For all my worrying, as soon as we are behind closed doors Miss Walker lays in my arms on the sofa, her bad back obviously taking a day off from the constant pain her aunt reported. I kiss her, but not as passionately as I would like. Am I falling out of love already? She begs forgiveness for running out on me and begs for more time to make her decision, as usual. As if to prove that I should wait, she takes me up to her bedroom and we kiss and press ourselves together, but that is all. I daren’t do much. I let her steer us and she seems content with our closeness. Should I never ask for more? As we lie here, I know this is not enough for me. I’ve had this before; women who want to kiss, want you to flatter them and hold them and caress them, but you never reach their skin. They do not realise it is a tease, a torture even. While they are satisfied and flattered and excited, it is not enough for me. It is a half-truth.

Despite the many pleasures she has received from me, she is never entirely naked. She has always resisted me fully taking off her clothes, so I must grapple to reach her beneath them. Now, as she lies before me, she may as well be in a suit of armour. We have taken a step backwards. A step back to being friends who play with kisses, like girls practising for someone else.

I leave Crow Nest and all its modern opulence feeling disheartened and stomp all the hour’s walk back to Shibden. I busy myself in the study and draw up some plans for landscaping around the Hall and a new approach road.

I suffer through supper with my family of bores and retire early to be miserable alone. I even guessed the temperature wrong this morning. I should have known it would be a bad day.

Miss Walker

It was two days after I fled the Moss House that she came to see me. She sent me a note to ask permission to visit and I replied straight away with a yes. Two long, torturous days. She forgave me and waited for me to explain, but how could I without weeping and sounding half mad? She could not understand my anguish. I wanted to prove to her I loved her too and so sat by her on the sofa and we kissed and as the words did not flow, I took her to my room and held her.

She was changed. Colder. My own fault entirely. I shall have to find a way to explain to her my mind. Then she will be more patient with me, more forgiving, and not read my fleeing as from her, but as from myself.