Sometimes even a short sentence did not have the power to impress itself upon the mind all at once. It was as if she heard the words separately and needed a few moments to piece them together and know what he was telling her.
“Irrevocably?” she asked.
“She told me,” he said, “that she cannot imagine anything that would cause her to change her mind.”
“Because you have an illegitimate child?” she asked.
“Apparently,” he said, “that is not the reason at all. She does not care if I have any number of mistresses and children. Indeed, she seems to expect it of me—as she expects it of all men. It is the fact that I broke one of the cardinal rules of polite society by acknowledging Lizzie’s relationship to me that has offended her. My refusal to have her removed from Alvesley tonight and Lindsey Hall tomorrow and never to mention her ever again is what caused her to inform me that she could not marry me.”
“Perhaps,” she said, “on cooler reflection she will change her mind.”
“Perhaps,” he agreed.
They did not speak for a while.
“What next, then?” she asked. “What will happen to Lizzie? Eleanor and I are agreed that she is educable and adaptable and eager to learn. It would be a pleasure to take on the challenge of having her at the school. However, I am not sure it is what Lizzie wants even though I know she had been enjoying the company and the activities.”
“What I have wanted to do from the moment of Sonia’s death,” he said, “is move Lizzie to Willowgreen, my home in Gloucestershire. It has always seemed an impossible dream, but maybe now I can make it a reality. The secret is out after all, and I find that I do not care the snap of two fingers what society thinks of me. And society is often not half the villain we sometimes expect it to be. Anne and Sydnam Butler have her son with them at Alvesley. He was born out of wedlock nine years before they met each other—but of course, you know all about that. David Jewell is treated here no differently from all the other children.”
“Oh,” Claudia said, “I think Willowgreen—the country—would be perfect for Lizzie.”
She felt a nameless longing—which would not remain nameless if she allowed her thoughts to dwell upon it.
“What provision would you make for her education?” she asked.
“I would hire a companion and governess for her,” he said. “But I would be able to spend a great deal of my own time with her. I would teach her about the countryside, about plants and animals, about England, about history. I would hire someone to teach her to play the pianoforte or the violin or the flute. Perhaps in a year or two’s time she would be more ready for school than she is now. In the meantime I would be able to remain at home for far longer spells than I have been able to do with her in London. I would be less idle, more meaningfully employed. You might even come to approve of me.”
She turned her head to look at him. The carriage was just drawing clear of the trees at the bottom of the driveway and passing through the gates. His face was lit by the slanting rays of the sun, which was low in the sky. She noticed that he spoke hypothetically, as if he did not really believe in his freedom.
“Yes,” she said, “perhaps I might.”
He smiled slowly at her.
“Though I alreadydoapprove of you,” she said. “You have not spent so much time in London for frivolous reasons. You have done it for love. There is no nobler motive. And now you have acknowledged your daughter publicly. I approve of that too.”
“You look,” he said, “like the prim schoolteacher who first greeted me in Bath.”
“That,” she said, folding her hands in her lap, “is who I am.”
“Was it not you,” he said, “who told my daughter just a short while ago that no one can be summed up by labels alone?”
“I have a rich life, Lord Attingsborough,” she told him. “I have made it myself, and I am happy with it. It is as different from the life I have lived during the past few weeks as it could possibly be. And I cannot wait to return to it.”
She had turned her head away to look out through the window.
“I am sorry,” he said, “for the turmoil I have brought into your life, Claudia.”
“You have brought nothing that I have not allowed,” she told him.
They lapsed into silence after that, a silence that was fraught with tension and yet was curiously companionable too. The tension, of course, was sexual. Claudia was well aware of that. But it was not lust. It was not just the desire to embrace and perhaps go beyond mere embraces. Love lent a comforting touch to the atmosphere, and yet it was a love that might yet be tragic. Miss Hunt might yet change her mind.
And if she did not?
But Claudia’s mind could not move beyond that stumbling block.
The Duke and Duchess of Bewcastle stepped out through the front doors of Lindsey Hall as the carriage rounded the great fountain and drew to a halt.
“Oh,” the duchess said when the coachman had opened the door and let down the steps, “the Marquess of Attingsborough has accompanied you, Miss Martin. I am so glad. We have worried about you coming alone. But Lizzie is not with you?”
