Chapter 35-2

“William.” She said his name in the same in which she glared. “Yes, my Love.” William grinned, enjoying her ire to a nearly masochistic degree. “Do you want to know why I looked so or not?” she asked and he nodded. “Then be quiet.” She ordered, receiving yet another pleased grin from him but nothing more as he waited for her explanation. Finding himself not the slightest bit worried, though thinking perhaps he should be. Nan was not a simple creature, despite her simple needs she had sound reasons for most everything she worried about. And for some reason William wanting to marry her worried her. For several minutes she stared at him, opening and closing her mouth several times to try and convey what she had felt then. But no words came with thought, and when thought came it quickly scattered the moment she opened her mouth to speak. With an infuriated breath Nan turned from William strangling the air before her a moment before latching onto her head and fisting her hand in her hair. “You want to marry me.” she said again, though this time the words came from her strong and clear and in complete bewilderment. “You want to marry me!” she stated once more as she turned back to face William. Her hands no longer in her hair but thrust into the air mindlessly searching for some semblance of reason to hold on to as her eyes searched his eyes, his face, his form for any answer as to why. “Why,” She stopped, fisting her hands once more as she brought them to her eyes, closing them tightly as shook her head. “No. Not why. I know why.” She said, giving voice to thought without worrying what William might think, though he stood but a few feet away watching her odd display. The sight of which he found both endearing and exceedingly entertaining, he had never seen Nan work herself into such a tiff before. And the scene playing out before him made it very difficult for him to keep from laughing, but not wishing to disturb her diatribe and remind her of his presence in the room he did his best to contain his mirth so that he might watch this fascinatingly enjoyable scene play to its conclusion. “You love me.” she stated flinging a hand to the air as she began to pace before him, his presence completely forgotten as she spoke. Her tone matter-of-fact yet still somehow disbelieving despite the number of times and the number of ways he had told her such. “I fight with you. I’m not afraid of you. I treat you like a man. Your scars don’t bother me.” she said, reciting all the things he had told her. And would have continued to do so if William’s hand had not shot out then and taken hold of her wrist, bringing her pacing to a stop and reminding her that he was still in the room, as her gaze latched on to his. However what she saw there was not the quiet humor that had been steadily growing within him or the light merriment that had lit up his gaze previously. His expression was sad, remorseful almost, as were his eyes. For her life Nan could not understand what she had said or done to have suddenly caused such a swift change in his person. “You don’t want to marry me.” William stated, his words melting her puzzlement and uncertainty from her features as he spoke them. “You love me. But not how I love you and not enough to want to marry me.” he concluded, his words swift and almost lethal in their every meaning, like a blade that had been quickly delivered into his flesh and was now slowly being removed he stared down at her. “William I—“ He shook his head his eyes dropping to the floor as he spoke, his look succeeding in stopping anything else she might have said. “You gave all the reasons why I love you, but I heard none… of your own reasons for loving me.” he added, releasing her wrist as he moved from the back of the sofa he had been leaning against until then. “William I do love you.” Nan declared taking his hand into hers as she stared up at him desperate for him to believe her. “I know, my Love. I know.” He smiled weakly cupping her cheek as he looked down at her, though his words and his eyes held none of the same truth as he stared back. Then he kissed her forehead and left. --- Ever since William had left Nan in the Parlor with that soft dejected smile on his lips she had been in a foul mood. And it wasn’t that he didn’t believe she loved him, he did believe her. He just didn’t believe she loved him enough to want to marry him. And she now realized that had been exactly the reason she had panicked when she had been confronted with William’s coming freed to wed. Nan did love William, little by little she was growing to love him, but she hardly knew if it was enough for her to want to tie herself to him for the rest of her life. She’d wanted to do that with James and Eli had killed him for it. Eli had wanted to do that with her and she had lost her love and child for it. Society declared marriage a splendid union between two people in love, yet even when she had been Anna she had rarely seen such happy unions. Advantageous certainly, but rarely happy, or loving, there were the odd occasions where love grew into the marriage but rarely was it there at the start. Now William wanted to enter into such a union with her, and while she was certain William would never give her any cause to be unhappy, marrying William simply for the safety of being his wife just didn’t seem fair to him. He’d already married one woman who had loved him for things other than himself, Nan did not wish to continue the trend, even if it was not her intention to do so to begin with.