“The Bedwyns,” Anne said, smiling, “are all quite fascinating, Susanna—and that is actually an understatement. The Duke of Bewcastle is every bit as formidable as he is reputed to be. He has cold silver eyes and long fingers that are forever curling about the handle of his quizzing glass. He is quite terrifying. And yet he was unfailingly courteous to me. The duchess is a delight and not at all high in the instep, and it is quite clear that he adores her though he is never ever demonstrative in public. He also adores their son, who is a cross, demanding little baby—except when his father is holding him. And he holds him rather often. He is a strange, mysterious, fascinating man.”
Susanna rested her chin on her knees. She was thinking of how words could be true and yet a massive lie at the same time.It was the old story, Anne. Yet he was very handsome and very amiable. Never mind.Just as if the whole relationship with Viscount Whitleaf had been that trivial, that unimportant.
“All this talk of married dukes is depressing me,” she said, smiling as if her heart were not breaking. “Was there no one who wasunmarried?”
“No dukes.” Anne smiled too.
Something in her tone alerted Susanna.
“Oh, Anne,” she said.“Who?”
“No one really,” Anne said quickly, shifting position on the chair. “Oh, what a dreadful thing to say of another human being. He very definitely issomeone. He is the duke’s steward at Glandwr. He was alone and I was alone, and so it was natural enough that occasionally we walk out together or sit together on evenings when he was invited to dine. That is all.”
“All,” Susanna repeated. “And was he tall, dark, and handsome, Anne?”
“Yes,” Anne said. “All three.”
Susanna continued to gaze at her.
“We were merely friends,” Anne said.
“Were you?” Susanna spoke softly.
“We were. We were…very dear friends,” Anne said.
But Susanna knew something as clearly as if they had both poured out their hearts to each other. They had both met someone very special indeed during their holidays. And they had both returned with bruised, perhaps even broken, hearts.
“But he did not make an offer,” she said. “Anne, I am so sorry.”
There was a lengthy silence, during which Anne did not contradict her.
“Do you think,” Susanna asked at last, “life would be easier, Anne, if one had parents and family to take one about, to make sure one met suitable people, to arrange for one to meet eligible suitors? Would it be easier than living at a girls’ school as one of the teachers?”
It seemed absurd, she thought, to miss her mother so very much even now when she was twenty-three—her mother, whom she had never known.
“I am not sure,” Anne said, closing the curtains again, “that life is ever easy. Very often girls and women make disastrous marriages even while surrounded by family to help guide their choice or make it for them. I think given the choice between a bad marriage and life here, I would choose being here every time. In fact, I am certain I would.”
“It wassoungrateful of me,” Susanna said, “even to ask that question. Good fortune was smiling on me when I was sent here to school, and I was blessed beyond belief when Claudia offered me a position on the staff. And I have such very good friends here. What more could I ask of life?”
“Ah, but we are women as well as teachers, Susanna,” Anne said as she resumed her seat. “We have needs that nature has given us for the very preservation of our species.”
Ah, and that was the trouble. That was the whole trouble. Without those needs, Susanna thought, she might have escaped unscathed from her summer holiday. She might have gone through the rest of her life convincing herself that Viscount Whitleaf had been just a temporary though dear friend whom she missed.
“And sometimes,” she said, “they are very hard to ignore. I wasverytempted this summer, Anne. To be a man’s mistress. Part of me is still not convinced that I made the right choice. And will I be able to make the same choice next time? And the next?”
As if there ever would orcouldbe a next time.
And she had been tempted in more than one way, hadn’t she? And had certainly not resisted one of those temptations.
“I don’t know,” Anne said.
“What poor, sad spinsters we are,” Susanna said, laughing and getting up from her perch on the bed. “I am for my lonely bed. The journey has tired me out. Good night, Anne.”
Three days later all the boarders returned to school and with them several new girls, including two charity pupils who needed a great deal of care and attention. And the day after that the day girls returned and classes started.
It was a relief to be busy again.
It was even more of a relief—and that was a massive understatement—to discover two weeks later that she was not with child, that her great indiscretion had had no lasting consequences. None that would be observable to anyone else, anyway.
