Why had he come? What was it really that had prompted him to come? She would never know, she supposed. She would never see him again.
The Misses Worsley, Lady Katherine Buchanan’s aunts, lived in a cottage of modest size. They kept a few servants and were considered the social leaders of the neighborhood. But they were not wealthy. Their younger sister had made a brilliant marriage to the Earl of Lambton, considering the fact that their father was a gentleman of no very significant fortune or social standing. They had remained unmarried. On the death of their father, when a male cousin had inherited his house and property, they had taken their small inheritance and moved here on the recommendation of an old friend, who had grown up in Wales.
The Marquess of Ashendon had learned all these details about them when Lady Katherine had refused him and had been sent to live out the rest of her life with them.
He called at the cottage during the afternoon, intending merely to leave his card and return for a visit the next day. But of course this was the country, not London with its strict code of etiquette. He found himself being admitted to the front parlor only moments after being asked to step inside the hall.
There were four ladies present. Three of them were rising to their feet as he entered and curtsying and looking very gratified.
“My lord,” the eldest lady said graciously, “what a singular honor you do us.”
“Miss Worsley?” He made her an elegant bow.
She presented him to Miss Martha Worsley, her sister, and to Mrs. Morris, the rector’s wife, and to Miss Buchanan, her niece. Miss Buchanan. There was no mention of her title.
He made his bow to each of the ladies in turn and accepted the chair offered him. Lady Katherine was the only one who had remained seated, her eyes on the hands in her lap. She was dressed in a neat but plain blue dress that fell loosely from a high waistline but made no other concession to fashion. She wore her hair as she had worn it in the woods during the morning.
The contrast with the way she had looked five years ago startled him even more than it had a few hours before.
It seemed she had not mentioned the morning’s meeting to her aunts. They appeared unaware that their niece had already met him. And they appeared not to know who he was. He had wondered if they would, if Lambton had given them any details of the events that had led to his sending his daughter to them. Not that his would have been the name given as of the man who had ruined her, of course. Unless she had told him herself, Lambton did not know that they had lain together during one of the nights they had spent on the road to London.
“It is a wondrously picturesque part of the coast,” Mrs. Morris was saying. “It has always amazed me and my husband, the reverend, that Ty Mawr has remained empty for so long.”
“I suppose, ma’am,” he said, “that most Englishmen remain unaware of the beauties of Wales. If they would come here but once, I am sure they would return time and time again.” And yet it was a bleak part of the world, he thought. It was a suitably cruel place of exile for a young lady who had sparkled with a love of society and social activities.
Mrs. Morris simpered and the course of the conversation for the next few minutes was set.
Lady Katherine got to her feet. ”I will have Mari prepare the tea tray, Aunt Hetty,” she said, and she left the room without looking at him.
She returned shortly after, carrying a plate of cakes, while the maid who had taken his card and shown him into the parlor brought a large tea tray. Lady Katherine seated herself behind it and poured the tea. She brought him his and offered him the plate of cakes without once raising her eyes to his or uttering a word. She did not need to talk, of course. The other three ladies kept up a lively conversation, which needed only agreeable and encouraging remarks from him at predictable intervals. It was not the sort of conversation that needed his full attention.
It was hard to believe that he had once made love to her. That he had been inside her body and given her his seed. It would never have happened if he had been fully awake, and if she had been. The discipline of years would have made it impossible, had all his defenses not been down. But she had been wailing in the throes of some nightmare and he had got up from the floor, half-asleep, to shake her by the shoulder and release her from it. And then she had looked up at him with dazed, fearful eyes and reached for him.
He had been deeply ashamed afterward. He had never forgiven himself in all the years since. He had appointed himself her guardian because she was too young and heedless and impulsive and gullible to look after herself. He had gone after her to rescue her from an unscrupulous man. And then, in the process of taking her safely home, he had violated her. The fact that he knew he must marry her as soon as they returned to London—he had not dreamed that she would refuse, even though he had known she hated him—had been no excuse at all. Neither had the fact that he had loved her. Especially not that.
“Yes, indeed,” he remarked in answer to Miss Martha Worsley’s claim that spring appeared to be well on the way. “I noticed this morning that the wild daffodils are about to bloom in the woods at Ty Mawr.” He hoped he had the Welsh pronunciation right.
“And the sun is shining at last,” Miss Worsley said. “It does a great deal to lift one’s spirits when the sun shines.”
“I could not agree more, ma’am,” he said. It was time for him to take his leave, though Lady Katherine had not once looked at him or spoken to him. He had looked a great deal at her, and he would not be at all surprised to learn that the other ladies had noticed the fact.
“I will take my leave, ma’am,” he said to Hetty Worsley, “with thanks for the tea and hospitality.”
He got to his feet as she and Miss Martha Worsley did likewise. He bowed to Mrs. Morris and to Lady Katherine.
He should have returned to London without further ado after his earlier encounter with Katherine, he thought. It had still been morning. He could have been well on his way by now. There was no point in remaining here. She still hated him. And after five years the consequences still seem to me infinitely more desirable than the alternative would have been. Her words had knifed into him. She had certainly released him from any lingering obligation he might feel toward her. Not that there was anything lingering about it. He would always have an obligation toward her. Even apart from the exile, which must have made it difficult for her to meet gentlemen of her own class, she could never marry because in a moment of rash irresponsibility he had taken her virginity.
“I believe,” he said, when there was really no need to say anything more at all, “I will take a walk before returning to Ty Mawr, and enjoy the countryside and the early spring air.”
“There is nothing more beneficial to the health, I and my husband, the reverend, always say,” Mrs. Morris told him, “than a few good breaths of sea air.”
The sea air was far too chill and blustery for his tastes, but he bowed to the rector’s wife.
“There are so many lanes and paths,” he said, “that I do not know which is the most pleasant to take, or which will give the most pleasing prospect of the surrounding countryside. Perhaps Miss Buchanan would care to take a stroll with me?”
He looked directly at her and raised his eyebrows. He was being grossly unfair, he knew. Miss Hetty Worsley looked surprised but not displeased. Miss Martha Worsley clasped her hands to her bosom and nodded and smiled.
“Kate, dear,” Mrs. Morris said, “you must take his grace up the hill. Not by the road, you understand, but by the lane to the Llewellyn farm.”
