Simply Love

and pretended to fall asleep fast. But he had not slept for a long time, just as she had not, though she had pretended just as diligently as he.

Did he believe what she had told him the night before-though he had not asked for and she had not offered details? Or did he still think himself ugly and untouchable?

She guessed that he had felt a failure during the afternoon because it was Kit who had given David his first riding lesson. And she knew that he had agreed to the painting lesson in order to redeem himself and be the father he was determined to be. She knew too that painting was something he did not even like to think about, let alone involve himself in.

But this was a challenge he had chosen to face-for the sake of her son. She fell a little deeper in love with him as she watched. How many men, even if they had married her, would have been prepared to do more than tolerate her illegitimate son?

“No, no,” she heard him say now. “You are still gliding the brush as if you were using watercolors. Try using your wrist more to produce the texture of those waves. Flick the brush.”

“I just cannot do it,” David said in exasperation after trying again. “Show me.”

Something happened then-or did not happen-that made Anne turn cold. How she knew she never afterward understood-but she did know that Sydnam had lifted his right hand to take the brush, only to discover that it was no longer there.

She covered her face with her hands and drew a few slow, silent breaths before looking again.

Sydnam had the brush in his left hand and was bending closer to the canvas. But the hand shook, and it was obvious that he could not perform the demonstration he had intended. He made a low, inarticulate sound of distress and then bent forward to take the end of the brush in his mouth while adjusting his hold on the brush so that he held it grasped in his fist. He made a few bold brushstrokes on the canvas and drew back.

“Ah!” David cried. “Now I understand. Now I can see. Those are waves and they are not flat. Let me try.”

He took the brush from Sydnam’s hand and made his own strokes on the canvas before looking up with triumph into Sydnam’s face.

“Yes,” Sydnam said, laying his hand on his shoulder. “Yes, David. Now you have it. Just look at the difference.”

“But it is all one color,” David said after returning his attention to the canvas. “Water is not all one color.”

“Exactly,” Sydnam said. “And you can do much more mixing and blending of colors and shades with oils than with watercolors, as you will soon discover. Let me show you.”

Anne watched them, her two men, their heads bent together, utterly absorbed in what they did, quite oblivious to her presence.

Was there to be some healing after all?

Was healing possible when grave damage had been done?

Was wholeness possible when one had been horribly maimed?

She spread a hand over her abdomen, where she sheltered the unborn member of their family.

The food on Sydnam’s plate tasted like straw.

He could not get the smell of the oils out of his nose or out of his head.

“Are Kit and Lauren going to accompany you and Anne to Lindsey Hall this afternoon, Sydnam?” his mother asked.

They ought to have called there yesterday. He had written to Bewcastle, of course, to inform him that he was taking a short leave of absence-to which the terms of his employment entitled him. But he had not explained the reason. Common good manners dictated that he call at Lindsey Hall with his new bride before Bewcastle heard from someone else that he was at Alvesley. They certainly ought to go today.

“Perhaps you would like to take my place in the carriage, Mama,” he said. “I feel a little indisposed. I will stay here.”

Anne looked at him sharply across the table.

“So will I,” she said. “We can go to Lindsey Hall some other time.”

It was impossible to argue with her when they were not alone together. But all he wanted was to be left literally alone.

“We will take the children riding, then, Lauren, will we?” Kit suggested. “I daresay David will come too, with your permission, Anne.”

“Oh, certainly,” she said. “He is looking forward to it.”

Not long afterward Sydnam and Anne were upstairs in their rooms together.

“I need some air,” he said, “and some solitude. I am going outside to walk. Will you stay here or do something with my mother?”

“I want to come with you,” she said.

“I will not be good company,” he told her. “I feel indisposed.”

“I know,” she said.

And the trouble was that he thought she probably did.

It struck him suddenly that loneliness was not perhaps the least desirable state in the world. Was marriage going to feel too crowded? It was an alarming and unwelcome thought. He had always longed for a wife, for a life’s companion. But foolishly he had thought of marriage as a happily-ever-after, as a destination rather than a new fork in the path through life.

“Don’t shut me out of your life, Sydnam,” she said as if she knew very well what he was thinking. “We must try to make our marriage work if we possibly can. We were friends in Wales, were we not? Let’s continue to be friends now. I want to come with you.”

“Come, then,” he said grudgingly, finding his hat and waiting for her to pull on her warm new pelisse and tie the ribbons of her bonnet beneath her chin.

They walked without talking or touching down the driveway and across the Palladian bridge before he turned onto a path that led among the trees until it arrived at the marble temple folly that stood on the southern shore of the lake and made a picturesque prospect from the opposite shore.

It was a chilly, cloudy day and blustery too. The ground was carpeted with leaves, though there were still plenty left on the trees. Anne went to sit inside the shelter of the temple while he stood outside gazing across the choppy water.

He was not often depressed. He did not allow himself to be. Whenever his spirits threatened to droop, he always found more work to do. Work was an amazing antidote to depression. And he did not often give in to self- pity. It was tedious and cowardly and pointless. He preferred to count his blessings, which were many. He was alive. Even that was a miracle.

But just occasionally depression or self-pity or both assaulted him no matter how determinedly he tried to keep them at bay. He dreaded such times. Sometimes neither work nor positive thinking would help.

This was one of those times.

The smell of the oils was still in his head.

He still remembered the moment when he had lifted his hand to take the brush from David.

His right hand.

And he still remembered lifting his left hand to the canvas.

“Sydnam-”

He had almost forgotten Anne’s presence. She was his wife, his bride. She was bearing their child. And she had shown him enormous kindness even in the midst of her own pain.

“Sydnam,” she said again, “is there no way you can paint again?”

Ah. Already she understood him too well.

He stared bleakly into the folly.

“My right hand is no longer there,” he said. “My left will not do my bidding. You must have seen that this morning.”

“You used your mouth,” she said, “and changed your grip on the brush. And then you made brushstrokes that caused David to understand what you had been telling him.”

“I cannot produce art with my left fist and my mouth,” he said. “Forgive me, but you