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Ross couldn't have said what he had expected out of marrying Demelza. It had all happened so quickly, unfolding as naturally as a wave unfolded on the sand, that he hadn't stopped to think, or to develop any expectations.
Had he considered, he would have thought of the comforts of the bedroom, of Demelza's passion meeting his, of the delights of showing her over and over again how it could be between two people who desired each other.
And he savored those delights with pleasure in the early days of their marriage. It was impossible to get enough of her, of her eager responses and her seeking hands and lips giving as gladly as she received.
But her willingness to learn, to match him as best she could, extended beyond the marriage bed. To his surprise, he found that she had an inquiring mind, and picked up new thoughts, new ideas, and new skills quickly once she determined to do so. He had his most difficult task in convincing her to call him 'Ross' rather than 'sir', to see herself as wife and equal and not as a higher form of serving maid.
"Folks will wonder," she said to him once as they lay in bed together in the aftermath of love. "And not understand; I don't rightly understand."
"What?"
"How it came to happen. This! We."
"You're not required to understand," he told her, not entirely certain that he understood, either, and unwilling to mar the peace he had come to find here, with her, by looking too deeply into it. "You're required to accept it as a fact of llife."
"So it's not to be a secret?"
Ross disappointed himself far more often than he was comfortable with, but he was glad to feel within him that it had never occurred to him to keep her, or their marriage, a secret. An unorthodox choice, to be sure, but he had no one he needed to suit but himself, and certainly no one he needed to impress. A vision of Elizabeth came to his mind and he pushed it away. She had made her choice—she had no right to express opinions on his. "Why should it?" he asked Demelza, and was rewarded by her smile.
He was surprised by how proud he was when she came to the mine, how glad he was to show the mine to her and her to the miners. They knew her, of course, but they had met only Demelza the servant, not Demelza Poldark, his wife. Now they saw her as she was, and as she would be, and he was far more pleased than he would have imagined.
Demelza, on the other hand, clearly felt out-of-place. She fretted on the way home. "I was that worried I'd show you up."
"Why?"
"I've no notion how to be."
"As you are," he told her. He could see her value; how could she not?
"And what am I?"
"A lady."
"I'm not! I don't know how."
"You're a quick learner." He meant it; he wished she could see herself as he saw her.
But mere moments later, he had to stop her from wrestling Jud to the ground over a stolen pie, and it became clear to Ross that as long as Demelza still did the same work she had done before they were married, she would still see herself the way she had then. The only thing to do was to hire another servant, someone who would be a constant reminder to Demelza that her station had changed. But she still fought shy of meeting people of his class. A ridiculous notion, class, but one that was deeply ingrained in most people, Ross found.
He blessed his cousin Verity for coming to stay. Verity, like Ross, saw the worth of a person regardless of their birth. Ross had been sure she would set Demelza at ease, would understand the secrets of women and be able to reach his wife's heart and settle it, but he hadn't imagined how quickly or how easily the two would become friends. It made him happy to see them laughing and chattering away.
Demelza Poldark, a name she still had trouble getting used to, had spent the majority of her short marriage feeling as though she no longer belonged anywhere. Her own people and Ross's people alike despised her for marrying above her station, and she couldn't blame them. She was far from feeling easy about the wisdom of it herself.
But with Ross … Oh, with Ross it was a different thing. When he smiled at her, when he kissed her, when she looked up and saw him watching her from across the room, his gaze filled with quiet approval … when she lay naked in his arms … then she knew herself. Then she knew the depth of her love and how impossible it would have been for her to say no when he asked her to marry him. To have turned him down would have been to have left him, and she could no more have done that than grown wings and flown across the sea.
It had been such a blessing to have Verity to stay, for all that Demelza had originally looked on it as a burden and a chore. But Verity's quiet ways suited Demelza, and her honesty suited her even better.
In their first conversation, the afternoon Verity arrived, Ross's cousin set the tone for their relationship when she confessed to Demelza that she had been relieved to hear of the marriage.
"Before he met you," Verity had said, "he was … broken. Lost. So I was relieved to think he'd found someone to console him, to save him from his loneliness." She had smiled at Demelza, her particular sweet and unfeigned smile. "But now I see that it's more than consolation. You've given him hope. A life without hope … is bleak. And a life without love—"
"Oh, 'tis not that," Demelza had hastened to correct her. It would be too painful to imagine that Ross loved her; easier by far just to know that she pleased him, without hoping for things that could never be.
Verity had spent the rest of her visit teaching Demelza the airs and graces of a lady, so that Demelza could accompany her husband anywhere and not worry that she might embarrass him. Or worry less, at least. Demelza misdoubted she would ever feel truly comfortable among fine people.
When she knew for certain that she was going to have his child, she hugged the news to herself tightly, daring only to share it with Verity, whom she had learned to trust. This was the one thing she could give him that no one else could; the one thing they could share that no one could ever take from them. She imagined telling him of the coming arrival … but she held off, uncertain of his reaction, and in a secret part of herself wanting his love for her, rather than for the life she carried.
Even with all of Verity's teachings, her first reaction to the invitation to spend Christmas at Trenwith was blank panic. They would all know where she came from, who and what she was. "They'll send me to eat with the servants!" she said to Ross.
"Do you think I ought to be ashamed of you?" he asked her.
"'Tis not that," she said immediately, but of course, it was that. She may not think he ought to be ashamed of her, but everyone else at Trenwith would think just that.
He accepted the invitation as if it was a matter of course. Demelza had known he would, and had known that someday she would have to go among the fine people he had been born to and hold her head up high, but she hadn't expected it would be quite so soon. Still … perhaps any day would have been too soon, and it was as well she got it over with.
Or so she told herself as she prepared, feeling nauseous both because of the child and because of the impending gathering.
But nothing had readied her for the grandness of Trenwith, the ancestral hall of the Poldarks. Nothing could have. It was beyond her imaginings. And Elizabeth, Ross's first love, looked as though the surroundings were made to fit her, while Demelza, despite Verity's warm welcome, felt more and more awkward and ungainly and out-of-place.
It had been as much as she could do to force herself to go down for dinner, in her new gown, the finest thing she had ever owned. And yet the look on Ross's face had been worth every penny, every pinch of the stays. For once, she had known beyond a doubt that she pleased him.
Dinner had been long, as she tried to choke down her food and keep it down, while fielding the barbs of the unexpected guest, jealous because her husband was a cheery man who enjoyed having Demelza for a dinner partner. After dinner, they gathered to watch Elizabeth play the harp. Demelza was grateful to miss most of that settling her stomach, but immediately on her return she was set upon and asked if she played, and Ross offered her up to sing. She tried to quell him with a look, but he encouraged her, and she could not easily have said no without embarrassing him.
She set herself to sing her best, and found that once she looked only at Ross, sang to him, it was not so hard. To see the pleasure and the pride in his eyes, the way they lit as the others clapped for her, was all the gift she could have asked for.
At home again, in their familiar bedroom, where she felt most herself and most his, she asked him how she had done. Had she lived up to his expectations amongst the people he had been born to? Had he been ashamed of her?
Ross looked up at her in surprise, considering the question. "Why do you think I married you?" he demanded abruptly.
"I don't rightly know."
"To satisfy an appetite," he said, which she knew to be true. "To save myself from being alone." He sat down on the bed in front of her. "Because it was the right thing to do. I had few expectations. At best, you'd be a distraction. A bandage to ease a wound," he admitted, and Demelza's heart sank. It was what she had known all along, but it was hard to hear it from him so plainly. But he didn't stop there. "I was mistaken," he said softly. "You've redeemed me." Reaching for her hand, he told her, "I am your humble servant. And I love you."
Demelza sat stunned, her heart fluttering within her like a butterfly. These were words beyond any of her dreaming. Even as he kissed her, sealing his words, she felt the warmth of them filling her. Now, she thought. Now was the time she had waited for.
Leaning her forehead against his, she whispered, "Well, I hope you'll have a little love to spare."
How she loved the way he looked at her then, amused and happy and completely hers. "For what?"
"Our child."
His face filled with wonder and joy. As he took her face in his hands and kissed her again, in this moment, both Demelza and Ross were as close to perfect happiness as either of them could ever have imagined being. Tomorrow, the world might intrude upon them … but tonight, there was nothing but the two of them, and the third being growing between them, part of each of them.
