Page 29 of Alessandra (Chisholm Manor #1)

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?"