THANK YOU to those who pointed out I missed a chapter out! I am so grateful! aargh!

Margaret and John's wedding night; which does not really go as hoped.

Yes, Hannah is sharp - there is a little bit of a wobble coming.

ooOoo

I opened for my beloved, but my beloved had left; he was gone. My heart sank at his departure. I looked for him but did not find him. I called him but he did not answer.
- Song of Solomon

Margaret was waiting for her new husband in the room which Mrs Thornton had had prepared for them. It was nicely done, not too cluttered as Margaret had requested it should not be, wanting to put her own mark on it. In the centre was a huge bed, toward which Margaret's eye kept being drawn, with its fresh white linen and a new coverlet. Her bed and his.

Dixon was helping her remove her wedding gown, chattering all the while -

"Oh, Miss Margaret! Oh but you looked so bonny! I wished your dear Mother could have seen you looking so beautiful on your wedding day! And Mr Thornton – what a fine, handsome gentleman he made as he walked with you on his arm! He looked near proper gentry, didn't he Miss Margaret? And so proud when he looked down at you, I shed more than a few tears at what a bonny couple you made, I can tell you!" she was helping her undress as she spoke, bringing her a new nightgown of soft new cotton, the finest weave of Marlborough Mill itself – a wedding gift for Miss Margaret, who was dearly loved, from the spinners and weavers – trimmed with a little satin ribbon at neck and cuffs.

"I cried a little, too," Margaret said, "That Mama was not there... and for Papa, who is alone now, he has gone home to an empty house, Dixon, is that not sad?" He was not quite alone, of course. They had employed for him a maidservant and her husband to live in the Crampton house for now, until they could persuade him to move to a nicer one, which he seemed reluctant to do, saying in his mild but certain way he was perfectly content where he was.

She asked Dixon a little bit about the party they had given for servants and mill-workers, which had been held in an annexe to the Hall, and was assured it had been the greatest of good times, with wonderful food, and that everyone had drunk a toast, some several, to the Master and his lovely bride.

"And weren't it lovely to see Mrs Shaw, and Mrs Lennox!"

Margaret had enjoyed some moments of that meeting – Edith hugging her and exclaiming, "Oh Margaret! Your beau is so very handsome!" on seeing beautiful dark blue-eyed Mr Thornton, finely turned out and very Masterish as he greeted guests with elegant courtesy, which he seemed always able to pull out of a hat when needed – others, less, such as Aunt Shaw looking for things to criticise about the decorations (she had not found much, as a canny Hannah Thornton had seen to everything with just this critical observation in mind) but she had visibly blenched at the rough Northern speech all around her.

"This is your new society, then, is it, Margaret?"

"Yes, Aunt... and I'm very happy in it. Come and meet John's mother... I am sure you will find no fault with her manners, at least..."

The excitement and whirlwind of the glorious day, was fading now – leaving her a little flat. She was tired, of course, but it was more than that; she realised she was... nervous.

She and Mr Thornton had spent the few weeks since their engagement in such happiness; meeting daily for tea, or a walk, talking and being companionably silent together; he was not a talkative man but what he said was worth hearing. She knew he had a fine, sharp intelligence, curious and thoughtful and questioning; he had a sense of humour, often making her laugh with his wry observations and sardonic comments about people and things they knew. She laughed, he smiled – and smiled more often these days. They had been growing closer so naturally that she felt almost as if he had always been at her side, her prince of darkness, her loyal knight who would fight to the death before he let anything harm her, her friend, her lover.

Her lover. She loved to be in his arms, willingly going to him to be held and kissed. He had been very gentlemanly; there had been no liberties taken – he had never tried to touch her apart from the brief brush of fingers on her hand or cheek or arm, though she sensed often that he wanted to – there seemed about him sometimes a certain neediness, an increasingly restless urgency in the way he kissed her, which he very tightly controlled, stepping away from her when he seemed to know he must.

But they were married now. Anything he wanted, he could have.

She was only barely aware of the things he might want.

She had closed her mind off to it until now, thinking they would ride over it as easily as they had overcome all things once they had become open to one another. But now as Dixon made one final pass of the brush over her hair before tying it loosely in a ribbon, she felt a sort of panic rise. Should she... ask Dixon if she had any advice? But Dixon was unmarried and would know little more than she did.

She tried to hold fast to the picture of her own John Thornton, with that gentle blue blaze in his eyes as he tenderly looked at her; but it was slipping away, reverting, however hard she tried, into the Master of Marlborough Mill, imperiously staring down from above with a darkness about him, cold and distant and no friend of hers.

"Dixon," she said in a sudden fright...

"Yes, Miss Margaret? There . You look pretty as a picture!" Dixon admired her handiwork with satisfaction. Miss Margaret's beautiful hair was brushed to shining curls and held with a ribbon, the treasured little golden rose laid carefully in a nest of velvet. Dixon wondered what it had cost. More than a house, she had heard from someone who knew someone who knew.

The girl's eyes lifted to hers, wide and troubled. "Dixon – I am not sure what to expect. Tonight. Do you have any advice for me? Oh, forgive me for mentioning it, I should not have..."

For Dixon had darkly blushed, and looked away, and seemed overcome with embarrassment.

"I'm sorry you've got that to face, Miss Margaret." She put her head closer to the girl she thought of almost as a daughter, and added in a fierce mutter, "'Try to keep him to Wensdys an' Sattidys,' - that's what Mother told our sister when she got married."

Margaret gazed at her in such alarm she hastily realised she should soften it - "There, there, Miss! Mr Thornton is a good, kind gentleman, I know I never used to think it but I've come to know 'im better, an' I'm sure as sure he will try to spare you what he can, but still... they can't help themselves, Miss Margaret, and that's a fact! They turn into beasts for it. Even the good'uns. I'm sorry, Miss Margaret, but that's how it is. It don't last long though - so I've heard – " she added hurriedly – "specially not with you looking so pretty like that – but it is a right business, to be sure. "

Dixon left; and he did not keep her waiting long.

Her husband. He was so ridiculously attractive, she really was the envy of all the young ladies in Milton, she knew it. But when he entered her room, for one moment she wished she could swap places with any one of them tonight.

He was wearing his nightclothes, and over it a robe of blue silk; she also wore a robe over her nightgown. She rose to greet him, extending her hands, which he took, tilting his head slightly to one side, a little quizzical expression drawing down his brows.

"No smile for me, Margaret?" he asked her softly. "Did you not enjoy your wedding day?" which he intended as a tease, as he knew she had had a wonderful day, enchanted, full of love and friends and music and flowers. She looked so lovely with her hair loose like this; he had never seen it this way before. He reached up an entranced hand to stroke it.

Her anxious frown cleared; she did smile at him, right into his eyes which were the blue of midnight tonight, hiding what thoughts she could not guess. Always the expressions of his eyes were complex, reflecting a range of emotions, darkly. A very difficult man to read.

"It was the most perfect wedding any woman could ever have. Everything was beautiful. I was so happy all day long."

"I'm glad to hear it... but you don't look so happy now."

She was not so hard to read. He knew her so well.

"But I am. I am happy," she insisted, and she lifted her face for his kiss, as she always did.

Whenever they had kissed before, they had been wearing formal clothes and even when he had relaxed enough with her to appear before her in a shirt unbuttoned at the neck with sleeves rolled to his elbows, there was still some natural distance between them when they embraced. Now, in their silk and cotton nightclothes, he was terribly conscious that just two thin layers away was her bare skin, her naked tender flesh - and, less pleasurably, that she was holding herself distant from him, even when it became awkward for her to strain back against his tightening arms.

He let go of her, his hands dropping to his sides. "What's the matter, Margaret?" he said, wondering. He was not nervous, he was adoring and excited; at last they would join in the full togetherness allowed by marriage, the last missing piece of their closeness and their love.

Was this what his mother had meant? Did Margaret have no idea what was to come?

Or did she know all too well, and dreaded it?

His thrilling heart began to sink.

"I am a little nervous," she said. "I... don't really know what is expected." She blushed as she said it; even so much was embarrassing.

"It will be all right... How could it not be?"

His voice and his look was so tender it had a surprising effect: she started unexpectedly to cry, from all the tension she had not known she was holding in. This was the John she loved. If he could only stay this way...

He took a deep breath. She did not know what was expected, she admitted so. How much to say - ?

"Plain words make it sound disagreeable, but... it needn't be so . We'll lie together, close and safe and I'll hold you and love you and... well, you'll see... " He looked frowningly into her anxious face and knew he was not handling this well, but he had not wanted or been prepared to handle it at all.

He added, trying to find words of reassurance, "I understand it is not so pleasant for women, especially at first... but I will try so hard not to hurt you."

That made her cry harder. How awful must it be, that he could not even tell her in clear words what would take place? And – astonishingly - not even been able to assure her she would not be hurt?

"I don't mind a little pain," she whispered bravely. "I just fear... the indignity of it."

Indignity. He turned away from her. "It is a natural thing, Margaret. A very human thing. All humans, since the beginning of time."

It was not losing patience with her that had scoured the tenderness from him. It was that he already knew she was going to turn him away, even before she knew it herself, and he was struggling with it, trying to quieten the thrum of his body's expectations and be what she wanted him to be again.

She tried to explain, "I am afraid it will ... spoil what is between us." She could not tell him what was really in her mind; the thought that perhaps, afterwards, once he had showed her the male darkness of his nature, she might not love him so much...

He whipped back round to face her then: "Spoil it?" and she knew from the look on his face she could have said nothing worse.

She held out her hands to him, tears flowing and flowing. "Please don't look like that. Mr Thornton," she forgot to call him by his name, she forgot what his name was, "Please come to me and ... I will do my best. "

He made no move to take her hands. "Let me make sure I've this right. You want me to come to you... and you'll put up with it? You'll put up with me."

"I didn't mean - please, Mr Thornton!"

Their wedding night after so many weeks of love, and it had come to this.

He could see her hands trembling, and she was weeping openly now. He lifted his chin, distant, in another country.

"I have never taken a woman who was reluctant, or a woman who was in fear - as you are now. I never will. Not even for you."

Not even for you. The words hung between them.

"Sleep alone tonight, Margaret. I'll not trouble you."

He had gone to call her Miss Hale then. He had actually had to stop it slipping out. They were strangers to one another all over again. He had meant to sound kind, to let her know she was out of danger, but it had not come out kind.

"Margaret," he began more gently. "I am trying to say, not very well, that you need not worry about it. You must be so tired. Sleep now."

He made her a little courtly bow of his head and began withdrawing from her.

She said in a panic, "You aren't leaving?"

"We will see one another tomorrow."

"I have been so honest with you!" she burst out. "I never thought my fears... are they not human, and natural, too, Mr Thornton? it is all so very new to me - I never thought telling you would mean so little comfort from you."

He said in disbelief, "I am trying to comfort you now, Margaret. By leaving you to sleep alone and safe."

Did she not know that most men would be demanding to stay? Insisting on having what was now their right to have?

"Can't we – can't we at least just sleep here with one another?" she heard her own pleading in a voice thick with ungainly tears and felt ill with the way she had done this so badly. "Just... to be together?"

"Margaret, believe me when I say – that would not be a good idea." He had wanted her so much. She had made it impossible for him even tenderly to press his advances on her, whether she knew it or not, and now here she was thinking he could lie beside her to give her comfort and not touch her and not yearn for more... how little she knew, how little.

"I just want... I just want you to hold me. Like it has always been between us..." she said pitifully, silent tears now, unceasing.

He ran his hand through his hair, bewildered. Slickson had been right. A whole factory-full of rebellious men did not cause him half the doubts about how to handle them there in the moment. But he did not know how to handle this.

"Please," she begged.

He sighed and came to a quick decision. "All right, Margaret. Let me just go for a little while." Seeing her face - "I'll come back."

"Will you promise?" her big tearfilled eyes fixed onto his.

"You know I'd not say it if I didn't mean it. I'll be back in a quarter of an hour."

He was not back in quarter of an hour, more like half, by which time she had convinced herself he was not coming and was in the depths of despair; but when he slipped into bed with her he seemed softer, gentler in temper. He smelt fresh and clean, as if he had bathed, and maybe he had, because his hair was damp.

"There, Miss Margaret," he murmured, taking her in his arms across the bed, gathering her close. This much he could surely have. "What was all that about? You have nothing to fear from me. You never will have. Shhhh, don't talk. Just be close to me. Let's sleep together now." It was wonderful to be able to hold her like this, gently, lying together as they never had before. She smelt so beautiful. She was so sweet and warm. He felt so loving. His inconvenient desires would not trouble her tonight; she was safe in his wholesome embrace.

"I love you so," she whispered, chastened. "I love you so much."

"Margaret - if I didn't say earlier - I am so happy you've married me. You have done me such an honour. I am so very lucky." Every word was from his heart. Though it would mean a daily struggle with himself, if this was all he could ever have, he would take it. He would take it without a thought above a life without her.

His words were so sweet, as was the comforting nearness of him in the night, but she knew he was not lucky. She had rejected him, this sensitive tender man, who had chosen her of all the women he could have. She had turned away his natural male instincts of love and let him down. She was devastated with herself.

In the morning she awoke to find herself alone in the bed; but she had dreamed someone kissed her lightly; and one pure white rose from the wedding displays was laid upon her pillow so she would see it first when she awoke.

ooOoo