“Ah, then you know what I mean,” he said.
“I have not seen any of them for more than ten years,” she told him.
Had she not said her son was nine years old? There was clearly a connection.
“They rejected you?” he asked her.
“No,” she said. “They forgave me.”
There was a silence between them while a pair of gulls cried loudly overhead and then landed on the rocks not far away and pecked at something they found there.
“Forgave?”he asked softly.
“I was with child,” she said, “but I was unmarried. I was a fallen woman, Mr. Butler. And an embarrassment, at the very least.” She was clasping her raised knees now and gazing off at the horizon.
To her family? Their own embarrassment meant more to them than she did?
“But they must have wanted you to come home if they had forgiven you,” he said. “Surely?”
“They have never once mentioned David in any of the letters they have written,” she said. “Presumably they understand that if ever I were to go home he would go with me. They have never extended an invitation.”
“And you have not thought of going anyway?” he asked. “Perhaps one does not need an invitation to go home. Perhaps they would be pleased if you took the initiative.”
“I have no wish to go there,” she said. “It is no longer home. That is just a habit of language. Miss Martin’s school is home.”
No. A workplace, no matter how pleasant, could never be home. Glandwr was not his. He doubted the school was hers. Like him, she had no home of her own. But at least he had hopes of acquiring one and the wherewithal to do so.
“What happened?” He almost reached across to set his hand on her arm, but he stopped himself just in time. She certainly would not appreciate his touch.
“I was governess to Lady Prudence Moore at Penhallow in Cornwall,” she said. “She was the sweetest, sunniest-natured young child anyone could hope to meet—living in the body of a growing girl. Her brother was doing his best to—tointerferewith her, and I knew there was no point in appealing to the marquess, her father, who lived in a world of his own, or to her mother, who doted on her son and hated her daughter for being simple-minded. Her sisters were powerless though they loved her. And Joshua—the present marquess, her cousin—was living in the village some distance away and came only once a week to visit Prue. I lured Albert away from her. I wanted desperately to save her. I thought I could deal with him myself. But I could not.”
For a few moments she rested her forehead against her knees and stopped talking—though really she did not need to say any more.
“David was the result,” she said, lifting her head. “I wish…oh, Iwishhe had not come of such ugliness.”
Again he wanted to touch her but did not.
“I will say what you said to me,” he said. “You are incredibly brave.”
“Just foolish,” she said. “Just one of numerous women who believe they can reason with such men and change them. Some women even marry them believing that. I was saved from that fate at least.”
And yet, Sydnam realized, if the bounder had married her, her son would now be Marquess of Hallmere, and she would be the widowed marchioness, someone of considerable social significance and wealth.
“But the child was saved,” he said. “Lady Prudence Moore, I mean.”
She smiled rather wanly out to sea. “She married a fisherman a few years ago,” she said, “and has two sturdy sons. She writes me sometimes, helped by her sister. She writes with impeccable correctness in a large, childish hand. And if there is a type of happiness that is prolonged, Mr. Butler, then she is living it.”
“Because of you,” he said.
She got abruptly to her feet and brushed sand off her skirt. He got up too, but his preoccupation with her painful story had made him careless. His right knee gave out from under him and he had to twist sharply in order to use his left arm to save himself from falling. It was an awkward, undignified moment that embarrassed him. And even as he straightened up he was aware of the hand she had stretched out to steady him—though she had not actually touched him.
They gazed into each other’s eyes, uncomfortably close together.
“Clumsy of me,” he said.
She lowered her hand to her side.
“When I decided to climb up here,” she said, “I did not think…” Her teeth sank into her lower lip.
