She felt strangely self-conscious with Mr. Butler—perhaps because their conversations with each other had bordered upon intimacy. How many near-strangers admitted to each other that they were lonely, that there had been no one of the opposite sex in their lives for years and years?
Inevitably, though, as good manners dictated, Lady Hallmere turned toward one of the English landowners on her other side and Mr. Jones turned toward Mrs. Lofter on his.
“Miss Jewell,” Mr. Butler asked politely, “are you and your son enjoying your stay at Glandwr?”
“Enormously,” she said. “Thank you.”
“And has he done more painting?”
“Yes,” she said. “Twice, both times with Lady Rosthorn.”
“I am delighted to hear it,” he said. “Did you know there is to be entertainment this evening?”
“Yes,” she said. “Lady Rannulf is going to act. Apparently she is very good at it. And Joshua and Lady Hallmere are going to sing a duet even though Lady Hallmere wasverybelligerent when everyone was trying to persuade her. It was only when Joshua commented that no one was going to be allowed to bully his wife when he was there to protect her that she bristled with indignation athimand agreed to do it. She did not see the winks he exchanged with her brothers.”
Mr. Butler laughed and she joined him.
“It has always amazed me,” he said, lowering his voice, “that Hallmere seems to know just how to handle Freyja. She was always a hellion and a spitfire. There is to be another duet too tonight. Huw Llwyd is to sing while his wife accompanies him on the harp.”
Mr. and Mrs. Llwyd were the duke’s tenants, a youngish couple.
“They are good?” Anne asked.
He set his spoon down in his empty dish and tapped two fingers over his heart.
“Their music comes in through the ears,” he said, “but it lodges here. You will know what I mean when you have heard them.”
“I look forward to doing so, then,” she said.
“What you ought to hear,” he said, “is the congregation of the Welsh chapel singing hymns on a Sunday morning. They come close to raising the roof off the building, though not with indiscriminate noise. They sing in four-part harmony without ever coming together during the week to rehearse. It is quite extraordinary.”
“It must be indeed,” Anne said with feeling.
“I would like to take you there next Sunday,” he said. “If you can bear the prospect of not understanding a word of the service, that is. It is all in Welsh. But themusic!”
Anne had gone to church the previous Sunday, as she did almost every week. But she had gone to the English church with the Bedwyn family. She had sat in the special padded pews set aside for them at the front of the church. Many of the other pews, she had noticed, were empty.
“I should like to go,” she said.
“Would you?” He looked up from the plate of fruit and cheese a footman had set before him and focused full on her. “Will you walk by the cottage on Sunday morning, then, and we will go together?”
“Yes,” she said. “Thank you.”
And suddenly she felt breathless, as if they had made some sort of secret assignation. She had agreed to go tochurchwith him, that was all. But what would everyone think of her? And why should it matter what anyone thought? Shewantedto go.
And he was looking at her, she thought, as ifhewanted it too.
Lady Hallmere claimed his attention again at that moment and soon Mr. Jones turned back to Anne, and they conversed for a few minutes before the duchess got to her feet and invited the ladies to follow her to the drawing room while the gentlemen remained behind to enjoy their port.
More than half an hour passed before the gentlemen joined the ladies. Anne felt almost annoyed with herself when she realized that her eyes had gone immediately in search of Mr. Butler among them. It was no big thing, after all, that he had invited her to attend the Welsh church with him on Sunday so that she might hear Welsh singing for herself.
Except that it was.
She felt stupidly like a girl again, being singled out for a gentleman’s attention. Itwasstupid. She was twenty-nine years old and this was nothing remotely connected to courtship. But until less than two weeks ago she had not stepped out with a man, even in simple friendship, since Henry Arnold. And that was a whole lifetime ago.
She had offered to sit behind the tea tray, pouring tea, and the duchess had accepted her offer. But she was not so busy that she could not observe the way people gathered into conversational groups—the wealthier English landowners with the Bedwyns, Mrs. Llwyd with Mrs. Pritchard and Mrs. Thompson, the vicar and his wife with Baron Weston and Miss Thompson, Mr. Llwyd, Mr. Jones, Mr. Rhys—the Welsh minister—with Mr. Butler and the Duke of Bewcastle. The duchess moved from group to group, drawing smiles wherever she went.
Mr. Butler was deep in conversation and did not once glance Anne’s way—she was on his blind side. But later, after she had got to her feet and brushed her hands over her skirt during the bustle of the removal of the tea tray, she found that he was standing beside her.
