Simply Love

behind herself, listening to the words, appalled, as if someone else had spoken them. They were finally out. And they were true and irrevocable.

Claudia looked keenly at her but did not make any comment.

“I believe,” Anne said, closing her eyes briefly, “I am going to be married.”

She had planned and rehearsed this for a whole week, ever since last Saturday morning, when she had walked into the center of Bath to post her letter to Glandwr. But so far she had said none of the words she had practiced. And she had not smiled or looked bright and happy, as she had planned to do.

“Married?”

She realized that Claudia had spoken the single word.

“I met him in Wales during the summer,” Anne explained. “He asked me to marry him then, and I have decided that I will say yes. I have written to him.”

“My felicitations.” Claudia was looking at her rather sternly, her back ramrod straight. “Might I be permitted to know his name?”

Anne sighed and slumped a little in her chair.

“I cannot do this,” she said, “as if you were simply a headmistress, my employer, and I a teacher. Or as if this were something I have been secretly considering for almost two months and have only now made a decision upon. I owe you better than this. I am so very sorry, Claudia. I told you everything about my month in Wales except the most significant part. He is Sydnam Butler, youngest son of the Earl of Redfield, and the Duke of Bewcastle’s steward at Glandwr.”

“Sydnam Butler,” Claudia said, “of Alvesley Park not far from Lindsey Hall? I remember him. He was an extraordinarily handsome boy.”

“I am with child by him,” Anne said bluntly.

Claudia stared at her, and Anne saw her jaw clench hard.

“Rape?” she asked.

“No!” Anne’s eyes widened. “Oh, no, Claudia. Nothing like that. No. I was a willing participant. He offered me marriage but I declined. I did promise, though, that I would let him know if I were with child, and allow him to marry me. I sent a letter off to him a week ago.”

There was a short silence.

“But you do not wish to marry him?” Claudia asked.

“No. Not really.”

But she had missed him far more than she could have predicted. Even before she had begun to suspect the truth with the absence of her monthly courses and the morning nausea, he had dominated her waking thoughts and haunted her dreams. And she had wondered-every day since her return to Bath she had wondered-if her answer would have been different if she had not taken sudden fright-and if he had asked differently.

If you wish, Anne, we will marry.

Such dutiful, kind, dispassionate words.

Now they were going to be forced into marrying. She must accept his dutiful willingness to put everything right, and he must accept that she had kept her promise but that he might never have a wife who could offer him physical warmth.

Part of her longed for him. Part of her was terrified. And all of her hated the circumstances that would propel them into matrimony. He would hate the circumstances.

“Then you must not do so, Anne.” Claudia set both hands on the desk and leaned forward, her voice and face firm. “He is the son of an earl and of wealth and privilege, and he is far too handsome for his own good-or yours. He is an associate of the Duke of Bewcastle. You will be miserable.”

“And what is the alternative, Claudia?” Anne asked. “To remain here at the school? You know that will be impossible.”

She watched the fierce light die out of Claudia’s eyes.

A number of parents had asked questions and expressed concern years ago when Miss Martin employed an unwed mother as a teacher-and when that teacher had had the effrontery to bring her bastard son with her. One girl had even been withdrawn from the school in protest.

“Besides,” Anne said, “I had no choice with David, Claudia, and life has been difficult for him as a result and will continue to be. I will not do that with another child when this time I do have a choice.”

“He will marry you?” Claudia asked.

“Yes,” Anne said.

With her heart she was quite, quite sure that he would. He would be here any day now. There was, though, an almost panicked doubt in her head. What if he did not come?

“Oh, Anne,” Claudia said. She slumped in her chair and sighed. “My dear, how could you have been so… foolish?”

What she had done had, of course, been very foolish indeed. But there was really no point in regretting it. It had happened.

“I ought to have told you sooner,” she said, “instead of waiting until I was absolutely sure-and even longer than that while I allowed time for my letter to reach him in Wales. You will need to replace me soon. Lila has been doing little more than apprentice work during the past month, but she shows great promise, Claudia. Like Susanna, she seems able to win the respect of girls who were her fellow pupils just a few months ago, and she is very popular with the new girls. Besides which, she is really quite brilliant in mathematics and earned top marks in geography every year I taught her. If you choose to promote her, I do not believe she will let you down.”

Claudia stared broodingly at her for several moments before pushing abruptly to her feet and rounding the desk and snatching Anne up into her arms.

“Anne,” she said. “Anne, I ought to shake the life out of you. But…Oh, my dear, tell me how I may help you. Is there even the smallest chance that you can feel an affection for Mr. Butler?”

Anne relaxed gratefully into the embrace. She had been so afraid that she would lose her friendships at the school-and it was of the very disciplined Claudia Martin that she had been most afraid. A woman who had twice been got with child outside wedlock could not demand the sympathy of her friends as a right.

“I would not have…done what I did with him if I had not felt a very deep affection for him,” she said. “There was no seduction involved, Claudia, and certainly no rape. Please, you must believe that. There was affection on both sides.”

“But you refused his marriage offer.” Claudia stood back, but she still held Anne’s arms. “Are you simply daft, or am I missing something?”

“Marrying him seemed the wrong thing to do at the time,” Anne said, “for both of us and for reasons that might be difficult to put into words. But now there is to be a third person, and a marriage between us is the only right thing to do.”

Claudia sighed again.

“Sit down,” she said, pulling on the bell rope that hung beside the desk. “I will have a pot of tea brought in. All matters can be seen more clearly-and more calmly-over a cup of tea. If my ears do not deceive me, I believe the girls are returning from their games-ah, look, it is raining outside. That would explain it. I’ll invite Susanna to join us if I may. We are a little like sisters, are we not? I still miss Frances quite dreadfully. And how I will miss you, Anne, my dear.”

She gave instructions to the maid who answered the bell.

“There is actually a fourth person involved in all this, Anne, is there not?” she said while they waited for Susanna to join them. “Will Mr. Butler be a good father for David? I will forgive him a multitude of sins if the answer is yes.”

It was a question that worried Anne more than any other. David desperately wanted a father. But his idea of a desirable father figure was the physically perfect and athletic Joshua or Lord Alleyne or Lord Aidan. However, David had met Sydnam and recognized in him a fellow artist. He did not appear to hold him in any particular aversion.

But how would he feel about Sydnam as a father? As her husband?

“He will be kind to David,” she said.

Of that, at least, she was quite sure.