Simply Love

“A fact you would be wise not to mention in her hearing, Christine,” Joshua warned her. “Albert was never her favorite person. Or mine for that matter.”

“And with very good reason,” Eve said. “I will come up with you, Christine, if I may. I met Miss Jewell when we went to Cornwall the year Freyja was betrothed to Joshua.”

“So did I,” Morgan said, pushing back her chair with her knees. “I remember rather liking her. I’ll come too.”

“The poor woman,” Aidan observed. “I’ll wager she has been hoping to hide away in the nursery for the whole month.”

When a maid arrived to help her dress for di

“I’ll do your hair, mum, if I may,” the girl offered, and A

She had spent a not entirely unpleasant day, all of it indoors, since there was a drizzling rain outside. She had helped organize games for the children, though she had not by any means been the only one doing so. In the course of the day she had met most of the members of the Bedwyn family except for the duke himself. They all had children and most of them had turned up in the nursery at some point in the day and stayed to play-or to be played with.

They had all treated her with courtesy, though she had stayed as far away from them as she was able.

But she had not been able to avoid taking di

“You got lovely hair, mum,” the maid said as she brushed it out after removing all the pins.

It was honey-colored, thick and slightly wavy when it was down. Her crowning glory, Henry Arnold had once called it-not very originally-with admiration and something more shining in his eyes. And later someone else had called it the same thing while twining his fingers in it…She had hacked most of it off with small embroidery scissors the day she had realized beyond all doubt that she was with child. It had not been cut since except for an occasional trimming of the ends.

She looked different with her hair down out of its usual neat, prim knot. She knew that and usually avoided using a mirror while combing it and putting it up. With her hair down she looked…voluptuous. Was that the right word? She thought it probably was, though it was a word she hated. She hated her shining fair hair, her oval face with its large blue eyes and straight nose and high cheekbones and soft, generous lips. She hated her full breasts, her small waist, her shapely hips, her long, slim legs.

She had once loved to be called beautiful, and she had been called it often. But her beauty had become a curse to her.

“There, mum,” the girl said at last, stepping back to admire her handiwork in the mirror, having curled and coiled and twisted and braided and teased A

“If Mr. Butler falls passionately in love with me on sight this evening,” A

They both laughed.

“And who is Mr. Butler?” A

“He is the steward here,” Glenys said. “He is…Well, never mind. But I am not even sure he will be here this evening. I may have done all this work for nothing.” She sighed aloud. “But no matter. I can do it again another time. And there are bound to be outside visitors on other evenings, Mrs. Parry says. There always are when the duke comes. Perhaps there will even be parties this time, with the duchess and all the others being here too. I will do something very special with your hair if there is a party.”

“And this is not special?” A

“You wait and see,” Glenys said saucily. “You had better go down now, mum. I have taken a bit longer than I ought. Mrs. Parry will be mad with me if you are late, and won’t let me come here again.”

A

Perhaps after this evening she could fade away into the shadows.

She looked about anxiously for Joshua when she arrived in the open doorway, but it was the duchess herself who came hurrying toward her.

The Duchess of Bewcastle had been a surprise. She had dark, short, curly hair and was extremely pretty, but her beauty came more from her bright vitality than from any particular physical attribute, A

When she had arrived there soon after breakfast with Lady Aidan and Lady Rosthorn, both of whom A

“It can be an abomination, Miss Jewell,” she had added as if she were really saying nothing of any great significance, “to find oneself stuck in a country manor surrounded by strangers who might possibly think themselves superior and wishing that one were anywhere else on earth but right there. I tried at first to remain aloof from it all, observing satirically from a shadowed corner. But Wulfric found me there and provoked me, the horrid man, and I emerged from that corner in order to preserve my very self-respect.” She had laughed lightly.

Wulfric, A

And she had, she had also realized, just been challenged into emerging from her own shadowed corner, the nursery, in order to preserve her self-respect.

But the duchess, she thought, had never borne an illegitimate son.

Now the duchess linked an arm through A

“I will make sure that you have been presented to everyone, Miss Jewell,” she said. “And here is Wulfric first.”

Even if everyone in the room had still been a stranger, she would immediately have known the identity of the man who was coming toward her, A

She would have turned and fled if the duchess had not had an arm linked through her own, she believed.

Or perhaps not. She did have some pride.

“Wulfric,” the duchess said, “here is Miss Jewell at last. This is my husband, the Duke of Bewcastle, Miss Jewell.”

A