Tilly Trotter Widowed (The Tilly Trotter Trilogy) by Cookson Catherine

Author:Cookson, Catherine [Cookson, Catherine]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Cookson, saga, women's general fiction, Romance, historic, social history, Fiction
Publisher: Peach Publishing
Published: 2011-03-23T13:00:00+00:00

Still retaining his hold on her, he drew her back into the room, pushing the door closed with his foot as he did so, and now to her bent head he said, ‘Part of me, the sensible part of me keeps ramming it home that the situation for me is hopeless, worse than ever it was, you the lady of the manor, me little more than a hewer down the pit . . . well, only a couple of steps up and likely to remain there. Forget her, I’ve said. Marry, I’ve said. And I’ve tried; God knows I’ve tried. Twice I’ve been on the verge of it, only to withdraw because it wasn’t in me to make another woman’s life a hell. One can put up with one’s own hell but inflicting it on somebody else, that’s another thing. But now for the other side of me, the side that lives in a dream. This side sees a man who doesn’t work down the pit, who speaks well, dresses well, can carry himself in any company. This man can go to the lady of the manor and say, “I love you, Tilly. I’ve always loved you. Marry me.” But this fellow only comes alive at night, and he’s never there in the morning. But it’s night now, Tilly . . . No! No! Keep still; just let me hold your hands, just this once, please!’ His voice had risen from a murmur and the last word was not asked in the form of a plea but more of a demand, it was as if he were saying, ‘You owe me something for my constancy over the years,’ and it brought her head up and her eyes, misty now, looking into his. And as she stared at this man whose love had been an irritation to her in her youth, there came over her the most strange feeling, and somewhere in the far recesses of her mind a voice was repeating: How many times can we love? It was a question she had asked herself on the very day Matthew expressed his passion for her, and she knew that she loved him although she had loved his father, and once long, long ago she had loved Simon Bentwood too. And now this feeling was rising in her again, this warmth, this desire to enfold, to be enfolded, this longing to be at one and the same time a wife, a mother, mistress, and friend . . . But she knew that all she could ever be to this man, to this man whom she was seeing with new clear eyes, all she could ever be was a friend.

Yet more than friendship must have seeped upwards into her eyes for the next moment she found herself for the very first time crushed within the circle of his arms. The thumping of his heart reached through her clothes and penetrated her skin, and when his lips fell on hers and covered her mouth she neither succumbed nor resisted.

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