Chapter 29

The following

day , Edward received

confirmation of travel arrangements for the day after. After

receiving the news, he and Alessandra spent more time walking

around her little township once again.

After seeing her peer

inside the window of a store on the main street, he made a note of

what had caught her attention. When she was preoccupied elsewhere,

he excused himself and ran back to purchase the item and arrange

for it to be sent to the estate as a surprise for her.

As he stood inside the shop,

arranging things with the shop owner, he looked out the window

again and saw Alessandra approached by someone. His first instinct

was to run out of the shop and instantly be at her side. Then

something held him back and he decided he would rather stay where

he was and simply watch the interaction from afar.

~~~~~

Outside and across the road,

Alessandra was peering inside the window of another shop. She

jumped in alarm when a voice behind her called out to her.

"Alessandra?"

the voice said. As soon as she heard it, she was instantly reminded

of another time, before she had heard of Edward and his family.

When she turned, she saw Tom Missinger standing nearby, looking

intently at her. "It is

you!"

Alessandra curtseyed to

him and felt her heart grow heavy. She knew that he had never been

in love with her. That idea had been a childish assumption and wish

on her part. Still, she could not deny the level of outward

handsomeness that he held, even now.

"Tom," she seemed to breathe

out his name. "It is good to see you."

She watched as he moved

closer. For a moment, it seemed as though he might put his arms out

to her, and around her, but then seemed to remember himself and

stood back. It wasn't unnoticed by her that he was looking at her

in a way that was even more intent than he had on the occasions

when they had danced together.

As Alessandra looked him

in the eye, Tom was surprised by the level of confidence she seemed

to have developed since he'd last seen her. He had thought her

endearing before, but at that moment, she seemed to be exuding a

different kind of self-awareness.

"You look beautiful," he said,

almost as if he was thinking those words but had not meant to say

them.

They looked at one another, for

a moment both forgetting their spouses.

~~~~~

Edward watched his wife

stand before the man in front of her. He could see the man's face

clearly, and knew he was what any woman would call very handsome.

It momentarily played on Edward's confidence, knowing that he was

the complete opposite.

He looked at the face of the

man, and then the face of his wife. Although she had never

mentioned any previous loves, he suspected from looking at them

that they must have had some acquaintance previously, and some

fondness for one another.

~~~~~

"I have not seen you since…"

Tom started to say as he began to recover from his surprise.

"Since you married," Alessandra

replied for him and saw a slight blush appear on his face.

Tom was momentarily

tongue-tied before finding the words to be able to speak. As he

stood in front of her, he was reminded of their time together. They

had only danced together on occasion. Nothing had moved forward

from that because he'd known from a very young age that he was not

allowed to give his heart to anyone other than the person his

parents had already chosen to be his wife.

"I could not love you,

Alessandra. I had been betrothed by my parents since I was born,"

Tom said as he moved closer to her, reaching an intimate speaking

distance. "Please do not think that I did not wish things could

have been different for us."

Alessandra looked into

his eyes and expected to see deceit, but all she saw was what

appeared to be sincerity. The discovery relaxed her.

"Tom, I am pleased that

you are happy in marriage…" she started to say to further relax

things between them, but he cut off her sentence.

"But I am not," he said,

startling her in her thoughts and words.

Tom looked at her and

knew it was true. He also realised that might be the only moment he

would ever have to speak to her alone.

"I am not happy in my

marriage," he continued. "I do not love her, and too often I have

thought about you," he said, speaking only the truth that he knew

at that moment.

~~~~~

From across the road,

Edward watched the interaction continue. It lasted a short time,

but everything seemed to be moving in slow motion. He saw the man

move closer to Alessandra, and yet still he could not bring himself

to move from his spot and return to his wife. He felt eager to see

what would happen between them - if anything. He had no reason to

doubt her feelings for him, but looking at her standing and talking

to a man with such a level of attractiveness played on his

confidence greatly.

Behind him, the shop owner

approached.

"Your parcel shall be delivered

in three days, Sir," he said.

Edward thanked him before

resuming his view across the road, bringing his stare to the

awareness of the shop owner.

"Ahh, young Miss

Alessandra has captured your eye, I see," the man said. "She has

always been a polite young lass who everyone respects. She and her

family are loyal friends in this part of the land."

Edward heard him, and

took the opportunity to learn something new about his

wife.

"But who is the man she is

talking to?" he asked bluntly.

"Oh, that is young Tom

Missinger. It looked for a time, to many of us, that they would

marry, but he up and went off to marry another young lady. This is

the first time I have seen him back." After a moment of silence,

the shop owner continued his conversation. "Do you know the young

miss?"

"Alessandra and I are married,"

he said quietly.

"Oh, Sir, I apologise. I

did not realise. I bid you sincere congratulations," the owner

replied, holding out his hand to shake Edward's.

"Thank you," Edward

replied as he shook the hand of the man in front of him, and then

turned back to resume his view. The shop owner turned away

respectfully and moved on with his day, as if nothing out of the

ordinary had happened at all.

~~~~~

"You must not say such

things to me, Tom," Alessandra said to him quietly.

"And why not? I have said

that I do not love my wife, so why should you not know how I still

feel about you?" Tom replied. He knew he was being disrespectful to

his wife, but was not at all prepared for the look Alessandra then

gave him. It was a look that pierced him completely.

"But I am

married, Tom, and I do

love my husband. He is the greatest

man I have ever met, and we are very happy together,"

Alessandra said. Straight away, she saw Tom take a step back from

her with a look of surprise and realisation on his face.

That is why

she looks so confident, he

thought to himself . She is not

like my wife, hating everything about our intimate time, and

cringing when I touch her. Alessandra has learned how to share

intimacy, and enjoy it the way it is meant to be

enjoyed.

The thought

passing through his head resulted in his heart feeling heavy. The

regret that then set in made him blunder on , without thinking about what he was saying, or how he

sounded as he said it.

"But I know that you loved me,

Alessandra. I do not believe that you could have moved on to love

someone else…"

"Tom, please

listen to me, and understand what I am saying," Alessandra said,

moving closer to him. "I am in love with my husband. Did I think

that I loved you then? Yes, I did, and if you had asked me to marry

you, I would have accepted you. But you did not ask me, and

now we are both married to other people. There is nothing more to

say about that."

Tim looked at her in surprise

at the level of assurance in herself that was flowing from her. It

left him utterly speechless.

~~~~~

Across the road, Edward

told himself that enough was enough. For Alessandra's sake, he

should have been standing next to her as her husband, supporting

her in whatever was going on. He walked out of the store and

reluctantly started to cross the road. Out of the corner of his

eye, he saw Alessandra notice him and smile. She held out her hand

for him, giving him the confidence to walk forward and right up to

her. Once he reached the two of them, he let her take his hand in

hers, and heard her speak up as Edward could feel the eyes of the

other man upon him.

"Edward, please allow me

to introduce to you an old friend of mine - Tom Missinger,"

Alessandra said. "Tom, this is my husband, Edward."

The two men shook hands,

neither of them wanting to, but both falling under her spell of

making happen what she wanted to happen. Alessandra then turned

completely away from Tom and toward Edward.

"Are you ready to return

to my parents' house, my love?" she asked, looking at him directly

in a way that reassured him. After Edward nodded in return, she

looked back at Tom one more time.

"Take good care of yourself,

Tom. It was nice seeing you again," she said and led Edward away,

holding his hand firmly and not wanting to let it go.

Tom watched the two of

them move away, aware of the way she had looked into her husband's

eyes. He noticed how she was holding Edward's hand and looking up

at him. Even from his angle behind them, Tom could see the way they

looked at each other. Inside of him, he regretted deeply that he

had not stood up to his parents and told them how much Alessandra

had meant to him.

~~~~~

The rest of the afternoon

and evening was spent with Alessandra's parents, talking about

arrangements to be made later for them to visit Edward's parents'

home, to stay when the baby was almost due.

"Are you sure your mother

will not mind, Edward? We would not want to cause any imposition,"

Alessandra's mother said. All found her words amusing. Everyone in

the room knew that she wanted, more than anything, the opportunity

to be close to her daughter when Alessandra's time would come to

lie in.

Edward laughed at her

fondly.

"It will not be an imposition,

I assure you. We have more than enough room for you to come and

stay with us for as long as you wish to," he said and paused,

looking at his wife. "And I know Alessandra would like you there

too."

~~~~~

Later, lying in bed, finally

Alessandra spoke about earlier that day. She'd thought that Edward

might want to question her about Tom. On hearing no question, she

wondered if he'd put his appreciation for privacy ahead of his

curiosity, even if it meant he would get twisted inside.

"Tom and I were close for

a short time, long before I had heard of you, Edward," she said. "I

did think for a time that I was in love with him, and that he might

ask me to marry him."

"And what happened?" Edward

asked.

"He married someone else.

At the time, I felt very let down, and such a child for having read

his intentions so wrongly."

"But if he had not married

someone else, and he had asked you to marry him?" Edward

probed.

Alessandra looked at him, not

wanting to be anything except completely honest.

"Then I would

have married him," she said and saw on his face the hurt of that.

"But then I would never have met you, and I do not believe that you

and I were not intended to meet and be together, Edward. I know

that you are who I am meant to be with, and the only man I

want to be with."

Edward lay quietly, not

speaking, and she waited until he was ready to speak.

"I watched the two of you from

across the road," he said, looking ashamed in the process.

"As I am sure I would have, had

it been you talking to a woman," she said, making him look up at

her in surprise.

"You would?" he

asked.

"Yes. I think anyone

would take notice of their loved one talking intimately with

someone as I was with Tom today," Alessandra replied honestly. She

put her hand up to his face before kissing him softly. "Do not

think about him again. He is from my past. You, and the many

children we are going to have, are my present and my

future."

Edward

was quiet for a moment before he

realised what she had said, and laughed softly.

"Many?"