by Mary Balogh
“Putting them together at dinner on Thursday evening certainly was an inspired move, Christine,” she said. “It worked just as we thought it might.”
“Though Free almost ruined all by talking Syd’s ear off,” Lord Rannulf said. “I almost gave myself the migraines with all the nodding and winking I did in her direction.”
“Oh, nonsense, Ralf, you did no such thing!” Freyja retorted. “Of course I talked to him. One cannot be too obvious about these things. If Syd had suspected even for a single moment that we were busy matchmaking for him, he would have run a hundred miles without stopping, and who could blame him?”
“Not me, Free,” Lord Alleyne assured her.
“And I believe Miss Jewell would run two hundred, Freyja,” the duchess said. “Indeed, she would be spending this whole month hiding in a dark corner if we gave her half a chance, would she not? Did you notice how she slipped away from the breakfast table a few minutes ago instead of lingering like the rest of us? I like her exceedingly well. And I do agree that she and Mr. Butler might well suit if they are just given a fair chance to become acquainted.”
“Fair being the operative word, Christine,” Lord Aidan said. “Why it should be thought that merely because Sydnam and Miss Jewell are both lonely souls they must therefore belong together escapes my understanding.”
“Perhaps because you do not possess a romantic bone in your body, Aidan,” Lord Rannulf said with a chuckle.
“But do you not agree, Aidan,” Rachel, Lady Alleyne, asked him, “that they ought to be given a chance to see if they belong together? And it was they who made the first move, after all, by walking on the beach together and then planning another walk the next day. And it was you, Rannulf, who pointed out to us on Thursday evening that they had been outside together for an hour and a half. Though, of course, we had all noticed.”
“All of which would seem to prove,” Lord Aidan said, “that they are quite capable of conducting their own grand romance if they so choose. Just as Eve and I did.”
“But with a little help from Wulfric, you must confess, Aidan,” his wife added.
“Wulfric as matchmaker,” Gervase said. “Good Lord! The mind boggles.”
His grace did not seem amused at having his name dragged into such a conversation. He raised one eloquent eyebrow as he set down his coffee cup.
“It would seem to me,” he said, “that my steward and one of my guests ought to be allowed to walk out on a warm summer evening and attend church in company with each other-even a Welsh church-without arousing such fevered speculation in the bosoms of my family that my very digestion has been threatened. Christine, has word been sent to the nursery that the children are to be brought down in ten minutes’ time?”
“It has indeed, Wulfric,” she said, smiling warmly at him along the length of the breakfast table. Her eyes twinkled. “And those children are to include David Jewell so that his mama and Mr. Butler may walk to and from the Welsh chapel alone together.”
His grace touched the handle of his quizzing glass, but his fingers did not quite curl about it. Indeed, an observant spectator might even have sworn that his lips twitched as he gazed back at his wife.
Precisely fifteen minutes later the last of the cavalcade of carriages moved away from the front doors of Glandwr, taking the Bedwyn family and all their children and guests-including David Jewell-to the morning service at the English church in the village.
Anne Jewell watched them leave from the window of her bedchamber, happy in the belief that her absence had gone quite unnoticed by everyone except Joshua and David.
Sydnam stood at the window of the sitting room in his cottage, watching the driveway. A number of carriages had passed down some time earlier-the service at the church was an hour earlier than the one at the Welsh chapel-but he had not seen Miss Jewell in any of them. She must intend to keep her appointment with him, then. For some reason he had half expected her to send an excuse-perhaps because he had looked forward to this so much.
It had looked earlier on as if it were going to rain, and the sky was still cloudy. But he thought the fine weather would hold after all.
He was tired. He was accustomed to the old nightmares, but they were never easy to bear, and pulling himself out of them after he had awoken was always akin to a nightmare in itself. The servants, including his valet, knew not to disturb him on such nights even if they heard him cry out or scream, as he sometimes did. In latter years he had been very thankful to be away from his family, whose concern and insistence upon bearing him company on such occasions was not so easily deterred. During the day after one of his nightmares he was always tired and listless, and usually depressed too. But the old, familiar enemy did not have quite the power it used to have. He had pulled himself determinedly free of it this morning.
He just wished last night had not been one of the nights. He wanted to be fully alert this morning. It might be the last opportunity he would have to be alone with her.
He wondered if she realized how close he had come to kissing her up on the hill a few nights ago. It was a night he would long remember. Her beauty and his attraction to her had proved almost irresistible. Thank heaven he had resisted.
They were not a couple who could fall into any easy flirtation or romance.
When he saw her coming down the driveway, tall and graceful and lovely in a cream-colored muslin dress with a straw bonnet tied with brown ribbons, he felt his spirits rise after all. It was such a rare thing to have female companionship, and he genuinely enjoyed hers. He donned his hat, let himself out of the cottage, and went to meet her beyond the cottage gate.
“I hope,” he said, looking up at the sky after greeting her, “we are not going to be rained upon. But the clouds do not look as threatening as they did earlier.”
She looked up too.
“I did not even bring an umbrella,” she said. “I am determined to be optimistic even if I ruin a bonnet in the process.”
And indeed she looked happy, as if she really were glad she had agreed to accompany him to the chapel. How foolish they had been to miss longer than a week of an acquaintance that seemed to give them both pleasure. He had thought of her a great deal during that week, he realized-and she was to be here for only a month in total.
Now that he was outdoors he felt less tired.
“The others all drove to church,” he said. “I saw the carriages pass. What excuse did you give for not going with them?”
“None,” she said. “I spoke privately with Joshua to ask if David could go to church with him. I told him why I would not be going myself, but I daresay he will not tell the others. Why would anyone else be interested to know where I am anyway?”
Ralf had brought her into the conversation while a few of them had been out riding last week-and had asked Sydnam’s opinion of her looks in such a contrived, offhand manner that it could only have been deliberate. Then the other night Sydnam had caught Alleyne’s eye as he stepped back into the drawing room with her, and there had been amused speculation there. And then he had intercepted Morgan’s glance, and she had smiled fondly at him. The Bedwyns might be very much more interested than Miss Jewell realized-but he would not alarm her by saying so. Bedwyns be damned-the women he chose to be friendly with were none of their business.
“The duchess has arranged for us all to go for a drive this afternoon,” she said. “I must not be too late back.”
“And I am planning to go over to Ty Gwyn later on if it does not rain,” he told her.
“Tea what?” she asked.
“Ty Gwyn,” he repeated. “Two Welsh words meaning white house, though in fact it is not white at all, but a sizable gray stone manor set in its own park. I believe the old house was indeed white, but it was pulled down and rebuilt a century or more ago. It belongs to the Duke of Bewcastle at present, but I have hopes of purchasing it from him and making it my own.”
He had finally broached the subject with Bewcastle two days ago. The duke had not said yes. Neither had he sa
id no. He had merely stared at Sydnam, his silver eyes slightly narrowed, his fingers seeking out the handle of his quizzing glass.
“Doubtless,” he had said at last, “you have marshaled all sorts of irrefutable reasons why I should comply with this request, Sydnam. I will hear them all before I leave Glandwr, but not today. Today the duchess awaits my presence in the drawing room for tea.”
That had been that. But he had not said no.
“You spoke of it,” Miss Jewell said, “when we went walking in the valley, though you did not name it. TyGwyn. I like the name both in its Welsh form and in translation. It sounds cheerful.”
“Perhaps,” he said, “you would like to go over there with me one day before you leave here?”
As soon as the words were out, he regretted them. Ty Gwyn, he hoped, was going to be his future home. It was where he would belong, where he would set down roots, where he would be as happy as it was possible to be for the rest of his life. He was not sure it was at all wise to take Miss Jewell there, to have memories of her there-though why not he did not know.
But the words were out.
“I would like to show it to you,” he said. “I always make sure that the park is kept tidy and that the house is kept clean, though it is almost a year since the last tenants left.”
“Then I would like to go,” she said. “Thank you. I shall look forward to it.”
They did not speak much after that, but after stepping through the park gates and turning left along the narrow road with its hedgerows on either side and over the stone bridge that spanned the valley, they were soon in the village. It was small and picturesque, its gray stone houses, some thatched, some roofed with gray slate, set back a little way from the road at various angles, a green privet hedge all about the perimeter of each garden, flower beds and grass in front, long lines of vegetables growing at the back. The church was tall with a narrow spire, the chapel more squat and solid-looking a short distance farther along the road.
He did not always attend the chapel. Although he was taking Welsh lessons from Tudor Rhys, the minister, and could both understand and speak a few sentences and read a great deal more, he was quickly lost when people around him started to speak at normal conversational speed, and the lengthy sermons went right over his head. But he did come sometimes. He loved the sound of the language and the fervor of the minister and congregation. It was the music that drew him most, though.
He no longer felt self-conscious with the villagers, who had grown accustomed to his appearance long ago. But he felt self-conscious this morning as he arrived at the chapel with Miss Jewell and was aware of the hush that fell over the congregation and then the renewed whisperings and head noddings. And one glance at her told him that she was feeling equally embarrassed.
But it was a morning service that he knew he would long remember. Perhaps he always would, in fact. Though the villagers and country people were accustomed to him, most of them nevertheless kept their distance from him, perhaps more out of respect than revulsion. He always had the pew to himself-except today.
Today he had a beautiful woman seated beside him for all of an hour and a half and it was just as well no one could read his thoughts. During the long sermon he entertained all sorts of fantasies about her relationship to him.
Most of all, though, he would remember the way she blushed and smiled when Tudor Rhys suddenly switched to English in order to introduce her to his congregation and welcome her. And the way she stood enthralled during every hymn while a hundred or more Welsh men and women around them opened their throats and sang praises in perfect, unrehearsed harmony.
Yes, he thought as they left the chapel after shaking hands with the minister and nodding and smiling at the people grouped outside in the street, gossiping and exchanging news, he would always remember this morning.
He might as well take her to Ty Gwyn one day within the next two weeks and have that to remember too after she had returned to Bath.
He had no idea if he would remember with pain or pleasure-or even indifference. Time would answer that question, he supposed.
“Mr. Butler,” she said as they walked back and paused for a few minutes on the bridge to gaze down into the valley. “I can understand why you have fallen in love with Wales. It is more than just a different country, is it not? It is like a different world. I am so glad I came here.”
“I am glad too,” he said.
And then he felt foolish and even a little alarmed because she did not respond and neither of them moved, and his words seemed to hang in the air before them until they had walked on and turned between the park gates again and he thought of something else to say.
He was not even sure he was glad she had come. His celibacy and womanless state had become bearable to him over the years because there had been no one to remind him of all he had missed since he had been made untouchable.
But then Anne Jewell had arrived at Glandwr and in his life, and as fate would have it she was not only gloriously beautiful, but also chose to be his friend. He must never forget, though, how she had reacted to him at first sight and how she had shrunk from him after inadvertently touching his cheek on the rocks between the two beaches. Or how she had turned and run down the hill a few evenings ago just when he had been about to give in to the temptation to kiss her.
She was his friend-nothing more than that.
He was, he believed, going to have to fight certain demons all over again after she had left.
He was going to miss her-and try his very best to forget her.
After the Sunday morning on which Anne Jewell and Sydnam Butler went to church together and he walked all the way back to the main house with her before returning alone to his cottage, they met almost every day.
Anne had enjoyed that outing more than she could possibly have expected. It was strange, really, in light of the fact that the Welsh service had been quite unintelligible to her. Though that was not strictly true. It had somehow spoken to her heart, bypassing the intellect-not just the music but all of it. And there had been something undeniably seductive about being accompanied by a man, about walking to church with him, sitting beside him on the pew, walking home with him.
Sometimes over the next week and a half she met him by chance-out on the cliffs, for example, when she went walking there one evening after tucking David into bed. More often, though, it was by design, usually in the afternoon when his work was finished and David was busy with the other children about some activity or other.
He took her to see the village school, with Mr. Jones attending them, and since the children were on holiday, they sat, the three of them, at the narrow wooden desks in the single square classroom and conversed for longer than an hour-or, to be more accurate, Anne and Mr. Butler listened while the schoolmaster spoke eloquently of Wales and Welsh history and education. He taught in both English and Welsh, Anne was interested to discover, since he had pupils with both languages. And his pupils almost invariably became bilingual after a few weeks.
Mr. Butler took her to call upon Mr. and Mrs. Llwyd, since she had spoken wistfully of the lovely harp music she had heard, and Mrs. Llwyd spent half an hour or longer with her, showing her the instrument, demonstrating various tones and chords, and playing for her while Mr. Butler talked with Mr. Llwyd about farming. Mrs. Llwyd insisted that they take tea before they left, and they were joined by the two sons of the house, aged eleven and twelve. Both boys wished that David had come too after Anne had mentioned him. And both boys attended the village school.
Anne went walking with Sydnam Butler along country lanes or sat by the stream in the valley with him or strolled on the beach. Once they went for a long walk to the distant outcropping of land that they both spoke of as the Dragon.
“Some people hereabouts have even told me that it is the original Welsh dragon, petrified by a sea deity,” he told her with a laugh. “It is an attractive legend, but I believe they are merely trying to see how gullible an Englishman can be.”
They took a picnic tea with them on that day and sat eating wafer-thin slices of bread and butter with cheese followed by currant cakes and drinking lukewarm lemonade far out from the mainland, the water on three sides of them sparkling in the sunshine.
“I feel as if I am on a ship,” she said, “sailing…oh, somewhere exotic, somewhere wonderful.”
“A journey to forever,” he said. “An enticing, perfect forever.”
“No, not forever,” she told him. “There is much I would miss if I could not come back. And I could not go without David.”
“You are quite right,” he said. “Not forever, then. Just for a long, long afternoon.”
“Agreed,” she said, stretching out on the grass and gazing up at the blue sky as she had gazed at the stars a week earlier. “A long afternoon. Wake me when it is time to go home.”
But he tickled her nose with a long piece of grass only moments after she had closed her eyes, and they both laughed, their faces not very far apart. She closed her eyes again only so that they would not feel the tension and be compelled to move away from each other in order to cover it up.
There was a certain guilty pleasure to be taken from the tension. And yet she could not bear the thought of his actually touching her-and she still did not know if it was his appearance from which she shrank or her own memories of intimacy. Perhaps it was a little-or a lot-of each.
It did not rain once during those days. There was scarcely even a cloud in the sky.
They talked about anything and everything, it seemed to Anne. He was as comfortable to be with as any of the closest of her friends-except that he was a man.
It felt so good to have a man friend. She no longer even minded being seen with him-and inevitably the Bedwyns and the other guests at the house did see them together. Why should she mind, after all? There was nothing between them that needed to be hidden, and no one-not even Joshua-ever teased her about her friendship with Glandwr’s steward.
Even David saw them together one afternoon. He was playing out on the lawn with the other children when Anne and Mr. Butler were coming from the hill and left the group to come dashing toward them.