Only Beloved (The Survivor's Club , #7)

by Mary Balogh

He was smiling in that gentle, kindly way

of his.

“That you are a gifted listener,” she said. “That you give comfort and strength and support without in any way trying to impose your will upon anyone or attempting to control anyone’s actions.”

“It does not take a great deal of talent to listen,” he said, “when one loves the speaker.”

The years during which Penderris Hall had been a

hospital for wounded officers had saved George’s sanity. He was convinced of that.

He had found,

however, that he had a function almost as important as Connor’s, for he had discovered in himself a vast ability to empathize, to put himself in the place of the sufferer, to listen, to find just the right words to say in reply. He had discovered that he was a

patient man, that he could spend as much time with each wounded man as was needed. He had spent many hours, for instance, simply holding Vincent during the ghastly...

he had discov...

himself a capacity to love that reached out to anyo...

in giving of himself he had also received in abundance.

He would do anything to put things right for her, though he

knew from experience that no one could ever put someone else’s life to rights. One could only listen and encourage and love. And hold when holding was appropriate.

There was something surprisingly lovely about cuddling a woman when one had no intention of having full sex with her. It was an entirely new experience for him, in fact.

That was the greatest marvel of all, the greatest miracle—that she was his. His wife, till death parted them. And not just his wife—ah, no, not just that. She was his companion, his bedfellow, his friend.

if he

was not careful he was going to become more aroused than he wanted to be.

“You may touch me too if you wish,” he told her. “I am touching—” she began, but he deepened his kiss. “Wherever you wish,” he said. “I am your husband. I am yours. I am for your pleasure as well as for everything else.”

“I hope this will always be a pleasure for you as well as for me,” he said. “Will be?” She was Miss Debbins again. “Oh, George, it already is. You have no idea.”

“I have had enough of being haunted. I came here so that I could see for myself that a long time has passed and the woman I remember, the mother I remember, no longer exists. I

have seen and now I am satisfied. You are Lady Havell, ma’am. You bear only a passing resemblance to my mother.”

But what I cannot understand—or at least what I

cannot forgive—is your complete abandonment of us as well as of Papa. What had we done to you? You were our mother, our Mama, and we needed you. Agnes was a child. She could not even understand. She knew only that her mother was gone, that

perhaps you had left because she was not l...

“I suppose,” Agnes said, “you loved Sir Everard. I can understand that sometimes a new romance might seem more enticing than the marriage one already has. But more enticing than the love of one’s children?

We all make choices in life and must then live with the consequences. And some choices are not easy to make.

“I am pleased to have made your acquaintance, ma’am,” he said. “I promise you that I will cherish your daughter for the rest of my days.”

I would say that Dora is a fortunate lady, but I do believe you are an equally fortunate man.”

How had she ever found comfort in her life, she

wondered, before there was George’s calm voice and kind eyes and firm shoulder and sheltering arms?

“She is not a stranger to me,” Dora told her, “and yet she is. If she writes to me, I will write back. Oh, it was so wicked of Papa, Agnes, to withhold her

letters and gifts. Though perhaps he thought it was for the best. I am tired of blaming and resenting and hating.”

Oh, how one’s heart ached sometimes, even with memories of events long past and best forgotten.

tired, tired, tired

AND I'M REALLY TIRED OD THIS TRIPLE-ADJECTIVE DEVICE

She could have sworn for a moment that it was deep pain she saw in his eyes, but then they smiled with a kindness that was almost like a shield. “I draw my comfort from giving it,” he said.

Who did comfort him? She was aware of a huge dark pool of loneliness in

him. He had admitted it to her in Inglebrook when he had come to ask her to marry him, but at the time she had thought of it only as an absence of close friends, and the lack of a wife. She suspected now, though—more than suspected—that his loneliness

went far deeper t...

She had thought last night’s embraces impossibly, wonderfully intimate after he had stripped off her nightgown and they were both

naked. But today when they were both fully clothed . . . Well, today he fondled her with hard, seeking hands and a demanding, urgent mouth, and she explored him just as boldly despite the barrier of several layers of various garments.

“Am I hurting you?” His eyes were heavy-lidded with desire.

even giving herself to him as she had just done could not really comfort that pain she was sure she had seen in his eyes for one unguarded moment a little while ago.

Perhaps he would tell

her just exactly what the Earl of Eastham’s appearance at the church during their wedding had been all about. It meant more than it had ap...

“I think I am at home now,” he said. “Not here in Stanbrook House necessarily, but here with you in my arms.”

But this time he did not find the return home either long or tedious. He saw everything through fresh eyes as Dora

commented upon passing scenes and people. He enjoyed aspects of the journey that he had always taken for granted.

He loved hearing her laugh.

She could not know how close to a fairy tale their union seemed to him, though he had spoken of it before their marriage in practical, mundane terms.