, I never stopped loving you. I have always loved you. It has always been you," he said punctuating each sentence by giving her a little shake so that she understood him clearly.
For a moment, she looked stunned by the words and then she let out the breath she had been holding. She looked ready to cry with relief.
The dark cloud through which they had been seeing each other for the past few days had finally lifted. They stood looking at each other, stripped of their pride and doubts and insecurities.
His words and thoughts were lost in the clear depth of her eyes and the softness of her skin beneath his fingers.
He slowly lowered his head. His lips touched hers gently. It was a soft, tender kiss. But the contact was electric.
Thornton drew his head back a little to look at her as if to assure himself that this moment was real. That suddenly everything he had ever wanted had finally come true. That she loved him. That she was with him.
His hands were still holding her face, his thumb lightly caressing the creamy, delicate skin. She opened her eyes and looked at him, swaying slightly towards him.
He kissed her again. But this time it was different.
His hand circled around the small of her back and held her to him with a strength that left her breathless. He sank his hands into her soft hair, tugging it loose from its knot. He had spent a year imagining, dreaming, how it would be to kiss her. But nothing had prepared him for her soft and honeyed lips, the lush silkiness of her hair entangled in his fingers, the soft heat of her body pressed against his. She felt so exquisitely fragile and precious and perfect in his arms. He kissed her with all the passion that had been building up within him since the moment he first laid eyes on her, pulling her to him with all the urgency and mad desire coursing through him. Whatever iron control he had imposed over his desire simply vanished. His hands searched for more contact. She was wearing a tightly collared dress with a maddening row of tiny buttons down the back.
His hand slid up her back and found the buttons of her dress. He undid one and a very small part of her brain woke up from the sensual haze. But Thornton was too far gone to know what he was doing. His fingers slipped inside to touch the small inch of uncovered skin. Margaret gasped and stiffened. And that brought him back.
Thornton took a shuddering breath and slowly pushed himself away from her. They regarded each other in dazed silence for a moment, their erratic breathing the only sound in the room.
He had never seen her look more stunning than now. Her skin was flushed and glowing, her hair completely mussed up, her eyes wide and vibrant, her lips were red and stung—
"You should go upstairs," he said in a deep, unsteady voice, realising that he needed to send her away from him.
She looked as if she wanted to say something but stopped herself as though she too had realised that the moment was getting more dangerous and charged with each passing second. She gave a small nod and went out of the room.
Thornton walked in the cold night air, allowing the incredible happiness and peace to wash over him and warm his soul.
Everything had righted itself. The world that had been so off-balance, so askew fell back into place.
She loved him.
Margaret loved him. He thrilled in the newness of that knowledge, of that feeling. It was exhilarating and overwhelming and humbling. He still had a few questions that needed answers but none of it really mattered. Nothing mattered but that Margaret loved him. And if she loved him, that man at the station was not who he thought he was. There had to a far simpler, innocent explanation. He didn't know how he knew that, but he knew it was true.
He suddenly stopped walking.
Helstone.
That man, Fred, and Margaret had talked about Helstone. She had always been telling him to visit the place. Perhaps it was time for a visit.