Annabelle looked reproachfully back at Rosamund as she was led away.
Rosamund strolled among the trees, enjoying the brief period of solitude. She had not realized quite how tranquil and uneventful her life with her husband had been until the last few days. The activity she welcomed—she had always had a great deal of energy and a strong sense of adventure and fun. But the human entanglements were bewildering.
There was Toby hinting in his usual pompous, roundabout manner that he was about to make her an offer. She could not think why, since he had not seen her for ten years and must remember her as a spirited, mischievous girl who was most unsuitable for a parson’s wife. And there was Josh inciting her to mischief just as if they really were still children. And trying to flirt with her. She had been flirting with him in the past two days, of course, but she had sensed that he was about to take the flirtation one step farther. And she had hesitated.
And then, of course, there was Justin. No, there was not Justin. She was just going to have to accustom herself to thinking of him as Annabelle’s. Soon enough he would be. If she were wise, she would throw all her energies into a flirtation with Josh. He was handsome and attractive and experienced. She liked him a great deal.
She became aware of movement among the trees suddenly and flattened herself against a trunk. Not that there was reason to hide from anyone, she thought, closing her eyes and feeling her heart beating up into her throat. She did not even know who it was. But, yes, she did know. Of course she knew.
“Rosamund?” he said just when there had been a moment of silence and she hoped he had gone away. “Are you hiding?”
“Hiding?” she said. “Of course not. I am enjoying the shelter from the wind. Are you looking for Annabelle?”
“I was,” he said.
“She has gone around to the river with Josh,” she said, “to look for the hermit’s cave. Actually I think it is a fox’s den, but we always liked to think it was a hermit’s cave.”
He had come to stand in front of her. For some reason that she had not even begun to fathom, she remained pressed against the tree, her hands clasping it on either side of her body.
He nodded. “Perhaps we should go around there, too,” he said.
“Yes,” she said.
“Or are you afraid that the tree will fall down if you don’t stand there holding it up?” His eyes were smiling at her in that way she had noticed before.
“Perhaps it will, too,” she said. “You go and find them, Justin. I’ll stay here.”
He was looking very directly at her with those eyes. His hands were clasped behind his back.
“It’s not as easy to be sensible as it seemed two evenings ago, is it?” he said.
“No.” She sounded, she thought, as if she had just run a mile without stopping.
“I should have left you at the roadside,” he said.
“I should have locked myself into that bedchamber,” she said.
“I should have read aloud from my book of sermons until I put us both to sleep.”
“I should have agreed meekly with Dennis’ eagerness to match me with Toby.”
“No, you shouldn’t.”
“I should have asserted myself, then,” she said, “and said no and refused to say another word. I should not have set foot outside that carriage.”
“I should not have left London,” he said, “once I realized that I would have to travel alone.”
“I might have frozen to a hedgerow if you had not,” she said. “Dennis had lost a wheel.”
“And you were trudging away in the opposite direction,” he said, grinning suddenly. “You could well be a candidate for Bedlam one of these days, Rosamund.”
“And you were loaded down with a trunk full of clothes for a mistress who was in London with a chill,” she said. “Perhaps we will meet in Bedlam.”
Only his eyes still smiled. “I wish we could,” he said so softly that she had to read his lips.
“Go away, Justin,” she said. “Please go away. Go and find Annabelle and Josh.”
“Would it be different, I wonder,” he said, “if we had had longer? A week perhaps? Two?”
