"Madness," he whispered quietly aloud, "this is utter madness."
Yet still he stood, watching her sleep in the moonlight. From time to time, he'd make himself fight his own desires, he'd force himself to walk the beach or pace the widows walk, yet in time he had always failed, and he found himself again in their master cabin during the quiet nighttime.
The first time, he had excused it as mere curiosity, using the time to think through what these newcomers were going to mean to his previously solitary existence, 'or rather lack of it,' he chuckled to himself. But afterwards? That was more difficult to explain, to excuse.
He had no difficulty with justifying it to himself each time he checked in on the children. It was to make sure they were safe, content and resting as they should, but here, next to her, he had no choice but to admit the reasons were far more complex.
Over that first year, how she had tormented him, sometimes willfully, sometimes with no understanding at all. Battling him for control of his home, for the right to be seen as his equal, to have a complete and full understanding of who he was, and what they might mean to one another. Smiling to himself as she stirred and turned slumbering, he wondered how she would have described that year.
'No doubt, she thought me a stern, overbearing martinet, or at least from time to time,' he grinned, not displeased with the idea. And yet. . . No matter his formal intentions, his appreciation, his affections for her, things he had attempted to keep to himself, spilled out the closer they became. Of late, the moments of private laughter between them, the silent, heartfelt, meaningful looks and even the words had become increasingly tender, romantic, and to his immense frustration, full of tangible sexual tension.
And yet as they reveled in what they had, he knew it wasn't enough, was never going to be enough. 'Is this my true purgatory?' he wondered, 'to be so close to her, and yet never to be as close as I would wish to be.' Smiling again, he whispered aloud, "As close as I believe we both would wish to be."
She turned almost instinctively toward him as he leaned over, his face tantalizingly close to hers. "Blast," he nearly hissed out loud as he placed a gentle phantom kiss on her lips. Her sudden laugh surprised him, and he straightened up watching her carefully. Brushing her hands across her sleeping face, she giggled, "That tickles!" and then nestled down further into her pillow with a coy smile.
Stunned, he retreated back a step, but his expression of shock quickly faded into one of wonder, and then to hope.
"Good night Mrs. Muir," he said more loudly with a distinct glint in his eye. "Madness?" He smiled, when she responded again to his soft touch on her cheek. "Madness, ah perhaps not."