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“This is a different way back,” he said. “A longer way. Do you mind that? I ought to have asked in advance.”

“I do not mind,” she said as she breathed in the myriad scents of the countryside, including the clover and honeysuckle growing wild on the verges of the road. She listened to birds and insects and watched clouds scud across the blue sky. It was a lovely sight after two days of rain and one of heavy clouds and blustery winds and chilly temperatures. The current of air that was moving the clouds today did not reach the ground. The air was still and warm.

“Are you happy you cut some of your hair?” he asked. “I hope I did not goad you into doing something you have since regretted.”

“No,” she said. “You did not goad, and I am not sorry. My hair is far healthier now, and I have proved to myself that my memories of my father are intact.”

They walked in silence for a short while before she resumed.

“He used to go to London for a few months of the year,” she said. “It was his duty to go for the spring session of Parliament. My mother chose to stay home at Ravenswood with us. We always shed tears when he left. Even he did, and the months without him seemed endless though Mama did her best to entertain us and make sure we were never bored or idle. But we lived for the day of his return, and finally it would come and there would be more tears and more hugs. And gifts. We looked forward to those, but of far greater importance was that he came. He lit up our lives and the lives of everyone around us. The summer began in earnest with his return home. There would be garden parties and dinners and picnics at the lake, with swimming and boating if it was daytime, and music and feasting and even some dancing if it was evening. Oh, and colored lanterns in the trees so it looked like a miniature Vauxhall. And there was the summer fete, my absolute favorite day of the year, even including Christmas. Mama organized everything herself, though my brothers and Pippa helped, and I did too when I was old enough. I remember once walking into Boscombe with Devlin to purchase new ribbons for the maypole, and he let me choose the colors. I picked all the brightest ones. Everything took place at Ravenswood in those days. I have no idea how Mama managed to do it all alone.”

“Your father helped?” he said.

“He used to visit all the neighbors and spread the word among them and at the taproom in the inn,” she said. “It was not strictly necessary, of course. Everyone knew about the fete. It was the most eagerly anticipated event of the year. But it was what he did best. He was charming and sociable, though those two words do not adequately describe him. He was so much more than both. I believe everyone looked forward to his visits. And he always gave full credit to Mama for the fetes. He was very proud of her. Sometimes it seemed he almost worshiped her. We were very happy. I believe that was how we were seen by others—as a happy, outgoing, generous family, the center of everyone’s social world.”

She was not feeling happy now.

“It is how I always saw you, even though I never knew your father,” Bertrand said.

They walked about a mile along the roadway before he turned onto a smaller lane bordered on one side by a smart wooden fence. Partway along they came to a stile, and Stephanie realized they were behind the low hills that formed the western border of the park. Bertrand helped her over, and they climbed the lowest of the hills, farther south than the one where they had sat before. This one too was dotted with trees and afforded elevated views over park and countryside. The house was visible in the far distance.

They gazed about for a while, not walking and not speaking.

But she had a story to tell.

“The summer when I was nine years old,” she said, “a stranger came to live in the village—a woman. I admired her enormously even though she always wore black in mourning for her husband, a military officer who had died young. She was slim and elegant and beautiful. She had chosen to settle in a quiet village where she was not known so she could do her grieving in peace. Everyone was kind to her, and Mama invited her to attend the fete, though I am not sure she expected her to come. It was not a suitable event for someone in deep mourning, after all. But she did come. She came to all the daytime events and even to the ball in the evening. I saw her there, still in black. I thought perhaps she was the loveliest woman in the world. I dreamed of being just like her when I grew up—and lost my baby fat. It was on that same evening that I wore my hair up for the first time and Papa said how beautiful it was and made me promise never to cut it. We were all together in the ballroom when he said it, Mama and my sister and brothers, before anyone else arrived for the ball, and Papa was beaming at us all, bursting with love and pride. It was the happiest night of my life.”

“The same night the world ended,” Bertrand said quietly.

She gazed unseeing down the slope. Part of her wanted to run down it, as she had run down the sloping lawn above Bath on Christmas Day, and keep running and never stop. She did not move.

“She was not who she said she was,” she said. “And she had not randomly chosen Boscombe. I do not believe she had chosen it at all, in fact. And I suppose she was not a recent widow or perhaps a widow at all. She was Papa’s…fancy woman from London. One of many, I daresay.”

No one had ever told her that. Or Owen either. But the two of them had pieced together fragments of details and snatches of memory and snippets of overheard conversations. They had not understood at first and had been incredulous of much they thought they did understand, for they knew nothing of such illicit relationships or of such a thing as infidelity. They certainly did not believe any of it could possibly apply to their father—even though Ben, their beloved oldest brother, was the son of Papa and a woman he had known before he married Mama. Ben even had her name instead of theirs.

Eventually they had known it all—or enough of it anyway to guess at the missing pieces. Owen, twelve years old when it happened, had gone away to school soon after, and his worldly knowledge had advanced by leaps and bounds, probably far more rapidly than his academic education. But some of it had been too horrifying for Stephanie when he had tried to tell her more, much as she wanted to know exactly what had happened, and she had shut her eyes and stuck her fingers in her ears, and Owen had slunk off and left her alone. He had ended up knowing far more than she, no doubt, but she had understood enough. More than she ever wished to.

“Papa took her strolling outside the ballroom after supper,” she said. “Devlin found them together up in the temple folly in what must have been compromising circumstances. But instead of waiting to confront Papa privately, he made a big, noisy, very public fuss about it right there and then. It all happened long after Owen and I had left the ball with the other children. We were probably in bed and asleep by then. No one was willing to tell us exactly what had happened. They thought to protect us, I suppose. But not knowing was worse than knowing would have been. For the world changed. Our world changed. Everyone was sent home early from the ball, and Mama banished Devlin and he left during the night, and Ben went with him. They came and woke me up to say goodbye. Nicholas was with them, and he was crying. I do not believe I had ever seen Nicholas—or any of my brothers—cry. I pleaded and pleaded with them not to go, to go to Mama instead and say they were sorry for whatever it was they had done—or Devlin, anyway. Ben had not been banished. I think Devlin was astonished when he said he was going too. I begged Devlin to persuade Mama to change her mind. I think he did go, but she would not do it and so they left even though I pleaded to the end and Owen raged to the end and Nicholas and Pippa wept. They left.”

She paused for a few moments to get her breathing under control.

“They were gone for six years,” she said. “They went to war, Devlin as an infantry officer and Ben as his sort of batman, though I do not believe the position was ever official. Devlin did not write to any of us in all that time—even to me. I doubt he even read any of our letters though I wrote long, impassioned ones for the first year or so. I had adored him and believed he adored me. But he did not write. Not even when Papa died four years later and he became the new Earl of Stratton. He did not even come home. He stayed away for another two years until the wars ended with the surrender of Napoleon Bonaparte. Ben was with him when he came, with Joy tucked inside his greatcoat. Oh, how we needed some joy in our lives! Mama and Devlin were both as cold as ice, with each other and with the rest of us. Devlin was not the brother I remembered. There was no love left in him.”

She took a few steps away from Bertrand. There was not enough air for both of them where they stood. She set her back against a sturdy tree trunk and spread her hands over the rough bark. She tipped back her head and closed her eyes in an effort to share the steadfastness of the tree. Did trees feel any of the turmoil that constantly rocked the world and human life?

“Within a few months of that ball all my brothers had gone away,” she said without opening her eyes. “Nicholas went, as planned, to join a cavalry regiment, and Owen went to school, also as planned. Pippa, who had been vibrant with youth and dreams of a future of romance and happily ever after, was soon a pale, listless shadow of herself, and Mama was as though made of marble. Only Papa remained the same, though not really as he had been. He was more like a caricature of his old self. Ravenswood became a ghost of the home it had been. No one came there to visit any longer, not even Mama’s closest friends or our neighbors, like Sir Ifor and Lady Rhys. Gwyneth found another beau, a renowned Welsh musician, and was expected to marry him. There were no more grand social events at Ravenswood, or any events at all. There were no more picnics, no more summer fetes. I refused to stop loving Papa or even to blame him for what little I understood of what had happened. I heaped all the blame upon Mama instead for sending away my brothers, though I said nothing. I tried to pretend nothing had changed and ignored the…hollowness inside. I liked my governess and worked hard at my lessons. I got more involved in the choirs at the church. I thought I was reasonably happy. But then Papa died. He dropped dead in the inn taproom one evening. He liked to go there to talk with everyone. He was not drinking heavily. The landlord said he was not drunk. He just fell over when he was in the middle of telling a story and died. One moment he was there and the next he was not.”

She paused for a few moments and drew more deep breaths and was thankful for the steadiness of the tree.

“I was thirteen,” she said, “and there was no one to turn to. Oh, there were my grandparents and my aunts and uncles and my governess. And Sir Ifor and Lady Rhys and the vicar and his wife. But there was a great hollowness at the center of our family. It did not exist any longer and had not for four years. Owen came home. But we found no comfort in each other, though I know he tried. There were no spiders in my bed during that week or so. And he held my hand during the funeral, the only time I can remember his doing that. He went back to school after a week or so. And I waited and waited for news to reach Devlin and for him to come home. But he did not come, and in the end I did not want him to.”

She had stopped loving the elder brother who had been all in all to her when she was a child. Second only to her father.

“And then Joy came,” she said. “And on that very first day, when we were all in the drawing room for tea and everything was horrible—horrible—Owen, without a word, took out his handkerchief and made his bird with flapping wings, and Joy, sitting on Ben’s lap, pointed and laughed. And then Pippa went and played the pianoforte for the first time in forever and I took Joy closer, though she was terribly shy, and danced with her. She bounced on the spot and laughed again and looked to make sure Ben was still there and was watching her. And I thought my heart would break because nothing would ever be as it was or even just bearable. But there was Joy.”

She fell silent again and remained silent this time. She closed her eyes again. There was a lump in her throat, sore with unshed tears.

She became aware after a few moments of a presence close to her. A warmth. A comfort. And then he rested his body right against the length of hers, lightly, unthreateningly, and she felt inexplicably safe. His hands came to rest lightly on her hips. And she felt the increased closeness of him and the warmth of his breath on her cheek and then the softness of his lips on her own.