N&S Variation, New WIP by Nicole Clarkston

This is the first scene of my new book! My working title is A Shelter from the Storm, but that will most likely change. I will be posting a second scene soon!


George Thornton
Beloved Husband and Father
May 6, 1798 - October 17, 1837

A lone figure stood before the graven stone, head bowed and hat doffed. A few had passed by, but if any remarked on the novelty of the sight, they did so from a distance and at a whisper. It was an annual pilgrimage; one the man before the headstone made with religious precision at half past three of the appointed day, every single October, and always alone.

John Thornton, one of the most powerful men in the prominent industrial city, was not a man to be ruled by emotion. His life- for the past seventeen years and four minutes to be exact- had been one of machine-like drive and unswerving purpose. The work of his life had been allotted him at an exceedingly young age, and he had accepted it like a man.

Ensuring his family’s welfare had been his first duty. Restoring its honour had been his second. Everything after that had been another step in the logical progression of his life, as the ambitious young man had risen up the ranks in business. The man who stood today before the cold slab of granite was a man who held his head high among his peers, and at whose command hundreds sought their livelihood. He was a man often applied to for his perceptive advice and infallibly fair judgement; one who by all appearances could have no causes for regret and called the world at his feet.

He squeezed his eyes shut. No causes for regret… except one. It was nothing, really. Not something that should have had any lasting importance. After all, he could not be the first man who had been rejected by a woman. As far as he knew, the consequence was not fatal. There were times, though, when he felt like it ought to be.

Was it the natural state of affairs that he should still, several times a day, fail to remember to breathe? How long had it been? His mind calculated the answer before he was aware it had asked the question. Three months, twelve days, and four hours. Just over a quarter of a year since his heart had found the courage to beat once more, and then had been promptly crushed for its audacity.

He turned his hat awkwardly in his hands, unconsciously brushing the nap smooth as he did so. His eyes blurred. Why was he still standing there? He had paid his tribute, made his annual salute to the man who had sired him and set him upon this course. Nothing else was owed his sense of justice.

For the first time in many years, however, he wished he could have asked that man one single question.
The natural question- Why?- had long since been canvassed to exhaustion. Nothing remained there but heartache and misery. No, the question he would have asked today was far less profound, but a great deal more practical-and it was one he felt sure the man in that cold ground might have once had the answer for. What is a man to do with a broken heart?

Yes, surely George Thornton would have known, for Hannah Stewart had not been the first woman to catch his father’s eye. That first, a London heiress, had been far above the humble reach of George Thornton- even more so than his own remarkable mother.

Perhaps that was the answer. Margaret Hale was not the only woman on earth. His father had found another to admire, and even love, had he not? Though George Thornton’s final act had been the ultimate betrayal, he remained convinced that his father’s heart had at one time been healed, and at the hands of a woman.

He himself had never paid any heed to women, obsessed as he had always been with the all-consuming demands of his life. Never once had he felt the lack- or at least it had not been such a nagging torment that he had not been able to overlook it in favour of his ambition.

Then, something rather extraordinary had occurred. A fire had sparked out of nowhere, a flicker of that aspect of manhood long neglected. Man, after all, was not made only to labour, to produce, and then to expire. He was shaped for life, to search beyond himself and to seek his peace in relationship. He was made to find an answer to his masculine singularity in the form of a complement to himself- an opposite, yet in the greatest paradox known to humanity, a perfect match. Love.

The word flashed through his consciousness, triggering an agonized shudder in his soul. I admit it! He grit his teeth, refusing to allow his emotions to display over his features for the world to see. Aye, I confess. Yes, I loved her! No, that would not do, not if he were fully honest. I love her still. There was no recourse but to clench his eyes shut again.

The insignificant spark had blazed to a raging inferno in the blink of an eye. He had been wholly unprepared for the awesome ferocity of that emotion. How had he even been capable of it? Rigid control had been the order of his life. One glance from a haughty young woman and all had ruptured.

Despite himself, he could not help feeling that the heavens were laughing at him. Fool that he was, he had thought he had the world in his palm, when in truth he barely clung to his pathetic self-discipline.
His father had certainly had the right of it in this one point. There were other women on the planet- women who would receive him.

Others would not fling his heart back in his face as though it were the vilest of refuse! There must be yet a woman out there who would not despise him… whose very presence would ignite the long-dead embers of his soul. Surely there was… there had to be another whose every word would inspire him... whose every touch had the power to scorch him to his very marrow. There… there must be another woman somewhere the equal of Margaret Hale. And perhaps there was, but never for him.

His eyes were by now blinking rather rapidly. John Thornton never wept. Never. Not even when his father’s body had been lowered forever out of sight and his broken mother had turned the boy for all that the man had lacked. Never did sorrow dim his eyes. Right now, however, he was grateful for the soft drops of rain just beginning to fall. It would spare any awkward explanations as to why the Master of Marlborough Mills suddenly required a handkerchief for his face.

~