“I would love to see it,” she had said. “It must be particularly lovely in the early evening and at sunset.”
“Would you care to join us, Miss Haviland? Nick?” he had asked.
So they had gone off together, the four of them. At first, they had divided into their respective couples, some distance between them, but while they were strolling along the grassy alley betweenthe two straight rows of poplars, they merged into a foursome and remained that way until they reached the summerhouse. There they sat and conversed until Miss Haviland suggested that perhaps they should return to the house before darkness fell. The alley had been quiet and secluded and all lushly green. The summerhouse was cozily furnished and gave views back down the alley and about the park. The alley and summerhouse must be among the most romantic spots in the whole park. And the early sunset had shown promise of being truly breathtaking. They had walked back in a group of four, talking cheerfully as though the wordromancehad never been invented.
But she would not think about that disappointing evening, Winifred decided now. It had merely confirmed what she had already known anyway. Thinking about it would only send her spirits plummeting even further.
She joined Andrew in one of his favorite activities when the terrain was suitable. The parkland was neither uniformly grassy nor perfectly flat. Rather, it undulated, slight rises making for energetic climbs and unexpected views, corresponding dips leading down to secluded hollows, some of them exquisitely cultivated as quiet nooks, with wrought iron seats, colorful flower beds, and the occasional lily pond or fishpond.
It was not the nooks that interested Andrew, however. It was the downward slopes. He stopped and pointed at one particularly long one and looked eagerly at Winifred, his arms flapping. She nodded and ran down with him, the two of them flying like birds and shrieking at the speed and laughing helplessly. She always loved the strange sounds he made when he laughed. They did it several more times until Winifred plopped down close to the top and indicated that she could not do it even once more.
Andrew continued alone while she sat watching, her arms wrapped about her raised knees—and felt the sadness wash over her again. She could not stop thinking of the portrait gallery above the ballroom in the west wing of the house and the long line of the Ware ancestors, stretching back several generations. She felt again the stabbing of raw longing they had caused her as she realized there was not a single portrait of any of her ancestors. Or at least, none that she knew of.
She had spent most of her life determinedly counting her blessings while suppressing all thought of her missing life before she became conscious of her existence at an orphanage in Bath. It was a verygoodorphanage, it was true, but nevertheless it was home to a large number of other children like her, with no knowledge of just who they were or where they had come from. The remaining children, fewer in number, were perhaps even worse off. They knew, but they had been abandoned anyway. Unwanted. Unloved.
She hated the times when she could not suppress such thoughts and the self-pity that came with them. They plunged her into deep gloom, from which it was almost impossible to find instant consolation in all her many blessings. She watched Andrew and felt a welling of love for him. It did not help lift her spirits, however, for she feared for him too. What did the future hold for him? Mama and Papa, surely the kindest people on earth, would not live forever even though they were still young now. And there was Robbie. And the twins, who were more than usually needy and clung to each other almost constantly. They had been separated for several months before Mama and Papa heard of their plight, each of them inconsolably pining for the other and miserable even though they were still only babies at the time. Mama and Papa took the children into their own home—together. The girls had wept a great deal for thefirst weeks, unwilling to let each other go even for a moment. They had never quite recovered from that forced separation, though they could have no conscious memory of it. But what did their future hold in store?
Andrew came to stand beside her to catch his breath and make sure she was watching. Then he went hurtling down again, laughing and flapping his arms like wings.
“What birdishe?” a voice asked from the top of the slope behind her. Colonel Nicholas Ware’s voice.
She didnotwant further company. Not now. And certainly not him.
Please go away.
“I have no idea,” she said. “Something big and powerful. I do not believe it matters just what it is, however, provided it is one that loves to fly free.”
The fishpond at the center of the nook had caught Andrew’s attention at last, and he knelt on the edge for a closer look at the fish.
“You look as though you wish you could do that too,” he said.
“I did a number of times,” she said, hoping he would go away if she did not turn her head to look at him. “But Andrew can sometimes run forever before he tires out.”
“I meant you look as though you wish you could fly free,” he said.
She shrugged. “I am not a bird.”
“What is it that ties you to the earth?” he asked her.
A strange question. He spoke softly, and for a few unguarded moments she allowed tears to trickle down her cheeks while she hugged her legs more tightly.
“I have no wings,” she said.
An even stranger answer. Factually it was true, yes. But even she could hear the longing in her voice.
Please, please go away.
He came down the slope then and sat on the grass beside her. He held out a clean white handkerchief and she took it wordlessly and dried her cheeks, feeling all the humiliation of crying over nothing at all. She rarely cried, even when there was a definite cause.
He took the handkerchief from her when she did not know what to do with it, and it disappeared into one of his pockets.
“Do you want to talk about it?” he asked.
And she realized something she had been steadfastly ignoring since conceiving her unfavorable opinion of him on the day of Trooping the Colour as a killer by trade and cruel by nature—never really a fair, considered judgment. She knew why she had done it, of course. It was because it would be ridiculous to develop an attachment to a man who was so gorgeous and charming and liked by everyone. Especially when she was falling in love with his brother and hoped to marry him and live the life she had always dreamed of.
The charm was real and neither forced nor insincere. Colonel Ware genuinely liked people of all ages. He liked her brothers and sisters. He liked his nephew and nieces. He even seemed sometimes to like her, despite things she had said to him that might have elicited disgust toward her.
He waskind.
