He broke the seal with his thumb and opened out the single sheet of paper.
His eye went to the signature first.
Ah. He had not been mistaken.
He read the words she had written, and his mind deciphered them—individually and in small phrases. Their full meaning would not seem to crash through to his heart.
She was with child. She had promised to inform him of that fact. She sent him her kind regards. All expressed in brief, formal sentences.
She was with child.
Hischild.
His and Anne’s.
She was with child, but she was unwed.
Finally full awareness dawned.
She was unwed.
He must go to her. There must not be a moment’s delay. His life had suddenly become of infinite and precarious value. Only it stood between Anne Jewell and terrible ruin—betweentheir childand terrible ruin. He must not delay.
He folded the letter and put it into his pocket before hurrying from the room and dashing up to his bedchamber and ringing the bell for his valet. Poor Anne—there was no time to lose.
But, of course, as he realized even before his valet arrived on the scene, surprised to be summoned in the middle of an afternoon, going to her rescue was not such a simple thing as donning his riding boots and coat, mounting the closest available horse, and galloping off in the direction of England and Bath.
The letter, he could see as soon as he took it from his pocket and spread it out on his bed to read again, was dated well over a week ago. It had taken twice as long to arrive as it normally would. Of course—the roads! He had known they were virtually impassable. And they would still be bad. Heavy showers were still pouring down on them almost every day. Anyway, he was not his own master. He was Bewcastle’s steward, with responsibilities and duties to perform. He was going to have to complete a few urgent tasks before he could go anywhere, and he was going to have to make arrangements with the man who usually stood in for him when he had to leave Glandwr for any length of time.
“We will be leaving for England within the next couple of days,” he told his valet when hehadintended to say that they would be leaving within the hour. “Have my bags all ready to go, will you, Armstead, so that we may leave as soon as possible?”
But by the time two days had passed and he was ready to go at last, Sydnam had realized that he could not even go straight to Bath and to Anne’s rescue. He had to go to London first.
The weather had not improved during those two days. The muddy, slippery roads, their potholes often filled with water that made them look like village ponds, slowed his journey to London quite considerably. And even when he was finally there, he discovered that the wheels of officialdom moved with agonizing slowness.
Three weeks had gone by since Anne had posted her letter before Sydnam, feeling decidedly nervous, presented himself at Miss Martin’s school on Daniel Street in the middle of one afternoon.
An elderly porter opened the door, half recoiled at the sight of him and looked as if he were about to close it again, then appeared to notice that the visitor was dressed like a gentleman, and finally stood squarely in the doorway, squinting at him with undisguised suspicion and hostility, and asked what he could do for him.
“I wish to speak with Miss Jewell,” Sydnam said. “I believe she is expecting me.”
“She is teaching,” the porter told him, “and is not to be disturbed.”
“Then I will wait until she has finished teaching,” Sydnam told him firmly. “Inform her that Sydnam Butler wishes to speak with her.”
The porter pursed his lips, looked as if he would dearly like to shut the door in the visitor’s face, gentleman or no gentleman, then turned without a word and led the way to a visitors’ parlor on the left side of the hall, his boot heels squeaking the whole way. Sydnam was admitted to the room and shut firmly inside. He almost expected to hear a key turning in the lock.
He stood in the middle of the room, noting both its neat refinement and its slight shabbiness and listening to the distant sounds of girls chanting something in unison, an occasional burst of laughter, and someone playing rather ploddingly on a pianoforte.
He had no idea when classes ended for the day. And it might well be that the elderly porter would forget that he was here or deliberately neglect to tell Anne Jewell that she had a visitor.
At some point he might have to sally forth in search of her.
But the door opened again after he had been there for fifteen minutes or so, and a lady stepped inside. She looked vaguely familiar, and Sydnam assumed she was the famous—or infamous—Miss Martin herself. He had met her no more than a time or two while she was Freyja’s governess, but the story of how she had left Lindsey Hall, figuratively thumbing her nose at Bewcastle, was legend. His father had met her marching down a country road, carrying her heavy portmanteau, and had stopped his carriage and persuaded her to accept a ride to the nearest stagecoach stop.
She was a handsome woman in a straight-backed, tight-lipped sort of way.
Sydnam bowed to her while she stood looking at him, her hands clasped at her waist. To do her justice, she controlled her reactions well at the sight of him. Or perhaps Anne had warned her what to expect.
