“David!” Anne cried.

The countess set a hand on his shoulder.

“The monster?” she said.

“That is what Alexander calls him,” David told her. “He says he is monstrously ugly and lies in wait for children on stormy nights to eat out their liver.”

“David,” Anne said sharply. “Mr. Butler is the Duke of Bewcastle’s steward. He was a brave soldier in the wars against Napoleon Bonaparte that you have learned of in your history lessons, and he was horribly wounded while fighting. He is a man to be admired, not someone to be turned into a monster.”

“I am only saying what Alexander said,” David protested. “It was stupid and I will tell him so.”

“I grew up at Lindsey Hall, David,” the countess said as she washed her brushes and tidied up her painting things. “My brothers and sister and I used to play with the Butler boys from the neighboring estate. I was very much the youngest in my family, and they were usually impatient with me and would have left me behind if they could when they went to play. Kit Butler was my hero because he would usually take me up on his shoulders so that I could keep up with them all. But it was Sydnam who was always most kind to me and most willing to talk to me and listen to me as if I were a real person. He was the one who encouraged me to paint as I wished to paint. When he was brought home from the wars deathly ill and dreadfully maimed, I felt as if a little part of me had died. I thought he would never be the same again, and indeed I was right. He made himself into a new person and came here. Those who did not know him before and those who do not take the time to get to know him now will perhaps always look at him and see a monster. But you and I are artists. We know that the real meaning of things lies deep down and that the real meaning of things is always beautiful because it is simply love.”

“He knows about painting,” David said. “I wish he could show me how to use oil paints. But he cannot, can he? He doesn’t have his arm.”

“No, he does not,” the countess said sadly. “And, oh, dear, we must have been here far too long. Here come Gervase and Joshua to drag us home.”

…the real meaning of things is always beautiful because it is simply love.

Could that possibly be right? Anne wondered. Was it true?

“Well, cherie,” the earl called as he came within earshot, “did you do it this time?” He stepped up to the countess’s easel and set one hand on her shoulder.

“Not quite.” She laughed ruefully. “But I will never stop trying, Gervase.”

She tipped her head sideways and touched her cheek to his hand.

It was a brief gesture and quite unostentatious. But it smote Anne with its suggestion of a close marital relationship.

Joshua meanwhile was complimenting David on his painting and squeezing the back of his neck affectionately.

He walked beside Anne on the way back to the house, carrying David’s easel and painting while the boy ran on ahead through the trees and then across the lawn, his arms stretched to the sides, pretending to be a kite in the breeze.

“He says you are going to make him into a formidable bowler at cricket,” she said.

Joshua laughed. “He will be tolerably competent if he works hard at it,” he said. “Are you going to join in the game this afternoon, Anne, or are you going to play coward as you did yesterday and hide out on the beach again?”

“I have promised to go walking,” she said.

“Have you, by Jove?” he said. “With another truant? It cannot be allowed. Give me her name and I will set to work on her.”

“I am going walking with Mr. Butler,” she said. “The duke’s steward.” Her cheeks felt hot. She hoped it would not be obvious that she was blushing. And why was she blushing?

“Indeed?” He looked down at her and kept looking as they walked on in silence.

“Joshua,” she said at last, “I am merely going for a walk with him. I met him on the beach yesterday and we strolled together for a while. He asked if I wished to do it again today.”

He was smiling at her.

“I wondered why you stayed down on the beach,” he said. “You had a clandestine tryst there, did you?”

“Nonsense!” She laughed. But she sobered almost immediately. “I wish you would not encourage David to call you Cousin Joshua.”

“You would prefer sir or my lord, then?” he asked her. “He is my cousin.”

“He is not,” she protested.

“Anne,” he said, “Albert was a black-hearted villain. I am glad for your sake and David’s and Prue’s that he is dead. But he was my first cousin, and David is his son. I am David’s relative, not just any man who has taken an interest in him. Prue and Constance and Chastity are his aunts and are very ready to acknowledge the fact. And he needs all the relatives he can get. He has none on your side, has he-none you will allow him to know anyway.”

“Because they do not wish to know him,” she cried.

He sighed. “I have upset you,” he said. “I am sorry. I truly am. Freyja assures me that she knows exactly how you must feel and has advised me to respect your wish to raise David alone. But let the child call me Cousin, Anne. All the other children here have someone to call Papa-or Uncle, in Davy’s case, since Aidan and Eve have always actively encouraged him to remember his own dead father.”

She might have argued further even though she recognized the sense of what he said-and his kindness in accepting an illegitimate child as a relative. It was just that she could not bear to acknowledge that relationship herself. But the Countess of Rosthorn turned her head at that moment to make some remark to them, and they proceeded the rest of the way as a group of four.

Anne watched the cricket game for a few minutes before slipping away to walk down the driveway in the direction of the thatched cottage she had noticed on the day of her arrival. She was not after all, she was relieved to notice, the only one not playing. The duchess was playing a circle game with the infants a little distance away, and the duke was watching her, looking his usual severe self, though he had their son in his arms, wrapped warmly in a blanket. No one seemed particularly to notice Anne’s leaving. She hoped Joshua would not draw attention to it.

The very idea of the Bedwyns all knowing where she was going and drawing quite the wrong conclusions was horrifying. This was not a romantic tryst. But surely they would think she was trying to take advantage of a lonely, wounded man.

She turned off the driveway and approached the cottage in some trepidation. Were there servants there? What would they think of a strange woman knocking on the door and asking for Mr. Butler?

But she was saved from having to find out. Even before she reached the low stone wall and wooden gate that enclosed a pretty flower garden surrounding the whitewashed cottage, the door opened and he stepped outside.

Anne stopped on the path.

“I wondered if you would come,” he called, coming toward her, opening the gate, and closing it behind him. “It was presumptuous of me to ask you when you are a guest at the house. And this morning you were with your son and Morgan. Perhaps-”

“I wanted to come,” she said.

“And I wanted you to come.” He smiled uncertainly at her.

She felt suddenly shy with him, as if this were indeed a romantic tryst. How foolishly pathetic they would look to any observer, she thought, hoping no servant was peering through a window. They must look as awkward as any boy and girl half their age.

“Have you seen the valley?” he asked her.

She shook her head. “Only the park about the house and the cliffs and the beach.”

“It is not the very best time of year to see it,” he said, indicating that they should return to the driveway and cross it to the other side. “In spring the wild daffodils and bluebells carpeting the ground in the woods make the whole scene magical, and in autumn there is a multicolored roof above one’s head and a multicolored carpet beneath one’s feet. But it is always lovely, even in winter. Now all is green, but if you have an artist’s eye, you will understand that there are so many shades of green that summer trees and grass are a complete and sumptuous feast for the senses without any accompaniment of flowers.”