Simply Love

“Have you?” he asked her. “Why?”

She wished she had not said it. But he was waiting for her reply.

“Joshua-Lord Hallmere-offered to bring my son here for the summer so that he would have other children to play with,” she explained. “But he is only nine years old, and I have never been separated from him. And so, when I hesitated, the marchioness invited me too and I accepted because I did not want to disappoint my son. But I did not expect to be treated as a guest.”

From his short silence, she realized that she had just told him volumes about herself. And perhaps now it was his turn to run from her or to show some unmistakable sign of revulsion.

“I teach and live at a girls’ school in Bath,” she said. “I like it extremely well, and David has always been happy there. But he is getting older. I suppose I ought to have let him come with Joshua-David worships him.”

“Children do need other children,” he said. “They also need a father figure, especially perhaps if they are boys. But most of all, Miss Jewell, they need a mother. I daresay you did the right thing in coming here with him.”

“Oh.” She drew unexpected comfort from his words. “That is very obliging of you.”

“I hope,” he said, “Bewcastle has not intimidated you. But if he has, you may be consoled to know that he intimidates almost everyone. He was removed abruptly from a wild childhood when his father knew he was dying, and he was carefully, even ruthlessly trained to take over all the vast responsibilities of the dukedom, which he inherited when he was only seventeen or eighteen. He learned his lessons consummately well-too well, some would say. But he is not unfeeling. He has been remarkably good to me.”

“I met him for the first time this evening,” Anne told him. “He was very gracious, though I must confess I was ready to sink through the floor with fear.”

They both laughed again.

“The duchess is exceedingly amiable,” she said.

“According to Lauren, my sister-in-law,” he told her, “it was a love match. It was the sensation of last year. No one would have predicted that Bewcastle would marry for love. But perhaps he did.”

The tea tray was being brought in, and two of the card games were coming to an end.

“I must be going home,” Mr. Butler said. “I am pleased to have made your acquaintance, Miss Jewell.”

She set both hands on the arms of her chair and got to her feet. She noticed that he got up a little more slowly from his low chair, and it occurred to her that being without one arm and one eye must shift the natural balance of the body that she took so very much for granted. How long had it taken him to adjust to the change? Had he ever adjusted completely?

“I shall go and convey my thanks to the duchess,” he said, holding out his hand to her. “Good night.”

“Good night, Mr. Butler.”

She held out her own hand and he shook it before releasing it and turning away.

Anne was left biting her lip. She should, of course, have given him her left hand as she remembered the duchess had done earlier. Their handshake had been horribly awkward-as if they had been holding hands and swinging them. It had felt almost intimate. Embarrassingly so.

He was bowing to the Duchess of Bewcastle, who smiled warmly at him and set one hand on his arm while she leaned a little toward him to say something. Lord Rannulf came up behind him and slapped a hand on his right shoulder. The two men left the room together.

Where did he live? Anne wondered.

Would she see him again?

But it would not matter too much if she did. She had got past the awkwardness of what had happened last night. She was vastly relieved about that. It would be easier to meet him next time.

But how tragic for him to have lost a limb and an eye and to have had his looks so marred.

Was he lonely? she wondered.

Did he have friends?

Outcasts were frequently both lonely and friendless. Her mind touched upon her years in the Cornish village of Lydmere, living on the very fringes of local society.

She had never ceased to give thanks for the fact that she finally had found friends at the school in Bath and that three of those friends-Claudia herself, Susanna, and Frances-had come to be as close as sisters to her. It was so much more than she had ever expected-or felt she deserved-after those long, lean years.

She hoped Mr. Butler had some close friends.

“Come and have tea, Anne,” Joshua said, appearing suddenly at her side. “I hope you are enjoying your stay here.”

“Oh.” She smiled at him. “I am, yes, thank you, Joshua.”

But most of all, Miss Jewell, they need a mother. I daresay you did the right thing in coming here with him.

The remembered words that Mr. Butler had spoken warmed and comforted her. She had done the right thing. David had been animated and happy all day long with the other children. But he had hugged her when she went to say good night to him before dressing for dinner.

“Thank you, Mama,” he had said, “for bringing me here. I am so glad we came.”

We, not I.

She would suffer the discomfort and embarrassment of the month here only to see David happy-for though he was well loved at the school by staff and girls alike, he had no close friends.

And no father.

Sydnam was busy for most of the next day. It was never hard to find things to do. But now, in addition to his usual routine, there was Bewcastle to accompany on a morning inspection of the home farm and calls at a few of the tenant farms. The duke might spend very little time on his Welsh estate, but he knew all there was to know about it, since he conscientiously studied each monthly report that Sydnam sent him. And whenever he did visit, he spent only a little time poring over the books and a great deal of time riding and tramping about the land observing and talking with the people.

But Bewcastle was now also a husband, and it intrigued Sydnam to find that he returned home at noon because the duchess had arranged a picnic on the beach for everyone during the afternoon. The old Bewcastle would not have dreamed of participating in such frolics.

The Duchess of Bewcastle seemed like a very ordinary person to Sydnam. She was pretty without being beautiful, trim and smart without being elegant, courteous and amiable without being overrefined or in any way domineering. She was vivacious and filled with laughter. And she was the daughter of a country schoolmaster. She was, in fact, the very antithesis of the woman one would have expected Wulfric to choose for a bride-which fact left Sydnam wondering about the strange power she seemed to wield over him. Good Lord, he had even noticed Bewcastle smiling at her once last evening.

She made Sydnam feel lonely. Not that he fancied her himself. But it must be wonderful beyond belief, he thought, to have someone to go home to after work, someone for whom to cut the workday short on occasion, even for something as seemingly unimportant as a picnic on the beach. It must be wonderful to have someone to draw one’s smiles.

And there was a baby in Bewcastle’s nursery.

He avoided the beach and the cliff top above it and the lawns leading to it all afternoon. He was not, after all, a member of the house party, and besides, he did not want to frighten any of the children. He kept himself busy on the home farm, being reluctant to spend a sunny, warm day indoors when it so often rained along the coast of South Wales.

Late in the afternoon, though, when he was riding back to the cottage, he could see that a noisy game of cricket was in progress on the lawn before the main house and that there appeared to be a vast number of people of all sizes involved. The picnic on the beach was obviously over.

It would be safe to go there himself.

He loved the beach. He loved the cliff tops too, but the perspective was different. From the cliff top one was aware of the wildness of nature, the potential cruelty of it, the panoramic beauty of it, with the land above and the sea stretched beneath and spreading to a far horizon, beyond which lay the coast of Cornwall and beyond that the coast of France and the Atlantic Ocean.

But on the beach he was aware only of the golden sands stretching in a great arc before him and behind him and to either side of him, land in its most elemental form, land worn away by the power of the ocean. And there too