“Employment for me has always been about more than just making money,” the older man said. “I could have lived in great luxury on what my father left me. I could have appointed managers for the mines and given them no further thought. Indeed, I did just that during the years when I was drinking and feeling sorry for myself. Fortunately, I was not cut out for idleness of either body or mind, and that fact was perhaps my salvation. I believe that in many ways we are similar, Major.”
“Youareoffering me employment,” Ben said.
“Knowing that you do not need the money,” Bevan said, raising his coffee cup to his lips, “and that some gentlemen, maybe most, would find it demeaning to work around industry. But you do need to use your gifts and your skills, and you will never again use them in the army. I would rather you than anyone else I have met.”
Ben shook his head and laughed softly. Was he actually tempted? More than tempted?
“Everything I have will be Samantha’s one day,” Bevan said.
Ben sobered instantly. “Are you offering the job on condition that I marry Mrs. McKay?” he asked. Sudden anger curled like a tight ball in his stomach.
“On the contrary, Major,” Bevan said. “I offer the employment on condition that you leave here. An empire is not run from a country estate or even from a seaside cottage. I have homes in Swansea and in Merthyr Tydfil. You would live on site. And I do not offer permanent employment. Not yet. I do not know that you are capable of doing the job well. I do not know that it would suit you. Or if it would suit me to have you. We would need time to discover if we are a good fit for each other. As for my granddaughter, well, I will not deny that I sat up half the night thinking of how convenient it would be if you really did become my right-hand man, as capable and enthusiastic a manager as I have been, perhaps even with new, fresh ideas to bring to the task. And of how convenient it would then be if you were to marry Samantha. For then, eventually, everything would be yours as well as hers. It would be a storybook ending for an elderly man who long ago gave up all hope of happy endings. But I press nothing on you, Major Harper. Or on her. Indeed, I would insist that you leave here immediately.”
“Mrs. McKay might nevertheless feel that pressure was being brought to bear upon her if I were to accept your offer,” Ben said. “She might well believe that you and I were trying to manipulate her life and interfere with her newfound freedom. I have already taken my leave of her.”
“I cannot speak with her,” Bevan said. “She has not given me the right and perhaps never will. You must do it, then, if you feel you must. And if you accept my offer, which I believe you are inclined to do. But remember that the employment may never be permanent. There would have to be a trial period of several months before any contract can be drawn up or agreed to. When did Captain McKay die?”
“In December sometime,” Ben said.
“Then perhaps we can get together at Cartref sometime just before Christmas,” Bevan said, “to discuss our future association, if we are to have one.”
His meaning was unmistakable. Samantha’s mourning period would be over by then.
They gazed steadily at each other across the table.
Ben reached for his canes abruptly and pulled himself to his feet. “I need to do some thinking,” he said. “And, depending upon the outcome of that, I need to talk with Mrs. McKay. This wouldnotbe a decision for me alone to make even if I would not be living anywhere close to here. For she may not want anything more to do with you, and my working for you would seem like a betrayal. Even if shedoeswish to have a relationship with you, she may not want me running the businesses that will eventually be hers. It may seem like entrapment to her.”
“I perfectly understand, Major.” Bevan smiled and poured himself another coffee. “You will write to me if you do not come to see me?”
Ben nodded curtly and made his slow way out of the dining room and up the stairs to his room. He felt rather as though he had been bashed over the head and had his brains scrambled.
All his baggage had been taken down to the carriage already, he could see.
Samantha kept busy through the early part of the morning going through the linen closets with Mrs. Price, sorting out what was good, what was worth mending, and what was only good enough to be consigned to the rag bag. Tomorrow they would go through the china. Mrs. Price reported that all the cupboards were full to overflowing but that some of the pieces were mismatched or chipped or altogether not worth keeping.
She was going to go through simply everything, she decided, until the cottage felt entirely her own, until it felt like home, as Bramble Hall never had. She had not even realized that until now.
She was going to return the call of Mrs. Tudor and her daughter, who had already visited her, and she was going to make an effort to become acquainted with more of her neighbors and to discover ways of becoming active and useful in village life. She was going to ask about the availability of a tutor to teach her Welsh. Not that it was spoken a great deal just here, but she wanted to be able to speak it anyway or at least to understand it and perhaps read it. There were a few Welsh books in the book room, including a Welsh Bible. Perhaps she would even take music lessons. And perhaps…
And every moment of the time she thought of Ben driving away from the inn. But which direction would he have taken? She had not asked. That thought brought a moment of foolish panic. She did not even know where he was going. And where was he now, at this moment? How was he feeling? Was he thinking of her? Or had he turned his thoughts forward to the future, eager to begin something new, relieved to be away from here and away from her? Or, like her, was he thinking of the future and of her at the same time?
Would the pain lessen as time went on? But of course it would. And why was she even feeling pain? They had had a brief affair. They had agreed before it began that it would last just a week. She did not want him to stay. And he certainly would not want it. It was merely a leftover sexual passion she was feeling. Of course it would go away after a few days.
By the middle of the morning she could stay in the cottage no longer. She pulled on her old bonnet, called to Tramp, who was busy gnawing on an old soup bone in the kitchen, and went out. She hesitated only a moment at the garden gate before turning in the direction of the beach. There was no point in avoiding it unless she intended to do so for the rest of her life. Nevertheless, it felt painfully bleak to step through the gap between the rocks and onto the sand after removing her shoes.
She found a piece of driftwood to throw for Tramp and strolled along the top of the beach, trying to keep her eyes off the rock she had come to think of astheirs. She was on her way back, not far from the gap, when Ben stepped through it. She stopped, wondering for a dizzying moment if she was imagining him. And then she was filled with an unreasoning surge of hope.
“I thought you would have been long on your way by now,” she cried, hurrying toward him.
“I had breakfast with your grandfather,” he said. “He came to the inn.”
She stopped abruptly while Tramp came tearing up without his driftwood and panted and wagged his tail in front of Ben.
“Why?” she asked.
“He has offered me employment,” he said.
“What?”
