Simply Love

Ah. Only in fairy tales, Sydnam supposed, did a man and his bride rush off from their wedding into an eternal happily-ever-after.

“Anne, Mr. Butler,” Miss Martin said, taking charge, “I have taken it upon myself to arrange a small reception for you, with Susanna’s help. I have invited a few people to join us for wine and cake. I hope you do not mind.”

And so a whole hour passed before Sydnam could finally leave the school with his new wife and her son. He was introduced to the other teachers, including Mr. Huckerby, the dancing instructor, Mr. Upton, the art master, Mademoiselle Pierre, the French and music teacher, and Miss Walton, the junior assistant. He accepted their good wishes and congratulations and acknowledged the toast that was drunk to his health and Anne’s and felt incongruously lonely for a newly married man. There was no one of his own among the small gathering-except his wife and stepson.

But finally they were on the pavement outside the school, Anne having changed her clothes, Miss Martin and Miss Osbourne with them. Both ladies shook hands with him again and hugged Anne and David. Miss Osbourne shed a few tears over them both, though she was smiling with bright tenderness. Miss Martin shed no tears but gazed sternly at Anne with what Sydnam recognized as desperate affection.

Sydnam handed his wife into the waiting carriage and took the seat across from hers after David had scrambled in beside her. Her cheeks were flushed, her hands clasped in her lap-until she leaned forward as the carriage lurched into motion and waved a final farewell to her friends.

“They love you,” he said.

She turned her eyes on him, and he saw in them an awareness that she had just entered irrevocably upon a new phase of her life.

“Yes,” she said. “I will miss them.”

It was not just a school and a teaching position from which he was taking her, he realized. It was a home and a family. Anne was as dear as a sister, the rather formidable Miss Martin had said yesterday. Why was it that a woman, when she married, had to give up everything in order to accompany her husband wherever he chose to take her? The unfairness of it had never struck him before. What right did he have to feel all alone today, to somewhat resent the fact that she had had two friends-as well as a son-with her at their wedding and a few more friends at the small reception? Now she was leaving all except David behind.

“Where are we going?” she asked as the carriage turned from Sydney Place onto Great Pulteney Street.

She looked surprised, and he realized that she must have expected that they would set out without delay on the journey to Wales. He had not spoken to her yesterday about any plans beyond their wedding. He had not thought to consult her. He had always made his own decisions about the course his life was to take-hence his brief sojourn in the Peninsula. He had every right to continue in the same way, of course-he was, after all, the husband in this new marriage of theirs. But he would prefer to adjust his ways if he could.

“I have taken a suite of rooms at the Royal York Hotel,” he said. “I thought we would stay here for one night.”

He met her eyes across the narrow gap between their seats and noticed the slight flush of color in her cheeks. He felt an answering shortness of breath and tightening of the groin. It would be their wedding night. The reality of the morning’s events had still not quite struck home, he realized.

“I want to take you shopping this afternoon,” he told her. He shifted his gaze to David. “Both of you.”

The boy’s eyes widened with interest though he said nothing. He was sitting very close to Anne.

“I have found a shop on Milsom Street that sells oil paints,” Sydnam said. “I thought we would purchase some, David, since you seem ready to use them. And if we are to buy the paints, then we must buy everything else you will need at Ty Gwyn in order to use them to advantage-canvases and palettes and brushes, for example.”

David’s eyes had grown round, giving him for the moment the look of his mother.

“But I do not know how to paint in oils, sir,” he said.

“I will find someone to teach you after we return to Ty Gwyn,” Sydnam promised.

Mrs. Llwyd, he knew, liked to paint, though he did not know if she painted in oils. Perhaps if she did, she would be willing to give David some lessons. If not, there must be someone else.

“The purchase of paints will be an extraordinarily generous gift,” Anne said. “But will you not be able to give David some instruction yourself?”

“No!” he said far more sharply than he intended.

She sat farther back in her seat and compressed her lips.

“What is Ty Gwyn?” David asked.

“It is your new home,” Sydnam told him. “The words mean white house in the Welsh language. It is not white, though an older version of the house was, or so I have been told. It is larger than a house, though not nearly as large as Glandwr. It is close to it, though, and not far from the sea. There are neighbors, several of them with children. I daresay a few of them are close to you in age and will be delighted to be your friends and playmates. I think you will get along famously with the Llwyd brothers. They go to the village school, and you will be able to go there too if you wish and if your mama wishes it. I hope you will be happy in your new life.”

David gazed back at him and pressed the side of his face against Anne’s shoulder. He looked as if he were considering the prospects and not finding them altogether unpleasing. Sydnam looked into Anne’s face. The wheels of the carriage were rumbling over the Pulteney Bridge.

“Ty Gwyn is yours, then?” she asked him. “The Duke of Bewcastle has sold it to you?”

“Yes,” he told her, “though I have not lived there yet. We will move in together.”

As he held her glance, he knew that she was remembering what had happened at Ty Gwyn. It was there that today had become inevitable.

“We will not be in Bath long enough to hire a dressmaker,” he said. “I hope we will be able to find sufficient ready-made clothes for you in the shops this afternoon.”

“Clothes?” She flushed again. “I do not need to buy any clothes.”

This day and their new relationship were as unreal for her as they were for him, he realized as he saw in her eyes the dawning understanding that now he had every right-and obligation-to clothe her in a manner suited to his wife. But causing her embarrassment or even distress was the farthest thing from his intentions.

“A new wardrobe will be my wedding gift to you, Anne,” he said. “I have looked forward to it.”

“A wedding gift,” she said as the carriage turned onto Milsom Street and proceeded in the direction of the Royal York. “But I have none for you.”

“It is quite unnecessary,” he said.

“No, it is not,” she said firmly. “I shall buy something for you too this afternoon. We will all have gifts.”

They looked at each other. She was the first to smile.

She did need new clothes-quite desperately. It had been perfectly obvious to him during the summer that she had very few, and today she had worn an old evening gown for her wedding. The winter was coming on, and so were the advanced stages of her pregnancy. She needed clothes, and he was going to purchase them for her.

And after the shopping expedition, he thought, they would dine together in their private suite of rooms, the three of them, before David went to bed. And then there would be the wedding night.

He hoped he could do better than he had at Ty Gwyn. He hoped she would grow accustomed to him and find it possible to derive some pleasure from their marriage bed. He hoped so.

He remembered her as he had first seen her on the cliffs above the beach at Glandwr-like beauty personified stepping out of the dusk and into his dreams. And here she was three months later…

She was Anne Butler.

Mrs. Sydnam Butler.

David was ready for bed soon after the evening meal had been eaten. It had been an emotional day for him, though not without some pleasurable excitement. After they had all arrived back at the hotel from several hours of shopping, he had spread all his new painting supplies over one of the narrow beds in the room assigned to him and touched and examined them all one at a time with reverence and awe. He was going to be very impatient, Anne knew, to reach Ty Gwyn and meet the new art instructor Sydnam had promised to find for him.

But she had been hardly less excited about her own gifts and had spread them over the other bed in the room so that she could admire all the day dresses, the three evening gowns-one of which she was now wearing-the shoes and bonnets and reticules and other garments and accessories that Sydnam had insisted she needed. She