She frowned slightly and he wondered if mentioning his later life was such a good idea when it meant reminding her of the man he had grown into.
‘Was it because of your parents that you decided to never marry?’ she asked, the question taking him by surprise.
‘I am married.’
‘I mean really marry.’
He threw a stick in the fire.
‘And don’t sayI am really married.’
He picked up another stick and stirred the flaming fire. ‘No, I don’t think I can blame my parents. I just didn’t want to get tied down, I suppose.’ Although he had to admit there might be a kernel of truth in what she was saying. He had never wanted to become like his father or have a marriage like his parents’.
‘Even to the fine girl with the starry eyes?’
He laughed. ‘She was a figment of my imagination. But what of you? Did you ever want to marry?’
‘I am—’
‘Married,’ he finished for her. ‘Yes, but did you ever want a marriage that you weren’t forced into? A happy marriage, like your parents’?’
‘Well, like the fifteen-year-old Jacob, I too had my fantasies. And we have both learnt that fantasies are not real.’
She was right. He knew it, but right now, with the fire crackling, the light drumbeat of rain on the slate roof and a pretty young woman at his side, it did feel as if his fifteen-year-old fantasy had come to life.
Margaret hadn’t exactly told a lie. She had never fantasised about sitting on the floor in front of a small fire in a hermit’s cottage, the rain pattering lightly on the roof above them, with a man who affected her in ways she had not thought possible. Probably because such a scenario would be more romantic than she could ever have imagined.
But if she had fantasised about such a scene, the man she was sitting next to would be in love with her. He would want to be with her, not just making the best of a situation that was not of their choosing.
‘That was a loud sigh,’ he said. ‘Are you going to tell me what caused it?’
Margaret had been unaware that she had sighed and she most certainly would not be telling him the reason. ‘Sitting beside a fire always makes me sigh,’ she said. Another half-truth.
‘Yes, there’s something rather romantic about a fire.’
She tensed, hoping he could not read her mind.
‘Perhaps you could compose a poem about it,’ she said, aiming to keep a teasing note in her voice.
‘What rhymes with fire?’
‘Dire, liar, conspire—’
‘Ire, quagmire, pariah—’ he added, laughing.
Margaret joined in with the laughter, while ignoring the first word that had sprung to mind.Desire.
But how could she not think of desire, when sitting next to the most desirable man she had ever met—a man who was her husband, a man with whom her mother had informed her she would soon be sharing the most intimate of experiences? A man who had told her that such intimacy would not be part of their marriage.
She shifted uncomfortably on the straw mattress. She would not think of that. She would just enjoy spending time with a man whose company was becoming increasingly pleasurable, a man with whom she would be friends, nothing more.
‘So did you have any hiding places when you were a child?’ he asked, and she suspected he too wanted to get off the subject of romance.
‘Not as a child, but as an adult I’ve spent a lot of time hiding from my mother.’ She pulled a comical face of horror and was pleased that he laughed.
‘Well, you’ve made your mother happy now and hopefully you’ll never again feel the need to wind your way up a pillar and flee through a window to get away from her. She was positively rapturous on our wedding day.’
Unlike the bride and groom.
