Simply Love

hugged her back tightly and wordlessly.

“Rest now,” she said when Anne stepped back.

“Yes.” Anne nodded. “Mama.”

And then the door closed and she was alone with Sydnam.

“Excuse me,” she said, “but I think I am going to weep.”

“Anne,” he said, and he was laughing softly as his arm came about her and his hand drew her head down to rest on his shoulder. “Of course you are.”

“Was painting again this difficult for you?” she asked.

“Yes,” he said with conviction, kissing the top of her head. “And there is much anguish to come. I have only just begun, and the first effort really was quite abysmal. But I am not going to stop. I have begun and I will continue-to failure or to success. But failure does not matter because it will only spur me on to try harder as it always used to do. And even if I never succeed, at least I will know that I tried, that I did not hide from life.”

“At last,” she said, “I have stopped hiding too.”

“Yes,” he said, laughing softly again. “You surely have.”

The tears came at last.

Both the younger Jewells and the Arnolds remained at the manor for longer than the one night they had planned.

David was in heaven. Though he dragged Sydnam off one morning to paint, taking Amanda with them, he was content to spend almost all the rest of his time with his cousins, particularly Charles Arnold, who was only a few months younger than he.

Sydnam went out riding a few times with the men after they discovered-through David-that he could ride. He found them all very willing to make his acquaintance. He had been prepared to dislike them-the elder Mr. Jewell no less than Henry Arnold, but though he had seethed with rage while listening to what they had to say to Anne on the first day, he discovered on closer acquaintance that they were just ordinary, basically amiable gentlemen with whose views on life and justice he could occasionally disagree.

Anne spent most of her days with her mother and sister and sister-in-law, and her evenings with everyone. They all appeared to be making a concerted effort to be a family together again.

It would take time, Sydnam guessed, remembering how it had taken a while for him and Kit to feel thoroughly comfortable with each other again after their lengthy estrangement following his return from the Peninsula. But it seemed to him that Anne and her family had been restored to one another and that the last of the dark shadows had been lifted from her life.

She seemed happy.

And he? Well, he could not forget one thing Anne had said to Arnold in the parlor that first afternoon- If I had married you, I would not have been able to marry Sydnam. And so I would have lost my chance for a lifetime of happiness.

How much of that was the truth and how much had been spoken entirely for the benefit of the man who had rejected her and promptly married her sister, Sydnam was not sure. But he thought he knew.

Yes, he was happy too.

They had intended to stay for a few days if they were made welcome, less if they were not. But Anne seemed in no hurry to leave now that she had found her family again, and Sydnam was content to give her time. They stayed even after Matthew and his family returned to the vicarage where they lived and Henry Arnold took his family home-bearing David with them for a couple of days.

Mrs. Jewell, who was clearly beside herself with delight to have her elder daughter at home, planned a whole series of visits to neighbors and teas and dinners for various guests. And the younger Jewells and the Arnolds were eager to entertain them in their own homes.

And so the planned few days stretched into a week.

And then on the eighth day a letter arrived for Anne. Mr. Jewell brought it to the breakfast table one morning and set it down beside her plate.

“It is from Bath,” she said, picking it up to examine it. “But it is not Claudia’s handwriting or Susanna’s. I have seen it before, though. I should know it.”

“There is one way of finding out,” her father said dryly.

She laughed and broke the seal with her thumb.

“Lady Potford,” she said, looking first to the signature. “Yes, of course, I have seen her hand before.”

“Lady Potford?” Sydnam asked.

“Joshua’s grandmother,” she explained. “She lives in Bath. I have visited her several times.”

She read the letter while her mother plied Sydnam with more toast and then watched as he chased it around his plate with the butter knife.

“Oh, Sydnam,” Anne said, looking up, “Lady Potford is quite hurt over the fact that I did not inform her of our nuptials. She would have come, she writes here, and she would have arranged a wedding breakfast for us. Is that not kind?”

“It is very obliging of her,” her mother agreed. “She must be fond of you, Anne.”

But there was more in the letter than just regrets.

“Oh,” Anne said, her eyes moving over the rest of its contents. “Joshua is expected in Bath next week. Lady Potford is quite convinced that he will be upset at missing our wedding and not even seeing us afterward. She wants us to return to Bath before going on into Wales so that she can arrange a small reception for us.”

She looked up.

It was not a great distance to Bath. However, going there would take them in the wrong direction. And really, Sydnam thought, he was longing to be home. He wanted to establish his new family at Ty Gwyn. And Anne was increasing. She ought not to be traveling more than was necessary.

But Bath had been Anne’s home for a number of years. Her friends were there. Hallmere was a relative-of David’s anyway-and had been remarkably kind to her. Without the Hallmeres he, Sydnam, would never have met her.

Her teeth sank into her lower lip.

“Do you wish to go?” he asked.

“It would be foolish,” she said. “All that way in order to have tea or perhaps dinner with Joshua and Lady Potford.”

“But do you want to go?” he asked again.

He knew the answer, though. He could see it in her eyes.

“He invited David and me to Penhallow for Christmas this year,” she said. “We will not be able to go, of course. David will probably not see him for a long time. But…” She bit her lip again. “But he is David’s cousin. I…”

He laughed. “Anne, do you wish to go?”

“Perhaps we ought,” she said. “Will you mind terribly?”

Ty Gwyn, he thought, would have to wait.

“Next week?” he said. He turned to Mrs. Jewell. “May we impose upon your hospitality for a few days longer than expected, then, ma’am?”

“A month longer if you wish, Sydnam,” that lady said, and clasped her hands to her bosom.

Mr. Jewell smirked slightly at some private thought-or as if he knew a secret no one else even suspected-and left the breakfast parlor, presumably to return to his study.

And so in the middle of the following week, well after they had originally expected to be home in Wales, Anne and Sydnam were on their way back to Bath, David sitting with his back to the horses, partly tearful at having just taken his leave of his grandparents, partly excited at the prospect of seeing Joshua again-and Miss Martin and Miss Osbourne and Mr. Keeble, the school porter who apparently used to slip him sweets from the depths of his pocket whenever no one was looking.

Anne had been a little tearful at the parting too, but her father had assured her after kissing her on both cheeks