Simply Love

“If your tardiness in coming here is indicative of your eagerness to do your duty, Mr. Butler,” she surprised him by saying, her posture unchanged, her face stern, “I beg to inform you that Miss Jewell has friends who are willing and able to offer her shelter and support for as long as she needs them. Women do have some modicum of power when they stick together, you know.”

He could begin to understand why the woman had not crumbled before Bewcastle.

“I thank you, ma’am,” he said. “But I also am willing and able-and eager-to secure Miss Jewell’s comfort and security and happiness.”

They gazed at each other, taking each other’s measure.

He could not dislike the woman. It pleased him to know that Anne had such a friend. Obviously Miss Martin knew the truth, but far from tossing Anne out of the school in moral outrage, she was prepared to offer her a home and support if need be.

“I suppose,” she said, “you must be worth something if you have been able to perform the function of steward to the satisfaction of the Duke of Bewcastle despite your obvious disabilities.”

Sydnam almost smiled as she looked him over frankly and critically from head to foot, particularly down his right side. He did not smile, though. He felt that somehow they were engaged in a battle of wills, though over what he was not sure. The only thing he was sure of was that he was not going to lose.

The door opened behind Miss Martin before either of them could speak again.

Anne Jewell.

She looked pale and rather unwell, Sydnam thought. She seemed to have lost weight. She was also even more beautiful than he remembered.

There had been a time, for a week or two after she left, when he had tried and tried and failed to recall her face. And then there had come the time when he would have been happy to forget both it and her. Remembering had been painful and deeply depressing. And his solitude, which he had so resented giving up when she came to Glandwr with the Bedwyns, had turned to undeniable, gnawing loneliness after they had all left.

And deep unhappiness.

Her eyes met his across the room, and he bowed formally to her as if she were not standing there with his child in her womb.

The truth of it smote him and made him slightly dizzy.

“Ah, here is Miss Jewell now,” Miss Martin said briskly and unnecessarily.

“Thank you, Claudia,” Anne said without taking her eyes off him.

A suitable name for the headmistress of the school, Sydnam thought-Claudia. A strong, uncompromising name. She bent one more severe look upon him, a softer look upon her fellow teacher, and left the room without further ado.

He and Anne Jewell were alone together.

And so good-bye had not been good-bye after all, he thought.

He was painfully glad to see her.

And painfully aware of the reason.

She was pregnant with his child.

“You must have thought,” he said, “that I was not coming.”

“Yes,” she said. “I did.”

She was standing to one side of the door, half a room away from him. Three weeks must have seemed an endless time to her, he supposed. She was unmarried and with child-for the second time.

He hated to think that that fact somehow put him on a level with Albert Moore.

“The rain delayed both your letter and my journey to London,” he explained. “I am so sorry, Anne. But you must have known that you could trust me.”

“I thought I could,” she said. “But you did not come.”

“I would never let you down,” he said. “And I would never abandon my own child.”

The thought had hammered in his brain all the way to London and back to Bath. He had fathered a child.

He was going to be a father.

She sighed and her posture relaxed. He could see that his explanation had convinced her and that she had forgiven him.

“Sydnam,” she said, “I am really sorry-”

“No!” He held up his hand and walked closer to her. “You must never say that, Anne. Nor must I. If you are sorry you had to call on me like this, and if I am sorry that I made it necessary for you to do so, then we must also be sorry for what we did that afternoon at Ty Gwyn. Yet we both agreed at the time that it was what we wanted. And if we are sorry, then we are also sorry that there is to be a child. We say that it is unwanted and that there is something wrong about it. There can only be everything in the world right about any child. And this one is yours and mine and must be welcomed gladly by both of us. Please do not say you are sorry.”

She stared mutely at him for a few moments, and he was reminded of the blueness of her eyes and the smoky quality her long lashes gave them.

“London?” she said then. “You have been to London?”

“To procure a special license,” he explained. “We must marry without delay, Anne. You must have the protection of my name.”

Her teeth sank into her lower lip.

“If you really wish to have the banns called,” he said, “so that our families will have time to gather for our wedding, then I will respect your wishes. But even this three-week delay has made me very uneasy. Only my life stands between you and something unspeakable-despite Miss Martin’s determination to care for you if I will not.”

“I have no family,” she said.

“We will wed tomorrow morning, then,” he told her. “I will make the arrangements.”

He remembered something suddenly as she gazed back at him, even her lips pale. He remembered a very inadequate offer of marriage he had made just after bedding her-just after impregnating her, as it had turned out.

If you wish, Anne, we will marry.

Was she never to hear anything better from him? Was she now to be rushed into marriage because it was necessary and forever feel cheated of some of the trappings of courtship?

“Anne.” He took her left hand in his and lowered himself onto his right knee-so that he would be able to use the stronger left leg to help him rise again. “Anne, my dear, will you do me the great honor of being my wife?”

He brought her hand to his lips, but not before seeing her eyes grow huge with unshed tears. She bent over him, and he felt her free hand light against the top of his head.

“I will,” she said. “I will always do my best to bring you comfort and companionship, Sydnam, and I will be the best mother I can possibly be to your child-to our child.”

He got to his feet and drew her against him. She turned her head and rested it against his left shoulder, her hands nestled between them, spread over his chest.

He wished then that he had two arms to wrap about her, to hold her close, to enclose her in the safety of his protection. And he wished he had two eyes to see her with. And he wished…

But he was alive. He had learned to cope with the changed conditions of his life. And now he was to have a wife and companion. There would be a child for the nursery at Ty Gwyn soon after they moved in there. He could begin to think of his life in terms of the plural-my wife and daughter, or son, and me. He had somehow been thinking of the child as female. He was going to have a daughter. Or a son.

He must not dwell upon the fact that he had no right arm and no right eye-that he could never offer Anne a whole man. He must not think of how she had cringed from him when he entered her body. He must not fear the loss of his deepest privacy.

He must give what he could-the protection of his name, his friendship, loyalty, kindness, and affection. And perhaps in time…

She lifted her head and gazed into his face.

“It will be all right,” he told her. “Everything will be all right.”