“Yes.” She smiled at his chin. “I suppose we will. Thank you for showing me places I have not seen before.”

And then she turned rather abruptly and strode off up the driveway in the direction of the house.

Sydnam stood looking after her, feeling an unwelcome dejection. She was merely a guest at the house, someone who had touched his life briefly and was now gone again. His life would not change because of his five brief encounters with her-and perhaps as many more before she returned to Bath.

But he ought not, perhaps, to have walked with her yesterday or invited her to walk with him today. He would not do it again. He did not want to go doing anything stupid, like falling in love with her.

He shook his head as if to clear it of such thoughts as she disappeared from view around a bend without looking back. He turned his steps in the direction of the cottage.

He set his hand in his pocket, remembering that her shells were still there. His fingers curled about them.



More than a week passed before Anne saw Sydnam Butler again-except for a brief glimpse one afternoon when she was returning to the house after a stroll outdoors with David. He was standing on the terrace some distance beyond the front doors, in conversation with the Duke of Bewcastle. His grace inclined his head in their direction and Mr. Butler, on whose blind side they had been approaching, swiveled right about to see them and also made them a little bow before turning back to his conversation.

She also heard that Lord Alleyne, Lord Rannulf, and Lady Hallmere had gone riding with him one afternoon, and was amazed to learn that he could ride. But she ought not to have been surprised, she admitted to herself. He was a man who fought his disabilities in almost every way imaginable-except his disability to paint. She wondered if there was any possibility that he could fight that battle too and win. But probably not. Some things were simply impossible.

It was not an unpleasant week despite the fact that she was not allowed to remain in the nursery area as a sort of governess but was drawn into the very thick of the daily activities with everyone else, adults and children alike. They all spent a great deal of time out of doors-walking, playing cricket and other ball games, swimming, boating, building sand castles on the beach, climbing trees, playing hide-and-seek among them, climbing the lower reaches of the cliffs, having picnics.

The Earl of Rosthorn explained to her one day that most of their lives were necessarily busy through much of the year-he and Joshua and the duke, for example, were members of the House of Lords-and kept them from their children and even their spouses for long hours at a time. When they did have free time, then, as they did now in the summer, they spent it together as families and played hard.

David was happier than Anne had ever seen him. And she was surprised to discover that he could be as boisterous and demanding and mischievous as any of the others. Indeed, if the trio of Davy, Alexander, and David had a leader, it was usually David. Becky, Davy’s sister, adored him. So did all the younger children, with whom he always had the patience to play. He adored Joshua-and Lord Rannulf and Lord Alleyne and all the other gentlemen too, to an only slightly lesser degree. He was in awe of the Duke of Bewcastle, it was true, but Anne spied him one day practicing lifting an imaginary quizzing glass to his eye while examining his aloof, haughty expression in the looking glass in his room, and it was perfectly obvious whom he was trying to imitate.