He reached for her hand, and her fingers curled about his and clung tightly.
“I have enjoyed knowing you, Anne Jewell,” he said.
“And I you, Sydnam Butler.”
He turned his head to look at her and they both smiled.
Perhaps there was a possibility…Perhaps if she were given time to…
But she pulled her hand abruptly away from his even as he opened his mouth to speak and pointed in the direction of the house and driveway.
“Here they come,” she cried. “I must be there when David arrives. I have been away from him all day. Oh, I do hope he has come to no harm.”
A line of carriages was making its way up the driveway.
“Go,” he said. “You can be there on the terrace waiting for him by the time he arrives.”
She turned her head to look at him.
“Go,” he said. “I’ll take the shortcut back to the cottage.”
She hesitated for only a moment, an instant’s indecision in her face, and then she turned and ran down the hill as she had the other night, when he had run beside and a little ahead of her to reach the bottom before her.
He looked after her now and wondered if he was sorry or glad that he had been prevented from speaking, from begging her to reconsider.
He rather thought he was glad.
Or would be by next week.
Or next year.
Or the next lifetime.
Anne was very close to tears by the time she reached the terrace just as the first of the carriages rolled to a stop before the doors. She was desperate to see her son, to hear his voice, to hold him in her arms. And yet she was aware too that she had just left Sydnam behind, without any sort of good-bye, that in all probability she would never see him again.
But she hated good-byes. Shehatedthem. It was better this way.
David came tumbling out of the second carriage as soon as he spied her standing there and came dashing toward her, his legs pumping, his eyes sparkling, his mouth in motion, the volume of his treble voice almost deafening. She caught him up in a tight hug, laughing, and kissed the top of his head.
“You should havebeenthere, Mama…Cousin Joshua…and you should haveseenme…Davy…and then we…Lord Aidan…it was suchfun…Cousin Joshua…Becky and Marianne were scared of the winding stairs, but I helped them up and Lady Aidan said I was a perfect gentleman and…Alexander…Cousin Joshua and Daniel…the little ones…Iwishyou had been there, Mama, to see…”
Anne laughed again as they made their way up to the nursery. She had missed most of the details of his day, but it did not seem to matter.
“It would seem, then,” she said, “that you had a good time.”
“I had thebesttime,” he said. “But I wish you could have seen the castle, Mama. You would have loved it.”
“I am quite sure I would have,” she said.
“Did you enjoy the place Mr. Butler took you?” he asked her.
“Ty Gwyn?” she said. “Very much.”
“But you really ought to have come with us,” he said. “You would have had much more fun. Cousin Joshua…” And he was off again.
It was wonderful to see him happy and animated, his face bronzed from the sun.
But the day out had tired him. When Anne went looking for him after returning to her room to wash and change for the evening, she found him in his room alone, sitting on his bed in his nightshirt with his knees drawn up and his arms wrapped around them. He was looking listless and anything but happy.
