“Oh, Anne,” Claudia said. She slumped in her chair and sighed. “My dear, how could you have been so…foolish?”
What she had done had, of course, been very foolish indeed. But there was really no point in regretting it. It had happened.
“I ought to have told you sooner,” she said, “instead of waiting until I was absolutely sure—and even longer than that while I allowed time for my letter to reach him in Wales. You will need to replace me soon. Lila has been doing little more than apprentice work during the past month, but she shows great promise, Claudia. Like Susanna, she seems able to win the respect of girls who were her fellow pupils just a few months ago, and she is very popular with the new girls. Besides which, she is really quite brilliant in mathematics and earned top marks in geography every year I taught her. If you choose to promote her, I do not believe she will let you down.”
Claudia stared broodingly at her for several moments before pushing abruptly to her feet and rounding the desk and snatching Anne up into her arms.
“Anne,” she said. “Anne, I ought to shake the life out of you. But…Oh, my dear, tell me how I may help you. Is there even the smallest chance that you can feel an affection for Mr. Butler?”
Anne relaxed gratefully into the embrace. She had been so afraid that she would lose her friendships at the school—and it was of the very disciplined Claudia Martin that she had been most afraid. A woman who had twice been got with child outside wedlock could not demand the sympathy of her friends as a right.
“I would not have…done what I did with him if I had not felt a very deep affection for him,” she said. “There was no seduction involved, Claudia, and certainly no rape. Please, you must believe that. There was affection on both sides.”
“But you refused his marriage offer.” Claudia stood back, but she still held Anne’s arms. “Are you simply daft, or am I missing something?”
“Marrying him seemed the wrong thing to do at the time,” Anne said, “for both of us and for reasons that might be difficult to put into words. But now there is to be a third person, and a marriage between us is the only right thing to do.”
Claudia sighed again.
“Sit down,” she said, pulling on the bell rope that hung beside the desk. “I will have a pot of tea brought in. All matters can be seen more clearly—and more calmly—over a cup of tea. If my ears do not deceive me, I believe the girls are returning from their games—ah, look, it is raining outside. That would explain it. I’ll invite Susanna to join us if I may. Wearea little like sisters, are we not? I still miss Frances quite dreadfully. AndhowI will miss you, Anne, my dear.”
She gave instructions to the maid who answered the bell.
“There is actually a fourth person involved in all this, Anne, is there not?” she said while they waited for Susanna to join them. “Will Mr. Butler be a good father for David? I will forgive him a multitude of sins if the answer is yes.”
It was a question that worried Anne more than any other. David desperately wanted a father. But his idea of a desirable father figure was the physically perfect and athletic Joshua or Lord Alleyne or Lord Aidan. However, David had met Sydnam and recognized in him a fellow artist. He did not appear to hold him in any particular aversion.
But how would he feel about Sydnam as a father? As her husband?
“He will be kind to David,” she said.
Of that, at least, she was quite sure.
There had been heavy rains for several weeks, making travel onthe main roads slow and hazardous, even impossible at times. Sydnam had been watching with some impatience for the arrival of a letter from the Duke of Bewcastle and his solicitors, the final formality to be gone through before he could call T*** Gwyn officially his own.
He was delighted when it finally arrived and opened it before he looked at the rest of the mail, though he could see that there was a letter from his mother at the top of the pile.
He stood in the middle of his office looking down at the official papers and tried to feel the expected euphoria over knowing that his dream had finally come true. He was a landowner in his own right. He owned a home and land in Wales, a country he had come to love deeply. He now belonged. Hefullybelonged. He must call on Tudor Rhys later so that they could celebrate together.
But euphoria was difficult to conjure these days.
He was having the hall and the morning room of Ty Gwyn redecorated, since the sale had been all but final for longer than a month. But he had not been there to supervise or check on the work. He had not been there at all for almost two months. Not since…
Well, not sincethen,in fact.
He could not bring himself to go. He would have to pass through the gate—and drive past the stile. He would have to walk past the rose arbor. He would have to step inside the empty house—empty of all except workmen.
And memories.
He had not yet faced the absurd possibility that he would never actually take up residence in Ty Gwyn but would remain indefinitely in the cottage near Glandwr, using the excuse that he was comfortable there and closer to his work.
He picked up the letter from his mother and flicked through the rest of the post. It all related to business—except for one slim letter written in an elegant hand that looked feminine. It was not Lauren’s writing. He set down his mother’s letter unopened, picked it up, and saw immediately that it had come from Bath.
He stared at it for a few moments while his mouth grew dry. He had stopped looking for it weeks ago and had now been taken quite unawares. Though he did not know what the contents were, of course—or even for certain who the writer was.
But who else would be writing to him from Bath?
And what else would she write about?
