Simply Love

not? He is their friend. They like and admire him. And he was kind about your painting, and you liked him when he praised you and suggested you try painting with oils. Will you try to like him now too?”

“I don’t know,” he was honest enough to say. “I don’t see why you need anyone else but me, Mama-especially him. Alexander thought he was a monster. And I don’t know why you want another baby. Am I not enough for you?”

She stooped down and wrapped her arms around his slender little body, feeling his pain and bewilderment, recognizing his fear of losing all that had given his days shape and anchor through his short life. He had always had her undivided attention and love. And he had always been a cheerful, good-natured child. It hurt to see him petulant-and to know that she was the cause.

“Life changes, David,” she said. “As you grow older you will learn that. It always changes, as it did when we came here from Cornwall. But one thing will always remain the same in your life. I absolutely promise you that. I will always love you with all my heart.”

“We had better go down,” he said, “or we will be late.”

“Yes.” She straightened up and smiled down at him again. “You look remarkably handsome today.”

“Mama,” he said as he walked beside her down the stairs, “I will be polite. I will not make a scene. And I will try my very best to like him-he was kind about my painting. But don’t ever try to make me call him Papa because I won’t. I have a papa of my own, but he is dead.”

“I will be very happy,” she said, “if you call him Mr. Butler.”

And that would be her name too, she thought, feeling suddenly weak in the knees. In just a short while she was going to be Mrs. Sydnam Butler.

There was no point now, though, in feeling sudden uncertainty or panic. She was carrying their child in her womb.

She was a bride on her way to her own wedding. Her groom was waiting for her. Part of her yearned toward him-she had missed him so very much. In a moment she would actually see him.

Despite herself she felt buoyed by a sudden excitement.

Keeble opened the door to Claudia’s sitting room for them with as much gloom in his manner as if he were ushering them in to their own funeral.

Sydnam had felt terribly alone all morning though he had brought his valet with him from Wales. He still felt it after he had taken up the clergyman in his carriage. He rarely missed his family despite the fact that he was deeply fond of them all and wrote regularly to his mother and father and to Kit and Lauren. But today he missed them all with a raw intensity.

And he kept remembering Kit and Lauren’s wedding, both of them surrounded by their families and friends, the church packed with people, the bride and groom driving away afterward in their decorated carriage, the wedding breakfast after that, the toasts, the laughter and the happiness.

If the truth were told, he admitted with some disgust at himself as he arrived at Miss Martin’s school, he was feeling rather sorry for himself. It was his wedding day, and there was no one to make a fuss over him.

He and the clergyman were taken upstairs instead of being shown into the rather gloomy visitors’ parlor again, as Sydnam had expected. The elderly porter with the creaky boots opened the door into what appeared to be a private sitting room, which was cheerfully, even elegantly furnished. It was also unoccupied. In the meadow beyond the window he could see a crowd of girls engaged in some sort of vigorous game.

The clergyman launched into a pompous monologue on the dangers educating young ladies posed for the future of society, and Sydnam waited nervously for the arrival of his bride.

They were not kept waiting very long. The door opened and Anne came into the room with her son and Miss Martin and another young woman who he assumed was Miss Osbourne.

But he had eyes only for Anne.

She was wearing a green silk evening gown he had seen more than once before. Her hair was prettily styled, and it was threaded through with pearls, as if she were about to attend a ball. Instead, she was attending her own wedding.

As her eyes met his, he wished desperately that he could be whole for her, that he could have courted her properly, that this wedding were a joyful celebration involving their family and friends. But at least it was a wedding, and that was all that mattered at the moment.

As for their marriage and the rest of their future-well, that would be up to them. The future always held hope.

He smiled at her, and she looked back at him with huge eyes and half smiled as she came toward him.

It seemed to him during that moment, while everyone else stepped into position around them, that he had never encountered any woman more lovely than Anne Jewell. Or more desirable. Or more lovable. And she was his bride.

“Dearly beloved,” the clergyman began in a formal, sonorous tone as if he were addressing a congregation of hundreds.

And suddenly it did not matter to Sydnam that this was not the wedding he had dreamed of. He was being joined in holy matrimony with Anne because they had been lonely and so had taken consolation in each other’s arms at Ty Gwyn and conceived a child. But the cause did not matter.

He was being married to Anne and suddenly it seemed to him that it was all he had ever desired of life.

He felt a wave of such tenderness for her that he had to blink away tears.

And when she looked at him and promised to love, honor, and obey him as long as they both should live, it seemed to him that her eyes regarded him with yearning and tenderness and…hope.

A cathedral and a thousand guests could not have made his wedding more real to him.

And then, as suddenly as it had begun, the brief nuptial service was over and the clergyman was declaring that they were man and wife together.

Anne was his wife.

She was safe. So was their child.

He took her left hand in his and raised it to his lips. He felt the smoothness of her new gold ring, which he had bought the afternoon before.

“Anne. My dearest,” he murmured.

“Sydnam.” She smiled at him again.

But weddings, he discovered, even very small weddings, did not allow the newly married couple much time to be alone together. Anne stooped to hug her son, and the clergyman shook hands with Sydnam before Miss Martin did so, her hand clasping his firmly, her eyes regarding him very directly.

“I will expect you to look after her, Mr. Butler,” she said. “She is as precious to me as a sister. And I will expect you to look after David.”

And then she hugged Anne while the other young lady turned to him and reached out her left hand.

“I am Susanna Osbourne, Mr. Butler,” she said. “Anne told nothing but the truth when she described you as tall, dark, and handsome. I wish you every happiness in the world.”

Her green eyes twinkled with mischief. She was a small, auburn-haired, very pretty young lady.

“Did she really say that?” He chuckled and was absurdly pleased. “What a bouncer.”

And then he found himself face-to-face with David Jewell, who was staring gravely up at him with unblinking eyes. Sydnam had hoped the boy would accept his mother’s marriage, but he had shown no enthusiasm for it yesterday. Quite the contrary, in fact. It had seemed to Sydnam after David had been brought down to the visitors’ parlor that he had shrunk from the prospect with some horror. And when mention had been made of the new baby that would soon be part of their family, the boy’s eyes had looked first bewildered and then wounded-and then blank.

“David,” Sydnam said now, “I will always do my best to care for your mother and to make you happy. You are my stepson now. You may call me Papa or Father if you wish.” He held out his hand. “But only if you wish.”

David set his own limply in it. “Thank you, sir,” he said with no hostility or defiance-or any other detectable emotion-in his voice.