Free Silver Tears by Becky Lee Weyrich Page A

Moments later Lord Balfour arrived to claim his bride.
    She could remember still her nervousness as he approached the bed. She knew little of what transpired between men and women. Her mother had warned her that kissing and touching could bring no good to a girl before marriage. She had promised to tell Alice all the mysteries of love before she wed. But her mother was gone forever, and with her any wisdom or comfort she might have given Alice. Whatever awaited her tonight, she knew it was all part of God’s plan. Her mother had said that much. Still, the uncertainty of it frightened her. Wasn’t love supposed to play a role in marriage? Yet, how could she know of love at her age? She tensed as her husband came close to the bed.
    Instead of crawling in beside her, he drew up a chair and took her cold, trembling hand in his.
    “There now, Alice, you mustn’t be frightened. You’ve no cause on my account. Were your dear mother here, she might offer me some restorative potion or a drink of strong herbs. But, alas…” His words trailed off and he cast his eyes down. Then gathering his courage he continued. “Were I a younger man, I would gladly do my duty by you, child. What a joy and a pleasure that would be. You’re a wondrously handsome young woman, Alice. There’s many a man who would gladly change places with me tonight. I wish for your sake one of them were here. But there are only the two of us. Husband and wife in the eyes of man and God, and, my dear, I’m afraid that is the only way we will ever be wed.”
    Alice relaxed as she listened to the old man ramble on in a low, soothing tone. His gentle words lulled her as he put all her fears to rest.
    “Now, sweet Alice, since I can’t offer you more, I feel it my duty at least to let you know what a woman should learn on her wedding night. Listen carefully, my child. When I’m gone and you marry again, you’ll go to your new husband knowing the things a woman should.”
    She’d protested that she wanted no other husband, but Lord Balfour only smiled and smoothed a gentling hand over her brow.
    “Your words are kind, but your heart is aching tonight, I know. Hear me now, Alice, and remember well what I’m about to explain to you.”
    What followed, Alice remembered all too well. Her husband first talked of the “stirrings of love,” the feelings of a young woman when she finds the one man in all the world who is meant for her.
    “I am not that man,” he said sadly. “Would that I were twenty years younger, I would show you that I could be. But someday, Alice, you will find him. When you do, you will know him in an instant.”
    Lord Balfour leaned down, staring into Alice’s wide eyes, and let his fingers trace over her lips, her cheeks, her forehead, and finally down her neck. A strange tingling sensation followed in the wake of his cool touch.
    “When the right man caresses you so, you will feel his touch magnified a thousand times,” he told her. “When he holds you and kisses you, the rest will follow as naturally as the blooming of a spring flower after an April rain. Never fear love, my child. And never fear the man who, through love, will make you a woman. Do you understand what I’m trying to tell you, Alice?”
    “Yes, my lord,” she whispered, but his rambling words only added to her confusion.
    He leaned down and touched his dry lips lightly to her forehead, and left her to spend the rest of their wedding night alone. He never came to her chamber again.
    Over the months and years that followed, Lord Balfour brought one young man after another to meet his wife, all the while urging Alice to choose one to be her lover. But she refused, feeling puzzled as well as duty-bound to her husband to love no other.
    More than once, he sighed at her refusals and said, “If only Christopher Gunn were here. You’d not turn away from him, I vow.”
    Alice pulled aside the deerskin flap at the window and peered out. “If only he would come.”
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