She wanted to be right. She did not want her world turned suddenly upside down again.
His face had turned pale. His hand was motionless on Tramp’s head.
“What did they tell you, girl?” he asked her. “What did they tell you about me?”
“Nothing,”she said, “except that early abandonment of my mother afterhermother had gone back to her Gypsy people. Nothing at all. You disappeared from her life.”
“Ah.” His hand slid away from Tramp’s head to rest on the arm of his chair. “It was not just that you were ashamed of me for my very middle-class wealth, then?”
“I did notknowabout your wealth,” she cried. “I did not knowanything. I assumed you were a laborer or a wanderer who had made a foolish marriage and was left with the encumbrance of a daughter, whom you then foisted upon your sister. I did not know anything abouther, except that she had owned this cottage, which my mother described as a hovel. I assumed itwasa hovel. I only hoped it would be somehow habitable while I made a new life for myself. I did not even know you were alive.”
Ben got to his feet again, crossed to her chair, set a large handkerchief in her hand, and then made his slow way over to the window. Samantha swiped at her eyes. She had not even realized she was crying.
“Ah, my dear girl,” her grandfather said.
But he had no chance to say any more for a while. The door opened and Mrs. Price came in with a large tray, her face wreathed in smiles. Samantha hastily pushed the handkerchief down the side of her chair.
“Ah, Mrs. Price,” Mr. Bevan said. “Trying to fatten people up as always, are you?”
“Just a few pieces of cake to go with your tea,” she said, placing the tray on the table beside Samantha and proceeding to pour the tea herself. “What else am I to do with my time but cook? Mrs. McKay is a very tidy lady and she has Gladys Jones to look after her personal needs.”
“And how is your son, the blacksmith?” he asked her. “His hand has healed, has it? Hammers are always better used on anvils than on the backs of fingers. In my opinion, anyway.”
“They were swollen to three times their size,” she told him, “and black and painful too, though he would never admit it. He is better now, though, Mr. Bevan, and thanks for asking. I’ll tell him you did. And thank you for sending—”
But she broke off at a slight motion of his hand.
“Well, it was greatly appreciated,” she said. “He couldn’t work much for a week.”
She handed around the tea and left the room.
“I have been justly punished, it seems,” he said with a sigh. “And poor Mrs. Price. The last thing I feel like doing is eating a piece of her cake, delicious as I am sure it is. I suppose you feel off your food too, Samantha. Perhaps we had better force some down anyway, had we? She will be hurt if we do not. Major, come and help us, if you will.”
Ben looked over his shoulder and then came back to his chair.
“I will tell you my story, Samantha, if you will listen,” Mr. Bevan continued. “But not now, perhaps. And I want to hear your story. I want to know why you would come here, expecting only a hovel of a cottage, when presumably you have a noble family to look after you as well as your father’s family. But perhaps not now for that either. Major Harper, how long is it since you were wounded?”
He was a man used to command, Samantha realized, and used to doing it without bombast. Here he was inhersitting room, directing the conversation, taking from it the heat of emotion that had been here just a few minutes ago. And he was feeding cake to Tramp, who was quite willing to make it seem to Mrs. Price that they had all eaten her tea with hearty appetites.
Ben told him where and when he had been wounded and how, though he did not go into great detail. He told him about the years of his healing and convalescence at Penderris Hall, and about leaving there three years ago.
“You are never going to be able to walk without your canes, then?” her grandfather asked.
“No,” Ben said.
“And what do you do to keep busy? Do you have a home of your own?”
Ben told him about Kenelston, and, when asked, about his brother and wife and children and his own reluctance to remove them from his home and the charge his brother had of the running of his estate.
“You are in a bit of an awkward position, then,” her grandfather said.
“Yes,” Ben agreed. “But I will work something out, sir. I was not made for idleness.”
“You were a military officer by choice, then?” her grandfather asked. “Not just because your father had that career picked out for you as soon as you were born? I understand many noble families do that—one son to inherit, another to go into the church, another into the military.”
“It was my own choice,” Ben said. “I never wanted anything else.”
“You like an active life, then. You like being in charge of men. And of events.”
