Simply Love

“Your grace,” she murmured.

He inclined his head to her and she noticed his long fingers close about the handle of a jeweled quizzing glass, though he did not raise it. It was somehow a terrifying gesture.

“Miss Jewell,” he said. “Her grace and I were sadly remiss yesterday in not welcoming you personally to Glandwr. You will, perhaps, be good enough to forgive us. I trust you and your son have been made comfortable and will enjoy your stay here.”

They were gracious words, but his strange silver eyes did not smile.

“She has been busy in the nursery all day, Wulfric, breaking up fights and organizing games,” the duchess said, smiling brightly at him as if he were the warmest of mortals.

“I see no bruises, ma’am,” his grace said with perhaps the merest glimmering of humor. “But perhaps our nephews and nieces were merely warming up today for worse to come tomorrow. And perhaps it is as well for your health that our son is still but an infant in the cradle. We have great hopes of his keeping alive the Bedwyn reputation for hellery in the years to come.”

The duchess laughed.

And yes, A

And then she was whisked away by the duchess to meet those to whom she had not yet been introduced-Mrs. Pritchard, Lady Aidan’s elderly Welsh aunt; Lord and Lady Ra

A

“Ah,” the duchess said, her arm still linked through A

The steward, who was supposed to fall violently in love with her elaborate coiffure and propose marriage to her before the night was out, A

For a moment she was again arrested by the extraordinary good looks and manly physique of the man standing there, fully visible this time in the early evening sunshine that streamed through the west-facing windows. And again it was his left profile at which she gazed.

But even as a jolt of recognition half robbed her of breath, he was obscured from sight as Lord Alleyne, tall, dark, and handsome himself, and Lord Ra

“Syd, old chap,” she heard Lord Ra

So he was not a stranger, A

She felt slightly sick to the stomach. The little appetite she had had as she made her way downstairs to the drawing room fled.

How she wished she had not behaved so badly last evening-or that she had been able to find him afterward to apologize.

And this on top of everything else.

If she could have crept back up to her room without his seeing her, she would have done so. But he was standing almost in the doorway. Besides, the duchess still had an arm linked through hers. And besides again, she had behaved cravenly and even cruelly last evening. Now she had a chance-perhaps!-to make amends.

Though she would surely be the very last person he would wish to encounter again today.

Sydnam had walked up to the main house despite the drizzle. He would a million times rather be at home in his cozy cottage, he reflected as he let himself in through the front door, handed his wet cloak and hat to a footman, and climbed the stairs to the drawing room. But Bewcastle had issued the invitation in person this morning, and when Bewcastle invited he was really commanding-especially, Sydnam gathered, when he invoked the name of his wife.

“The duchess was disappointed when you did not come to dine last evening,” he had said while pulling one of the estate books toward him across the desk in the library, where he always did business while at Glandwr. “I have a curious aversion to seeing her grace disappointed, Sydnam, though of course it was unavoidable last evening since you did not receive your invitation until well after the di

Bewcastle had recognized a lie when he heard one, of course. Not that it had been an outright lie. Sydnam had not actually read the invitation before going outside to walk, but he had seen it and guessed what it was and deliberately avoided opening it until it was too late.

“I will apologize in person to her grace this evening,” he had said while Bewcastle turned pages as if he were not even listening.

And so here he was to eat humble pie before dining. He amused himself grimly with the mental picture of all the Bedwyns and their spouses being forced to sit at table with a patch over one eye and their right arms bound behind their backs. But he must not be vicious, even in his thoughts. The invitation was a kind one. And being human, with all the contrariness to which human nature was prone, he supposed that if they were here for a month and never once extended an invitation to him to join them, he would be hurt and offended.

He gri

He must be somewhat late, he thought as he approached the drawing room doors. Or if he was not late-and he knew he was not-he nevertheless was last to arrive. A grand entrance was all he needed. But even as he stood in the doorway looking about for Bewcastle or the duchess, Ra

“I have been cowering inside a cave down on the beach,” he said in answer to Ra

Alleyne clamped a hand on his right shoulder, a gesture that endeared him to Sydnam since most people avoided his right side whenever they were able.

“How are you, Syd?” he asked. “It is a veritable age since I saw you last. We have brought a stack of messages from home, some from Lauren, a dozen or more from your mother, one or two from Kit, one from your father-but I ca

“Something about wearing warm woolens in the damp weather, at a wager,” Ralf said with a grin. “Of course I do not remember. The ladies will, though. You had better come and meet the people you do not already know, Syd. Ah, here comes Christine. Have you met our formidable duchess?”

“He has,” the duchess said, smiling warmly at him. “I am so glad you were able to come this evening, Mr. Butler.”

She gave him her left hand and he bowed over it.

“I must apologize most humbly, your grace,” he said, “for last evening. I was from home and did not read your invitation until-until it was too late.”

The sudden pause had been occasioned by the glance he had stolen at the lady through whose arm the duchess’s right hand was drawn.