Page 52 of Courting Catherine
“No. Yes. Oh, Lord. Just wait.” He turned to pace a few steps away and breathe.
Inside, Lilah smiled. “Why, he’s in love with her after all, but he’s too stupid to know it.”
“Shh!” Coco waved a hand. “I can almost hear what they’re saying.” She had an ear at the base of the water glass she pressed up to the window.
At the bottom of the steps, Trent tried again. “Nothing I begin ends the way I expect it to when I’m with you.” He turned back. She was still standing with the house behind her, the dress glimmering like liquid fire in the dark. “I know I have no business asking you, and I didn’t intend to. I intended to say a very civil goodbye and let you go.”
“And now?”
“Now I want to make love with you more than I want to go on breathing.”
“To make love,” C.C. repeated steadily. “But you don’t love me.”
“I don’t know anything about love. I care for you.” He walked back to touch a hand to her face. “Maybe that could be enough.”
She studied him, realizing he didn’t have any idea that he was breaking an already shattered heart. “It might be, for a day or a week or a month. But you were right about me, Trent. I expect more. I deserve more.” Keeping her eyes on his, she slid her hands over his shoulders. “I offered myself to you once. That won’t happen again. And neither will this.”
She pressed her mouth against his, pouring every scrap of her tattered emotions into it. Her arms enfolded him even as her body swayed seductively toward his. With a sigh, her lips parted, inviting him to take.
Off balance, needy, he dragged her head back and plundered. Unsteady, his hands skimmed beneath her wrap, urgently seeking the warmth of her skin.
So many feelings, too many feelings, bombarded him. He wanted only to fill himself with the taste of her. But there was more. She wouldn’t let him take only the kiss, but all the emotion that went with it. He felt he was drowning in it, but it was so strong and heady a flood, he couldn’t fight.
Love me! Why can’t you love me?Her mind seemed to scream it even as she was borne away on the tide of her own longings. Everything she wanted was here, inside the circle of her arms. Everything but his heart.
“Catherine.” He couldn’t get his breath. Dragging her closer, he pressed his mouth to her neck. “I can’t get close enough.”
She held him to her a moment longer, then slowly, painfully, pulled away. “Yes, you could. And that’s what hurts the most.” Turning, she dashed up the steps.
“Catherine.”
She paused at the door. With her head high, she turned around. He was already coming after her when he saw the tears glittering in her eyes. Nothing else would have stopped him.
“Goodbye, Trent. I hope to God that keeps you up at night.”
As he listened to the echo of the door slamming, he was certain it would.
It cannot go on. I can no longer pretend that I am disloyal to my husband only between the covers of this journal. My life, so calm and ordered during my twenty-four years, has become a lie this summer. One I must atone for.
As autumn approaches and we make our plans to return to New York, I thank God I will soon leave Mount Desert Island behind me. How close, how dangerously close I have come these past days to breaking my marriage vows.
And yet, I grieve
In another week, we will be gone. I may never see Christian again. That is how it should be. How it must be. But in my heart I know that I would give my soul for one night, even one hour, in his arms. Imagining how it could be obsesses me. With him there would finally be passion, and love, even laughter. With him it would not simply be a duty, cold and silent and soon over.
I pray to be forgiven for the adultery I have committed in my heart.
My conscience has urged me to keep away from the cliffs. And I have tried. It has demanded that I be a more patient, loving and understanding wife to Fergus. I have done so. Whatever he has asked of me, I have done. At his request, I gave a tea for several of the ladies. We have gone to the theater, to countless dinner parties. I have listened until my head was throbbing to talk of business and fashion and the possibility of war. My smile never falters, for Fergus prefers that I look content at all times. Because it pleases him, I wear the emeralds when we go out in the evenings.
They are my penance now, a reminder that a sin is not always in the action, but in the heart.
I sit here in my tower now as I write. The cliffs are below, the cliffs where Christian paints. Where I go when I sneak from the house like a randy housemaid. It shames me. It sustains me. Even now I look down and see him. He faces the sea, and waits for me.
We have never touched, not once, though the ache is in both of us. I have learned how much passion there can be in silences, in long, troubled looks.
I will not go to him today, but only sit here and watch him. When I feel I have the strength, I will go to him only to say goodbye and wish him well.
While I live through the long winter that faces me, I will wonder if he will be here next summer.
