Simply Love

“It must be indeed,” Anne said with feeling.

“I would like to take you there next Sunday,” he said. “If you can bear the prospect of not understanding a word of the service, that is. It is all in Welsh. But the music!”

Anne had gone to church the previous Sunday, as she did almost every week. But she had gone to the English church with the Bedwyn family. She had sat in the special padded pews set aside for them at the front of the church. Many of the other pews, she had noticed, were empty.

“I should like to go,” she said.

“Would you?” He looked up from the plate of fruit and cheese a footman had set before him and focused full on her. “Will you walk by the cottage on Sunday morning, then, and we will go together?”

“Yes,” she said. “Thank you.”

And suddenly she felt breathless, as if they had made some sort of secret assignation. She had agreed to go to church with him, that was all. But what would everyone think of her? And why should it matter what anyone thought? She wanted to go.

And he was looking at her, she thought, as if he wanted it too.

Lady Hallmere claimed his attention again at that moment and soon Mr. Jones turned back to Anne, and they conversed for a few minutes before the duchess got to her feet and invited the ladies to follow her to the drawing room while the gentlemen remained behind to enjoy their port.

More than half an hour passed before the gentlemen joined the ladies. Anne felt almost annoyed with herself when she realized that her eyes had gone immediately in search of Mr. Butler among them. It was no big thing, after all, that he had invited her to attend the Welsh church with him on Sunday so that she might hear Welsh singing for herself.

Except that it was.

She felt stupidly like a girl again, being singled out for a gentleman’s attention. It was stupid. She was twenty-nine years old and this was nothing remotely connected to courtship. But until less than two weeks ago she had not stepped out with a man, even in simple friendship, since Henry Arnold. And that was a whole lifetime ago.

She had offered to sit behind the tea tray, pouring tea, and the duchess had accepted her offer. But she was not so busy that she could not observe the way people gathered into conversational groups-the wealthier English landowners with the Bedwyns, Mrs. Llwyd with Mrs. Pritchard and Mrs. Thompson, the vicar and his wife with Baron Weston and Miss Thompson, Mr. Llwyd, Mr. Jones, Mr. Rhys-the Welsh minister-with Mr. Butler and the Duke of Bewcastle. The duchess moved from group to group, drawing smiles wherever she went.

Mr. Butler was deep in conversation and did not once glance Anne’s way-she was on his blind side. But later, after she had got to her feet and brushed her hands over her skirt during the bustle of the removal of the tea tray, she found that he was standing beside her.

“Shall we sit together, Miss Jewell?” he suggested. “Unless you have other plans, that is.”

“No.” She smiled at him. “Thank you.”

And so she had all the pleasure of observing and listening to the entertainment in company with a gentleman who was not also someone else’s husband. It felt absurdly exhilarating.

Joshua and Lady Hallmere sang a few English folk songs first, with Joshua accompanying them on the pianoforte. They were surprisingly good, though Lady Hallmere began with a disclaimer.

“I have absolutely insisted that we be the opening act,” she explained to the audience. “I have a strong suspicion that the others are going to be vastly superior-I know Judith will be-and I have no wish to be forced to follow them.”

Joshua, at the pianoforte, grinned while the audience laughed.

One could not help liking Lady Hallmere, Anne thought, for all her prickly ways.

“Just sing, Free, and put us out of our misery,” Lord Alleyne called out.

Mrs. Llwyd-a small, dark-haired, very Celtic-looking lady-played next on her large, beautifully carved harp, and Anne soon found herself blinking away unshed tears and feeling as if she had been transported into another world and another culture, so beautiful was the music she produced.

“It always seems to me,” Mr. Butler said softly, leaning toward Anne during the short pause between pieces, “that the harp somehow captures the very soul of Wales.”

“Yes,” she said. “Oh, yes, you must be right.”

And then Mr. Llwyd got to his feet and sang to his wife’s accompaniment in a light, pleasant tenor voice to which Anne could have listened all night though he sang in Welsh and she did not understand a single word.

She felt rather sorry for Lady Rannulf, who was to conclude the entertainment. Lady Hallmere was the wise one in having insisted upon going first.

Lady Rannulf was extremely beautiful, with a full, voluptuous figure and glorious red hair. But the idea of her acting alone, without any supporting characters, somehow embarrassed Anne even though she had been told that the lady was a good actress.

“I hope,” Mr. Butler said, “she does Lady Macbeth. I have seen her do it before, and she is quite extraordinary.”

She played Desdemona first, her hair down, her elegant green evening gown somehow transforming itself into a nightgown purely through the power of suggestion as Desdemona waited in bewilderment and misplaced trust for Othello to come to her in her bedchamber and then pleaded her case with him and begged for her very life.

It truly was extraordinary, Anne agreed, how she gave the impression that her maid and, later, Othello were there in her bedchamber with her and yet carried the scene alone. It was more than extraordinary how she lost all resemblance to the Lady Rannulf Anne had known for almost two weeks and became the innocent, loving, loyal, frightened, but dignified wife of Othello.

The return to reality when the scene was over was disorienting for a moment.

And then, at the special request of the Duke of Bewcastle, Lady Rannulf did indeed play the part of Lady Macbeth, also with hair loose and dress become nightgown-also a night scene. But there the resemblance between the two scenes and characters-and even the actress herself-ended. She became the powerful, ruthless, mad, tormented Lady Macbeth, sleepwalking and trying desperately to wash away the blood of her guilt. Anne found herself sitting forward on her chair, her eyes fixed on the lady’s hands, as if she really expected to see the blood of King Duncan dripping from them.

She was, she realized as she applauded enthusiastically with everyone else, in the presence of greatness.

Mr. Butler was looking expectantly at her.

“Well?” he said.

“I have not been so well entertained for a long time,” she told him.

He laughed. “I thought perhaps you would admit that you have never been so well entertained,” he said.

“I have a friend,” she explained, “who has become all the rage throughout Europe. She has the most glorious soprano voice I have ever heard. She taught at Miss Martin’s school until just two years ago.”

“And she is?” he asked.

“The Countess of Edgecombe,” she said. “She was Frances Allard before she married Viscount Sinclair, now the earl.”

“Ah,” he said, “you mentioned her before, and I believe I had heard of her before that. But I have never had the pleasure of listening to her sing.”

“If you ever do have the chance,” she said, “you must not miss it.”

“I will not.” He smiled again while all about them family and guests were getting to their feet and conversing and laughing, the formal entertainment at an end.

“There is to be dancing,” he said. “It is my cue, I believe, to return home.”

“Oh,” she said before she could stop herself, “please do not leave yet.”

The carpet was being rolled up from the drawing room floor and the French windows at one end of it thrown back, since the room had grown stuffy. Mrs. Lofter was taking her place at the pianoforte, having offered earlier in the day to play. It had been the duchess’s idea that some informal country dancing would be a more pleasant way of ending the evening than playing cards would be, though a couple of tables were being set up for the older people.

Anne felt instantly embarrassed. What if he had been waiting for some excuse to get away from the