Joseph rode over there with McLeith, Lizzie up on his horse before him and the dog running alongside until he tired and had to be taken up with them too, much to Lizzie’s delight. McLeith was, of course, going to call upon Claudia, as he did almost every day. Joseph wondered if the man would ever persuade her to marry him, though he very much doubted it.
When they arrived at Lindsey Hall, Joseph sent the note he had written last night up to Miss Martin with a footman but then went back outside, where the Duchess of Bewcastle and Lord and Lady Hallmere were talking to Lizzie. McLeith went inside to see Claudia. Joseph strolled down to the lake with Lizzie and the dog.
“Papa,” she said, clinging to his hand as they walked, “I do not want to go to school.”
“You will not be going,” he assured her. “You will remain with me until you grow up and fall in love and marry and leave me.”
“Silly,” she said, laughing. “That will never happen. But if I do not go to school, I will lose Miss Martin.”
“You like her, then?” he asked.
“Iloveher,” she assured him. “Is it wrong, Papa? I loved Mother too. When she died I thought my heart would break. And I thought no one but you could ever make me smile again or make me feel safe again.”
“But Miss Martin can?”
“Yes,” she said.
“It is not wrong,” he said, squeezing her hand. “Your mother will always be your mother. There will always be a corner of your heart where she lives on. But love lives and grows, Lizzie. The more you love, the more youcanlove. You need not feel guilty about loving Miss Martin.”
Unlike him.
“Perhaps,” she said, “Miss Martin can come and visit us, Papa.”
“Perhaps,” he agreed.
“I will miss her,” she said with a sigh as they stood on the bank of the lake and he looked along to where the trees grew down almost to the water. Just there…“And Molly and Agnes and Miss Thompson.”
“Soon,” he said, “I will take you home.”
“Home,” she said with a sigh, resting the side of her head against his arm. “But, Papa, will Miss Martin take Horace?”
“I think,” he said, “she will be happy if he stays with you.”
Claudia Martin was walking with McLeith some distance away, he could see. They must have come over the hill behind the house and down through the trees.
He determinedly turned his attention to his daughter again. And how blessed he was to be able to be with her openly like this after so long.
“We never did have our boat ride yesterday afternoon, did we, sweetheart?” he said. “Shall we find a boat and do it now?”
“Oh, ye-e-es!” she cried, her face lighting up with pleasure and excitement.
“I would not have been surprised,” Charlie said, “to have found you ready to leave this morning, Claudia, as soon as the child returned and could go with you. I would have been annoyed on your behalf. It is Attingsborough’s job to take her away, and it should be done as soon as possible. He ought not to have had her brought here in the first place. It has put Bewcastle in an awkward position and is a dreadful insult to Miss Hunt—and Anburey.”
“It was not his idea to bring Lizzie here,” Claudia told him. “It was mine.”
“He ought not even to have brought the child to your attention,” he said. “You are alady.”
“And Lizzie,” she said, “is a person.”
“Miss Hunt,” he said, “has been dreadfully upset even though she has too much dignity to show it openly. She was humiliated before a houseful of guests from both Alvesley and Lindsey Hall, not to mention the local gentry who were at the picnic. I half expected that she would refuse to continue with her plans to marry Attingsborough, but it seems she has forgiven him.”
Yes. She had not needed to be told. She had read the stark message Joseph had sent up after she had watched his approach from the schoolroom window. She had only half noticed that Charlie was with him and Lizzie. She had waited without hope—but had realized after reading his note that in fact she had been deceiving herself. Shehadhoped. But suddenly all hope, all possibility of joy, was snatched away.
As they emerged from the trees to walk toward the far end of the lake, she looked back to where she had lain last night with Joseph—and she could see him farther off, standing at the water’s edge with Lizzie. By a great effort of will, she brought her mind back to what they had been talking about.
“Charlie,” she said, “Lizzie was conceived more than twelve years ago, when the Marquess of Attingsborough was very young and long before he met Miss Hunt. Why would she feel threatened by Lizzie’s existence?”
“But it is not her existence, Claudia,” he said. “It is the fact that now Miss Hunt and a large number of other people—soon to be everyone of any significance—knowof her. It is just not the thing. A gentleman keeps these things to himself. I know the expectations of society—I had to learn them when I was eighteen. You cannot be expected to know. You have lived a far more sheltered life.”
