“I would suggest sitting for a while,” he said, “but you are wearing a pretty gown. Perhaps you would sit on my coat.”
“My shawl will do,” she said, taking it from about her elbows and opening it out. “You see? It is big enough for both of us.” She turned and spread it on the rough grass at their feet and sat down on one side of it.
After a moment he joined her there.
“I come here sometimes,” he said, “when I just want to sit and meditate. I come here even in the winter when it is cold and blustery. That is one thing about wild, natural beauty. It is never the same and yet it is always lovely and soothing to the soul.”
They sat in companionable silence for a while. Then he asked her about the school, and she told him about her friends there and about the rest of the staff, about the girls and their lessons and other activities. She talked for a long time, prompted by his questions and his obvious interest in her answers, and she realized anew how very fortunate she was to have found employment that felt more like a happy way of life than work.
“And what about you?” she asked him. “Is being steward here something that really interests you?”
He described his duties to her and told her about the home farm and laborers, about the tenant farms, about some of the villagers, about his particular friends there.
“The trouble with being steward to an absentee landlord,” he said, “is that one comes almost to believe that one is the owner. I have grown very attached to Glandwr and the countryside and people hereabouts. I hope never to leave. But I have told you that before.”
Finally they lapsed into silence again. And Anne, though she still gazed in wonder at the sea, realized that the loveliest view of all was above her head. But it made her dizzy to tip back her head to look up.
She lay back on the shawl, crossing her hands beneath her head.
“Ah,” she said, “that is better. I wonder just how many stars we can see.”
“If you wish to count them,” he said, chuckling as he turned his head to look down at her, “please do not let me stop you.”
“And there must be as many more that we cannot see,” she said.
“How far does the universe stretch, would you say?”
“Forever,” he said.
“My mind cannot grasp forever,” she told him. “There must surely be an end somewhere. But the big question is—what is beyond the end?”
He lay down beside her, still chuckling.
“I suppose,” he said, “there are astronomers and philosophers and theologians who will not cease seeking the answers and perhaps one day they will succeed. I share your curiosity. But sometimes I just marvel.”
“Yes.” Her eyes roamed across the sky. “We were meant to seek. But we were also meant simply to accept and enjoy. You are right. I can see the Big Dipper. It is the only thing I can identify by name, alas. But it does not matter, does it?”
“It does not matter,” he agreed.
They turned their heads to smile at each other and then both gazed upward again, glorying in the wonder of it all.
And yet…
And yet there was suddenly another dimension to the awareness Anne felt. They were close enough that she could feel his body heat along her right side. They were a man and a woman lying together on a deserted hilltop at night, almost but not quite touching. They had talked and talked together. They had laughed together.
They were friends, she thought.
But it was not friendship that added a certain spice to the heightened sensual awareness that star-gazing had brought. It was something far more carnal. She felt his masculinity and secretly reveled in it though she had no wish whatsoever to act upon it—or to have him do so.
Or perhaps she did.
She was just terribly afraid—afraid of him, afraid of herself.
She did not explore either her thoughts or her feelings in any depth, though. She simply enjoyed the moment, knowing that when she was back at school, deep into the routine of the autumn term, she would remember this night and relive every moment, every sensation, and perhaps even shed a few very private tears for what might have been in her life if only…
But how could she ever wish to change anything from her past, even the ugliest thing of all? Without it there would not be David.
“Miss Jewell,” Mr. Butler said softly at last, “it has just occurred to me that we must have been out here for a long time. Perhaps the dancing is over and the neighbors gone home. Country people do not usually keep late hours. I hope I have not compromised you in any way.”
