“No. He has far too great a sense of family duty to do that,” she said. “I am to go to Leyland Abbey in Kent. He has sent his own coachman and outriders back with the carriage Matilda took, and they have orders to escort me there. I am to leave the day after tomorrow. I do not know if their instructions are to coerce me if I will not go voluntarily or I try to delay, but I would not be at all surprised if they are. My father-in-law made it very clear in the letter he sent me that he sees me as a disgrace to his family and that I must be fetched to a place where he can keep a strict eye upon me and correct my waywardness.”
“And this is because you returned Bea’s visit that one afternoon and agreed to ride with her and with me a few days later?” He was frowning at her as if he did not quite believe his ears.
“They were not small matters to Matilda,” she told him. “They are not small matters to Matilda’s father. Heaven knows what I may get up to if I am left to my own devices here. I may even take it into my head to go about visiting the sick or arranging flowers on the altar at church.”
She took a sip of her tea and discovered gratefully that it was both strong and sweet.
“Perhaps,” he said, “it is not quite what you think. Perhaps your father-in-law’s annoyance with you arises from a genuine concern that you will be lonely here without the companionship of his daughter. Perhaps he thinks you will be happier surrounded by your late husband’s family.”
She took another sip of tea. “I think not,” she said. “But I am sorry to have made such a nuisance of myself. I came here, I suppose, to unburden myself to Lady Gramley, though to what purpose I do not know. I just did not know what else to do. Idonot know what else to do.”
“You do not believe you can find any sort of contentment at Leyland?” he asked her. “Even just temporarily, until your year of mourning is at an end?”
“Could you find any sort of contentment in a prison, Sir Benedict?” she asked in return. “Where even smiles are construed as sin, and laughter is unheard of?”
“And it is out of the question to go to your half brother?”
“Yes,” she said.
John would perhaps not literally refuse her admission to the vicarage if she turned up on his doorstep, but he would certainly make it clear that she was unwelcome, that she could not stay there beyond a few nights at the longest.
“Forgive my impertinence,” Sir Benedict said, “but do you not have an independence? Can you not set up on your own somewhere?”
She stared blankly at him. Her father had left her a small legacy, which Matthew had appropriated. He had left her with a small income, enough for her personal needs since she had never been extravagant. But enough with which to set up her own establishment? She did not know and had never wondered. She had relied upon Matthew’s assumption that his father would be happy to leave her at Bramble Hall. Oh, how foolish of her. How foolish! She ought to have been making plans. Butwhatplans?
“I could not stay anywhere close to here,” she said, “where at least I have some friendly acquaintances and some sense of belonging. Rudolph and Patience will be at Bramble Hall within a fortnight. They would make life very difficult for me if I remained here in defiance of my father-in-law’s express wishes. And I could not return to the village where I grew up. I had a few friends there, but on the whole I was not well accepted because my mother was not. As for anywhere else, well, I do notknowanywhere.”
She swallowed awkwardly. She was suddenly very frightened. The world seemed a vast and hostile place. Whatever was she going todo?
“Starting a new life is never easy,” he said, “especially when there is no obvious base of operations. You have the rest of today and tomorrow, then, to think of an alternative to Leyland Abbey.”
“I cannot go there.” She set down her cup and saucer and gripped one arm of the sofa. “I will not. Though I may not have a choice if I am right about those servants the earl has sent. They are all large, severe-looking men. However it is, though, I have to leave Bramble Hall. I expected it to be my home for the rest of my life. It is what my husband expected.”
She dipped her head forward in an attempt to cling to consciousness. Tramp whined. She was going to be homeless. And friendless.
“I must count my blessings,” she said, smoothing a hand over the dog’s head as though to reassure herself by comforting him. “I am not penniless, after all. There are thousands upon thousands of people who at this very moment are both homeless and destitute. Oh, the despair of it. How do they go on, Sir Benedict? I must not despair. It would be wicked. I am not destitute. There must be somewhere I can live, some small country house I can afford.”
She frowned in thought for a moment but was distracted when she realized he had got to his feet and come to sit beside her after propping his canes against the far side of the sofa. He took her right hand in both of his while Tramp stretched out at their feet. His hands were blessedly warm.
“I know how it is to feel homeless, even if I do not know how it is actually tobehomeless,” he said. “It is a wretchedly bleak and lonely feeling. But, as you say, you are not destitute.”
She turned her head and looked at his finely chiseled features and slightly hollowed cheekbones, a strangely appealing, not-quite-handsome face—though his eyes were very blue. He had kissed her almost a month ago and then withdrawn from her life, though she was convinced he had sent his sister to befriend her and involve her in neighborhood and church activities.
“Do you have any other relatives apart from your half brother?” he asked.
“A few aunts and uncles and cousins,” she said. “None to whom I have ever been close. They all shared my half brother’s outrage over my father’s marrying an actress of doubtful origin who was half his age.”
“And there is no one else?”
There was the illusion of comfort in his grasp.
“There were friends, other wives, during the first year of my marriage,” she said. “But I was not with them long enough to establish any lasting friendships before the regiment went to the Peninsula and I was sent to Leyland instead of going with them. No, there is no one.”
How abject it sounded. After twenty-four years of living, she had no one to whom she could turn for help.
He raised her hand, and she felt the warmth of his lips and his breath against the back of it for a few moments.
“But I have taken enough of your time, Sir Benedict,” she said. “You must be wishing me in Hades though you have been very kind. This is not your concern, and the longer I talk, the more pathetic I sound.”
