Love's Will Read Online Free PDF

would have laughed.”
    He lifted his cup and swilled the last of his wine in one fast, angry gesture. “That’s all I am or ever will be, you see. An uneducated country man, a glover’s son, fit for nothing but patching up old Italian plays for a group of country-town mummers, with no one to talk to, no one who can know or understand the sort of things I love, surrounded by illiterate yokels and tradesmen.”
    “And farmers’ daughters.”
    “Yes.”
    The silence hummed like the tension left in the air when the plucked string of a lute ends its note.
    “I’m sorry,” William said helplessly. “I did not mean that.”
    “Of course you did, and of course you are quite right. That is what I am. A yokel’s daughter who can barely read. How boring for you.”
    “I’ve hurt you.”
    “Of course not,” said Anne, so hurt she didn’t know whether to hit him or weep.
    “Of course I have. And I am sorry. But, honestly, I didn’t mean what I said in the way you took it.”
    “How else could I take it? At least I never pretended to be what I am not – your equal.”
    To her surprise and indignation William looked at her for a moment then swept her up in his arms, kissed her on the mouth, set her down, and shook her. “Now will you listen?”
    “You have my attention.”
    “Good.”
    “But I don’t think you should have kissed me. Or shaken me like that.”
    “But it got me your attention. If I want to spend an hour of hurt feelings and apologies and being told how cruel and heartless I am, I’ll stay at home. Plenty of that there, along with old saws about learning to cut my coat according to my cloth. Listen, Anne, and heed me. I am miserable at home, in Stratford. I want a life I can’t have, or at least not for years to come. No one at home has ever read a book, except by way of schoolwork. Nor have most of my friends. I do have friends, of course. I spend most of every day with people who’ve shot their intellectual bolt when they’ve talked about the harvest or juicy local gossip.
    “You’re not learned, but you are clever and interested and quick, and you don’t laugh at me because I want things few boys like me want. And I am afraid that when you said that about spending time with a farmer’s daughter and I said yes, I was trying to be funny; ironic. So I’m not as clever as I often think. And I hurt your feelings. I insulted a friend. If I hadn’t you to talk to, I’d run mad. Oh and don’t dare say you’re not my equal. In everything but book-learning you are infinitely above me, and my store of learning is small enough. So please forgive me, Anne.”
    “Are you really that unhappy?”
    William took a breath and looked at her warily. “If I say yes, will you think I only mean so unhappy I have to come and pass the time with a farm girl?”
    “Not unless it’s the truth.”
    “It’s not. I come because I like you and I enjoy myself with you. But yes, I really am unhappy.”
    Anne rose up, intending to fill their glasses, but there was no wine left. “Ale?”
    “Thank you.”
    “Why are you so unhappy? Apart from what you’ve just told me.”
    William drank some ale then sat, turning the cup between his fingers. “You know my family so I don’t feel disloyal talking of them. Sometimes I think that if I’d never gone away I would have been perfectly happy with my lot, for I would have known no better. Or perhaps I’m simply at an age to be impatient with them and find them lacking.
    “My father has money troubles and my mother can’t forgive him that she’s no longer a wealthy woman with a houseful of servants and everything her heart desires. She takes no interest in any of us children except the baby. Joan, my sister, is growing up without a mother’s care, and she’s trying to manage the household with no help or thanks. My brothers are aimless. I’m the eldest so I have to hear everyone’s troubles and try to mend them.”
    “But you don’t do too badly,” Anne