Oh, poor Adam. Poor Adam. How he would blame himself!
But she was dead. He was free. After the year of his mourning was over, he was going to come into Wiltshire. In eleven months’ time. At the end of September.
No, she must not think it. She must not expect it. For eleven months seemed an endless eternity. Anything could happen in that time. One of them could die. He could have a change of heart. He could meet someone else on his travels. He could enjoy traveling so much that he would stay away for years. Lady Pamela could be unwilling for him to come to her.
Anything could happen. Eleven months ago she had not even met him. And yet it seemed that she had known him forever. That meant that she had longer than forever to wait, and then he might not come at the end of it.
She would not think of it, she decided, getting to her feet and propping the letter carefully against the vase again. She would not think of it. If he came at the end of the year, then she would hear what he had to say. If he did not come, then she would not be disappointed because she would not expect him.
And yet that night and for many nights to come she dreamed of him, strange, disturbing dreams in which he reached out to her across an expanse of water just wide enough that she could not see him clearly and called to her in words she could not quite hear. And each time she awoke, her arms were empty and the bed beside her cold.
She redoubled her efforts to be a good teacher and gave up many of her spare hours to the instruction of music. And she visited her neighbors—particularly the elderly ones, who depended upon visitors to relieve the tedium of the day—and accepted every invitation she received. Even when Cousin Caroline came home—Amelia was married and living in Lincolnshire—and she knew that they would be at the same entertainment, she went too.
And she clung to her friendship with Miriam as if to a lifeline.
She was right about one thing, she thought whenever shepermitted herself to think consciously about the matter. Eleven months was longer than an eternity.
“WILL WE BE GOINGhome soon, Papa?” Lady Pamela Kent was sitting on the carriage seat opposite her father, stroking one finger up over the nose and over the top of the head of her dog, whose eyes were closing in ecstasy.
“Soon,” he said. “Will you be glad? We have seen many wonders together in the past year, haven’t we? Perhaps you will be dull at home.”
“I can hardly wait,” she said. “Why are we going to see Miss Hamilton, Papa? Is she going to be my governess again?”
“Would you like her to be?” he asked.
“Yes,” she said after thinking for a moment. “But I would be afraid she would go away again.” She looked up at him with suddenly anxious eyes. “You won’t go away, Papa, will you? When we are at home, you won’t go back to London and leave me alone?”
The old anxiety. For weeks after her mother’s death she had woken screaming almost nightly, terrified that she had been abandoned. The Duke of Ridgeway smiled comfortingly at her. Even before they had set off on their travels he had had to spend almost every moment of every day with her. For a long time he had had to bring her into his bed at night so that his voice and his arms would be there for her when she woke up.
“I will not be going anywhere,” he said. “From now on, Pamela, wherever I go, you will go too.”
“I wonder if Timothy Chamberlain and the others have grown,” she said.
“I daresay they have,” he said. “Or maybe it was just the continental air that stretched you out.”
She looked at him and giggled.
“What if we do not take Miss Hamilton back to Willoughbyas your governess?” he said. “What if we take her back as your new mama?”
She looked at him blankly. “But I have a mama,” she said.
“Yes.” He knew that he should have broached the subject with her long before. But he had never found the right words or the courage. He was not sure that he had found the words yet. “You have a mama, Pamela, and she will always be more dear to you than anyone else in life until you grow up and have a family of your own. But since Mama cannot be with you any longer, wouldn’t you like someone else who would do with you some of the things Mama would have done?”
“Miss Hamilton?” she said doubtfully.
“You like her, don’t you?” he asked.
She hesitated. “Yes,” she said. “But she went away without saying good-bye, Papa.”
“That was not her fault,” he said. “She would have done so if she could. But she had to run from a wicked man, Pamela, and had no chance to say good-bye to anyone. I believe she loved you.”
“But if she is to be my mama,” she said, “then she will have to be your wife, Papa. How would you like that?”
He looked at her gravely. “I would like it very well,” he said.
“You would not find it a trouble to do that for me?” she asked, turning her head aside and wrinkling her nose as the dog sat up and tried to lick her face.
“No,” he said. “It is something I want too, Pamela. You see, I love Miss Hamilton.”
