Simply Love

But contrarily she felt her aloneness far more acutely here at Glandwr than she had ever felt it at Claudia’s school in Bath. For one thing she felt like an impostor, even though everyone here must know exactly who and what she was. For another, all the other younger people had partners, with the exception of Miss Thompson, who seemed content in her spinsterhood. One night, when A

The stabbing of envy she felt was quite involuntary and quite acute. And her aloneness was exposed for what it was at that moment-raw loneliness for a man in her life.

She thought briefly of Mr. Butler, but she dismissed the memory of him. She had liked him, and she thought he had liked her. But she had touched him up there on the rocks between the beaches without at all knowing she was about to do so. She had felt the instant stiffening of his body and seen the look of shock on his face-and she had felt an answering shock and incipient panic in herself when she saw her fingertips resting against his cheek and felt the warmth of his sun-heated skin.

But for one mindless moment before that she had felt a yearning so intense that it had been like a stabbing of near-pain down through her body, setting her throat to aching and her breasts to tightening and her womb to throbbing and her i

And only one short moment later part of her had recoiled. The other side of his face, so close to where her fingers had rested, was purplish and nerveless. He had no eye. He had no arm. Who knew what other disfigurements lay beneath his clothing?

She dismissed him from her mind-but even so she found herself thinking occasionally about how he had acquired those dreadful wounds. It happend at night, sometimes keeping her awake, sometimes weaving its ways into her dreams.

Finally, though, they did meet once more. The duke and duchess had invited guests from the neighborhood to dine one evening, and when A

Her heart leapt with a gladness that seemed quite in excess of the circumstances. The last time they met he had recoiled from her-and she from him.

Mrs. Pritchard invited A

Introductions were not to be avoided, of course, after the guests began arriving. There were a few English landowners with their wives and older children, a couple of the duke’s tenants with their wives, the vicar and his wife and son and daughter, and the Welsh minister and the village schoolmaster, both of whom spoke English with such pronounced Welsh accents that A

And then di

She smiled uncertainly at him as she took his offered arm, and he smiled back at her.

She felt curiously like crying-and curiously like laughing with joy.

She had missed him. She had told him more of her i

What had she expected?

That he would court her?

He had said during their walk together that humans can be remarkably resilient creatures. A

He spoke with Lady Hallmere through much of the meal-but perhaps only because A

She felt strangely self-conscious with Mr. Butler-perhaps because their conversations with each other had bordered upon intimacy. How many near-strangers admitted to each other that they were lonely, that there had been no one of the opposite sex in their lives for years and years?

Inevitably, though, as good ma

“Miss Jewell,” Mr. Butler asked politely, “are you and your son enjoying your stay at Glandwr?”

“Enormously,” she said. “Thank you.”

“And has he done more painting?”

“Yes,” she said. “Twice, both times with Lady Rosthorn.”

“I am delighted to hear it,” he said. “Did you know there is to be entertainment this evening?”

“Yes,” she said. “Lady Ra

Mr. Butler laughed and she joined him.

“It has always amazed me,” he said, lowering his voice, “that Hallmere seems to know just how to handle Freyja. She was always a hellion and a spitfire. There is to be another duet too tonight. Huw Llwyd is to sing while his wife accompanies him on the harp.”

Mr. and Mrs. Llwyd were the duke’s tenants, a youngish couple.

“They are good?” A

He set his spoon down in his empty dish and tapped two fingers over his heart.

“Their music comes in through the ears,” he said, “but it lodges here. You will know what I mean when you have heard them.”

“I look forward to doing so, then,” she said.

“What you ought to hear,” he said, “is the congregation of the Welsh chapel singing hymns on a Sunday morning. They come close to raising the roof off the building, though not with indiscriminate noise. They sing in four-part harmony without ever coming together during the week to rehearse. It is quite extraordinary.”

“It must be indeed,” A

“I would like to take you there next Sunday,” he said. “If you can bear the prospect of not understanding a word of the service, that is. It is all in Welsh. But the music!”

A

“I should like to go,” she said.

“Would you?” He looked up from the plate of fruit and cheese a footman had set before him and focused full on her. “Will you walk by the cottage on Sunday morning, then, and we will go together?”