"What went wrong?" he asked after a longish silence.

She spread her palms against the trunk on either side of her.

"Nothing at all for six months," she said. "I will not say I was blissfully happy. He was an older man and I was not at all in love with him. But he seemed a /good/ man, and he was kind and attentive to me, and I loved the country and the neighborhood. I was with child, and I was over the moon with happiness about that. I was very contented, perhaps even happy. And then one day he went to visit a distant neighbor and did not come back for three days. I was frantic with worry and made the mistake of going to look for him. He was sweet and kind when I got there and called upon his friends gathered there – all men – to witness how much his new wife loved him. He laughed heartily with them and came home with me. He was quiet in the carriage. He even smiled at me a number of times, but I was frightened. I realized he must have been drinking, and I did not recognize his eyes. After we arrived home…"

She swallowed and paused for a while. When she resumed, she sounded breathless.

"After we arrived home, he took me into the library and told me very quietly that I had shamed him in such a way that he did not know how he would be able to hold up his head with his friends ever again. I apologized – more than once. But then he started to hit me, first with the flat of his hand, and then with his fists and even his boots. I cannot talk more about it. But two days later I miscarried. I lost my child."

Her head was back against the trunk, her eyes closed. Her face was barred with light and shade. It looked to have not a vestige of color.

"And that was not the only time," he said softly.

"No," she said. "Not for either the beatings or the miscarriage. He was two men, Stephen. No one could ask for a kinder, gentler, more generous man when he was sober – and sometimes he was sober for months at a time.

In fact, /usually/ he was. When he was drunk, there were no signs except for his eyes – and his violence. One of the neighbors, who once saw me when my eye still had the violet remains of a beating, told me that she had always suspected he had killed his first wife. She died – officially – after a terrible fall from horseback when she was trying to jump a high fence."

He did not know what to say, though he /wanted/ to tell her that it was a good thing she had killed Paget before he could kill her. Good God, the man had killed three of her babies.

"I used to think it was my fault," she said, "that he was so angry with me. I used to try to please him. I used to do all in my power not to do anything I thought might /displease/ him. And when I knew he was drinking, I used to try to hide, to stay out of his way or… Well. None of it worked, of course."

There was a lengthy silence.

"There," she said eventually, turning her head to look at him, a wan smile on her lips. "You /did/ ask."

"And no one ever helped you?" he asked her.

"Who?" she said. "My father died within a year of my marriage. He would have had no right to intervene anyway. Wesley did not visit often, and he never saw Nigel's bad side. I never told him about the beatings. He was just a boy. The only time Alice tried to intervene, he cuffed her and shut her out of the room and locked the door and then redoubled his efforts on /me/ because I was not wife enough to face up to my shortcomings and the punishment I deserved."

"His sons?" he asked.

"They were almost never there," she said. "I daresay they knew him of old. Though I suppose the first Lady Paget was tougher than I to have borne the three of them. Or perhaps in those days Nigel's sober spells lasted longer."

He would not ask about Paget's death. He had upset her too much as it was. He supposed he ought not to have asked at all. This had been a carefree afternoon until he had asked his question.

But his need to know her better and to get her to open up to him – or to /someone/ – had outweighed his desire to keep the atmosphere of the afternoon light.

"And talking of climbing trees," he said softly after a short while, as though nothing had been spoken of between them since they left the picnic site. "Have you ever done it?"

She tipped back her head to look upward into the great spreading branches of the oak above them.

"I used to do it all the time as a girl," she said. "I think I must have been born dreaming of escaping into a blue heaven or falling into it.

This tree is a climber's paradise, is it not?"

She pulled free the ribbons of her bonnet and tossed it to the ground.

She eyed the lowest branch, clearly considering the best way up onto it.

He cupped his hands as if to help her mount a horse, and almost without hesitation, she set her foot in them and he hoisted her upward. He scrambled up after her.

It was easy after that. The branches were wide and sturdy and more or less parallel to the ground. They climbed without talking until, looking down, Stephen realized they had come quite a way.

She sat sideways on one branch, her back against the massive trunk, and then drew up her legs and hugged them with both arms. He stood on the branch below and held a branch above while wrapping his other arm about her waist, beneath her own arms.

She turned her face to him, smiling and then laughing.

"Oh, to be a child again," she said.

"One can always be a child," he said. "It is just an attitude of mind. I wish I had known you when you were younger – before you armored yourself in cynicism and scorn to hide all the pain and anger. I wish you had not had to live through all that, Cass. I wish I could will it away or kiss it away, but I can't. I can only assure you that you will harm only yourself if you remain closed against all the possible goodness the world and life have to offer you."

"What is the guarantee," she said, "that life will not punch me in the eye again?"

"Alas," he said, "there is none. But it is my belief that the world is far fuller of goodness than it is of evil. And if that seems rather naive, let me put in another way. I believe goodness and love are far stronger than evil and hatred."

"Angels are stronger than devils?" she asked, smiling.

"Yes," he said. "Always."

She lifted her arms and set her hands gently against the sides of his face.

"Thank you, Stephen," she said, and kissed him lightly on the mouth.

"Besides," he said, "you know more about love than you realize. You became my mistress not just because of your own poverty, or even primarily because of it. You have a companion who is perhaps too old to find satisfactory employment, and you have a maid who is probably unemployable if she tries to keep her illegitimate child with her. You have the child herself. And the dog. He is a member of your family too.

You did it all for them, Cass. You sacrificed yourself for love."

"With such a beautiful man," she said, "it was hardly a sacrifice, was it?"

She was using her velvet voice.

"Oh, yes," he said. "It was."

She set her hands flat on the branch to either side of her and tipped her head sideways to rest against his chest.

"It is strange," she said, "how speaking of the unspeakable has released something. I feel very… happy. Is that why you did it? Is that why you asked?"

He dipped his head to set his lips against her warm hair.

"Are /you/ happy?" she asked him.

"Yes," he said.

"But it is not quite the right word," she said. "You promised me joy today, Stephen, and you have delivered. They are not quite the same, are they – happiness and joy?"

They stayed as they were for a while, and he found himself wishing that time would stand still, at least for a while. There was something about her that drew him. It was not just her beauty. It was certainly not her seductive ways. It was… He could not put words to what it was. He had never been in love, but he did not imagine that this was what being in love felt like. How puzzling human emotions could be at times – though he had not noticed it much before meeting Cassandra.