21

DUNCAN spent the rest of the day with Toby. He had tea with him, showed him the schoolroom, which was part of the nursery, and the toys and books that had been there from his own childhood, and he took him outside to show him the river and the wide lawns to the west of the house, where they would play cricket and other games that needed wide open spaces. He took him to the stable block to see the horses and the puppies in the far stall, jealously guarded by their mother, a border collie. And no, Toby might /not/ take one of them into the house – though Duncan did not doubt he would be coaxed and wheedled until he consented to allow one to be adopted, once the animal could be taken from its mother without crying all night in the nursery and keeping everyone awake.

He had dinner in the nursery and suggested that they invite Toby's new friend to join them there. "But she is not my friend yet," Toby pointed out. "She said she would let me know tomorrow or the next day. Perhaps she does not like me. Do you think she does, Papa?" "I think," Duncan said, "she will like you a little bit more if you invite her to dinner. We gentlemen have to be crafty where ladies are concerned, Tobe. If we are always polite and considerate and include them in our various activities, they will usually be our friends." "What does /considerate/ mean?" Toby asked. When Duncan told him, he nodded and agreed that Maggie really ought to be invited to dinner.

After the meal, Duncan spent an hour listening to Toby's much-embellished accounts of the adventures he had narrowly survived in Harrogate before telling him a few stories and tucking him into bed for the night. "Sleep tight," he said, kissing the child on the forehead. "Tomorrow we will play again." "You will be here, Papa?" Toby asked. "Promise?" "I promise." Duncan smoothed a hand over his soft fair curls. "And we can stay here, Papa? For always? Promise?" "Maybe not for all the rest of our lives, Tobe, unless we want to," Duncan said. "But for a long, long time. This is home, a place to play and grow up in, a place to come back to whenever we go somewhere else for a little while. A place to belong." "Together," Toby said. His eyelids were growing heavy. "Just you and me, Papa." "Yes," Duncan said. "You and me. And perhaps my wife, your new friend – /if/ she decides to be your friend, that is. I think she might, though. She was pleased to be invited to dinner, was she not?" "It was kind of us to ask her. We will do it again," Toby said, yawning hugely and closing his eyes. "Am I safe now, Papa? Nobody will come and take me away, as Mama always used to say?" "You are as safe as safe can be," Duncan assured him, and sat where he was until he was sure the child was asleep.

He hoped he had spoken the truth. Devil take it, but he hoped so.

Perhaps after all he should have kept Toby's identity a carefully guarded secret. But no, Maggie was right. The time for secrecy was over.

Except that there were still secrets – heavy ones, which perhaps he ought to have divulged with the others. But Laura had always been adamant that for Toby's sake, and hers, the truth must never be told. And he had promised her over and over again … Did a promise extend even beyond the grave?

Should loyalty to a new spouse supersede all else?

His life had been defined for five interminable years by secrets and the certain disaster that would result if they were uncovered. It was not easy to shake himself free of those years. It was not always easy to know what was the right thing to do – or the wrong.

Especially as it was an innocent child who would suffer if he were to make the wrong decision.

Had he already made it?

What would happen if he went downstairs now and told the whole truth to Maggie? But he feared he knew the answer. She would persuade him that it was in everyone's best interest that the truth be told openly at last, that nothing good ever came from secrecy and subterfuge.

The very idea that she might talk him into agreeing with her made his stomach churn uncomfortably. There was far too much risk involved.

He sighed and stood up, touching his fingers to Toby's hand before tucking it beneath the covers.

He had not forgotten the strange conversation he had had with Maggie down by the river just before Toby arrived with the Harrises. In fact, it had been very much on his mind ever since.

He had no idea where the words had come from. Or the idea behind them.

Falling in love was as much about receiving as it was giving, was it? It seemed selfish. It was not, though. It was the opposite. Keeping oneself from being loved was to refuse the ultimate gift.

He had thought himself done with romantic love. He had thought himself an incurable cynic.

He was not, though.

He was only someone whose heart and mind, and very soul, had been battered and bruised. It was still – and always – safe to give since there was a certain deal of control to be exerted over giving. Taking, or allowing oneself to receive, was an altogether more risky business.

For receiving meant opening up the heart again.

Perhaps to rejection.

Or disillusionment.

Or pain.

Or even heartbreak.

It was all terribly risky.

And all terribly necessary.

And of course, there was the whole issue of trust … He found her in the drawing room, working at an embroidery frame, something he had not seen her do before. She looked up and smiled when he entered the room. "Is he asleep?" she asked.

He nodded. "Maggie," he said, "I am sorry he was so rude when he arrived." "You must not be," she said. "He was not deliberately ill-mannered, only honest in the way of young children – and very frightened. He saw me as someone who could take you away from him. I was touched when he told me I could be his friend." "It was inspired," he said, "to tell him you needed to consider the matter and would give him your answer another time." She laughed. "He is a sweetheart," she said. "And a little devil," he said. "He almost toppled into the river looking for fish when he had been here scarcely two hours – after I had told him not to lean out beyond the edge of the bank." She laughed. "But I did not come here to talk about Toby," he said.

She rested her hand holding the needle on her embroidery and looked up at him. Her eyes were wide and somehow fathomless in the candlelight. "Didn't you?" she said. "I will spend time with him each day," he said, "because I must and because I wish to. And of course I must spend time about estate business just as you will go about the business of the house. There will be visitors soon, I do not doubt, and calls to return. But there must be time for you and me." She looked down at her work and with the forefinger of her free hand traced the silk petal of one embroidered flower. "To fall in love," he said.

She looked up at him. "Can it be done so deliberately?" she asked. "How else are we to do it?" he asked in return. "Let us not call it falling in love. Let us call it courtship instead. There was no time for it before we married, but it is not too late for it now. Is it?" "But courtship is a one-way thing," she said. "A man courts a woman." "Let us be rebels, then," he said. "Court me too, Maggie, as I will court you. Make me fall in love with you. I will make you fall in love with me. There will be magic." Her eyes filled with tears suddenly, and she bent her head to thread her needle into the cloth and set it aside. "Oh," she said, and her voice sounded a little shaky, "that is it, is it not? The grand dream. There will be magic." She looked up at him again. "Will there be?" "The moon is almost full," he said, "and the sky is clear. The stars are a million lamps. Let me fetch you a shawl and take you outside. What setting could be more conducive to romance?" "What indeed?" she said, laughing softly. "Go and fetch a shawl, then." Ten minutes later they were at the bottom of the flower garden and stepping onto the humpbacked wooden bridge that crossed the river. They stopped halfway across it to gaze down into the water, which gleamed in the moonlight. She held the ends of her shawl with both hands, and he had his hands clasped at his back.