Philippa Gregory - Wideacre

The horses walked shoulder to shoulder on a long rein along the old drovers’ way across the top of the downs and we looked south to glimpse the sea. Larks struggled up and up and up, singing out their achievement, then closed their tiny wings and plummeted to the earth. In the woods a pair of cuckoos called amorously, irresponsibly, to each other, and everywhere there was the lazy rasp-rasp of grasshoppers and the whirring drone of bees.

I was alone on my land with the man I needed, and he had eyes only for me. Today Harry was nobody’s son and nobody’s fiancé. He was alone with me and my jealous, hungry heart could be still, knowing that all day and all evening we should see no one else. No one would come into the rooms when I was longing to be alone with him. His head would lift and his eyes would smile for no one but me.

The horses rubbed shoulders as they walked, and we talked together of Harry’s latest book about farming and my comments on what might work and what would not. We spoke of the house and of the changes that would come in October. Then, without prompting, Harry spoke of Celia.

‘She is so pure, Beatrice, so innocent. I respect her so much,’ he began. ‘A man would be a brute indeed to try to force her in any way. She is like a beautiful piece of Dresden china. Don’t you think so?’

‘Oh, yes,’ I said with ready sympathy. ‘She’s as beautiful as an angel and so sweet. A little shy perhaps?’ I let my voice make a gentle question of the statement.

‘And nervous,’ Harry agreed. ‘With that brute of a stepfather she can have no idea of what a loving marriage can be.’

‘Such a shame,’ I said carefully. ‘Such a shame that such a lovely girl, that your future wife, should be so cool.’

Harry looked quickly at me, his blue eyes piercing.

‘It’s what I fear,’ he said frankly. The horses ambled into a sheltered little dell and stopped to crop the springy downs turf. At our backs the ground rose steeply and below us a hazel coppice shielded us from the north. Sitting there we were screened from everyone and yet could see half of England looking west. Harry jumped down from the saddle and tied his horse. I made no move, but sat idly in the saddle and let my horse graze on a loosened rein.

There was a singing in my ears as sweet and insistent as the lark, and I knew it was the magic of Wideacre and the hum of the spinning wheel spinning the thread of our lives together.

‘You are a man of strong passions,’ I said.

Harry’s profile, as he stood at my horse’s head and looked away from me over our land, was as clear and as strong as a Greek statue. My body ached for him, but I kept my voice steady and low.

‘I can’t help it,’ he said and his cheeks flushed red under the golden colour of his skin.

‘I understand,’ I said. ‘It is the same for me. It is in our blood, I think.’

Harry turned quickly to look at me. I was sweating with nervousness like a mare put to the stallion. I could feel the grey gown damp under my arms. But my face was calm and clear.

‘A lady can be a perfect lady,’ I said. ‘Her public behaviour can be meticulous, and yet she can feel desire when she loves and when she has chosen well.’

Harry was staring at me. I could find no words to go on. I merely looked back at him with my passion and longing written all over my face certain that he would see the truth of what was between us.

‘You have a fiancé?’ he asked in amazement.

‘No!’ I exploded. ‘And I never wish to have one!’

I sprang from the saddle and reached out my arms to him. He caught me as I slid down and I grasped the lapels of his coat and nearly wept in anger and frustration.

‘Oh, Harry!’ I said, and my voice broke on a sob and then I could not stop crying. The ache in my heart was too strong, the singing in my ears was deafening. ‘Oh, Harry! Oh, Harry, my love!’

He froze as if my words had turned him to stone. But I could not stop weeping. I was ruined and he would never love me, but I could not contain myself. I had watched and waited for his touch so long that now his arms were around me I could not play the pretty maiden like Celia. I could not stop myself from clinging to his jacket as if I were drowning. I banged my forehead against the muscled strength of his chest and moaned aloud. He still did not move, but his arms around my waist were as tight as a vice. My sobs quietened and I bit my cheeks to force myself to silence. Slowly, painfully, I pulled a little away from him and raised my eyes to see his face.

Harry’s eyes were dark with desire and his heart under my hands was thudding. His mouth was trembling, just slightly, and he gazed into my face as if he would eat me alive.

‘It is a sin,’ he said in a low voice.

The world was spinning around me. I could hardly hear him; I could hardly find words to reply to him.

‘It is not,’ I said immediately. ‘It is not, Harry. It is right. You can feel it is right. It is no sin. It is no sin. It is not.’

His head came down to me and my eyes half shut in expectation of his kiss. He was so close I could feel his breath on my face and I opened my mouth and breathed in the air from his mouth in a little shudder of longing. But still he would not kiss me.

‘It is a sin,’ he said softly.

‘Worse sin to be married for ever to a woman who is as cold as ice,’ I murmured. ‘Worse to live with a wife who cannot love you, who does not know how to love, while I wear out my days in yearning for you. Oh, pity me, Harry! If you cannot love me, then pity me.’

‘I can love you,’ he contradicted me, his voice a husky rumble. ‘Oh, Beatrice, if you knew! But it is a sin.’

He was holding on to those four words as a talisman to keep his lovely head from coming down that fraction lower to crush his mouth on mine. I could feel his body was taut with desire and yet he had himself under control. He loved me, he desired me, and yet he would not touch me. I could bear his closeness and the half-inch between our mouths no more. I lunged up to him and bit him, as hard as I could, on his teasing, tormenting mouth. My riding whip was still looped on my wrist and I slid my hand from his chest and caught it dagger-like and stabbed it into his thigh.

‘Harry, I will kill you,’ I said and I meant it.

His mouth was bleeding and he took one hand from my waist to put the back of his fingers to his lips. He brought his hand away and saw it was stained with blood. Then he gave a great groan and flung his full weight on top of me. He ripped at my riding habit and as the buttons at the neck parted he moaned and buried his face in my breasts, kissing hard, and biting without mercy. I dragged his breeches down to his knees and he pushed up my skirts and petticoats.

Still half dressed and too desperate to care we rolled together on the grass as Harry thrust with impatient, unskilled stabs at my body, thumping his hardness into my thighs, at my back, against my wet softness until there was that one second of terrifying pleasure as frightening as falling from a tree, as painful as a knife blow and he found the sweet hidden secret place and pushed in, like a fist through curtains. For a split second we both froze still, stunned by the sensation, then he shook my body like a terrier holding a rat, and in seconds I was screaming. My legs and arms grabbed him to me and we writhed like frantic adders. With a great bellow Harry collapsed and lay still and I, hungry, greedy, insatiable, arched my back on the soft downs turf and rubbed and rubbed against him till I gave a great sigh of release and lay still.

Slowly I opened my eyes and saw Harry’s head against our blue sky and our larks singing up and up and up. The Squire of Wideacre lay heavily on me. His seed was in my body, his land beneath our coupled bodies; our grass was in one of my clenched hands, and the little meadow flowers and herbs drenched with my wetness beneath me. At last, at last, I had Wideacre and the Master. Our land beneath me, the Squire inside me. I gave a shuddering sob. The ache of longing I had carried with me all my life was gone, and my jealous anxiety had finally released me.