When the carriages left for Pembroke Castle in the middle of the morning, the sun was beaming down from a clear blue sky. When Mr. Butler arrived on foot later and a gig appeared on the terrace from the direction of the stables at almost the same moment-Anne had been watching from the window of her bedchamber-there was still not a cloud in the sky.

She tied the ribbons of her straw bonnet beneath her chin and half ran down the stairs without waiting to be summoned. She felt like a girl again.

Mr. Butler was standing in the middle of the hall, looking up at her, a smile on his face. It was strange, she thought, how quickly she had become accustomed to his looks-to the empty right sleeve, the purple, nerveless right side of his face, the eye patch.

“It looks as if we are going to have a lovely afternoon for a drive,” he said.

There was a groom standing at the horse’s head, Anne saw when they stepped outside, but he pulled his forelock respectfully to them both and stayed where he was as Mr. Butler handed her up to the seat on the left side of the vehicle and then took the seat beside her. The groom handed him the ribbons and stepped back, and they were on their way.

Mr. Butler was going to drive them himself, then? She ought to have expected it. She knew he was up to most challenges-including riding a horse.

“You will be quite safe,” he assured her as if he had read her thoughts. “I have had a great deal of practice at doing this. It is amazing what can be done one-handed. I have even driven a team of horses on occasion, though admittedly that was somewhat hair-raising.”

His left hand, which she had noticed first for being long-fingered and artistic and then for being deft and skilled as it wielded a fork, was also very strong, as well as the arm that went with it, she realized as he turned the horse onto the driveway without any apparent effort and later, after they had stopped at his cottage for a servant to load a picnic basket onto the back of the gig, drove through the gates and across the bridge and made the sharp turn off the main road onto the narrower road through the village and beyond.

“Are you able to write with your left hand?” she asked him.

“I can produce something that looks like a cross between a spider’s web and the tracks of chicken feet,” he said. “But remarkably, it seems to be decipherable to other people. I am also now able to produce more than one three-letter word in a minute, though only if my tongue is tucked into my cheek at just the right angle.”

She laughed as he chuckled. It seemed strange now to remember that she had seen him at first as a tragic, broken figure of a man, and he had admitted to loneliness. But he was certainly not a man sunk into self-pity or defeat. He was able to laugh at all sorts of absurdities, and even at himself, the sign of a man with considerable inner strength.

“Can you not hold a paintbrush in your left hand, then?” she asked.

She regretted the words as soon as they were out of her mouth. Although they had been deliberate and she really wanted to know if he had tried-if he had taken on that challenge as he had others and had simply been defeated by it-she also realized that she had crossed an invisible line they had set between them early in their acquaintance. There was no outer sign that his mood had changed, but there was a tense quality to the short silence that ensued that had not been there before.

“No,” he said after a while. “My brushes are always in my right hand, Miss Jewell.”

Present tense. She did not know what he meant. But she would not ask. She had already intruded too far.

They negotiated another sharp bend beyond the village, and the road became so narrow that the hedgerows brushed against the wheels on both sides.

“What if we were to meet another vehicle?” she asked.

“One of us would have to back up,” he said. “It would be more productive than sitting and glowering at each other. One becomes an expert at backing up in this part of the world.”

Green crops waved in the breeze beyond the hedgerows to their right. Sheep grazed on the more stony land to their left. And always in the distance there were the ever-present cliffs and the sea. And there was the warm salt air to breathe.

“You must be very proud of your son,” he said. “He is a lovely child.”

She looked at him in surprise and gratitude.

“Ralf and Alleyne and Freyja were telling me a few days ago how eager to please and to learn he is,” he explained, “and how ready to play with all the younger children. There is rather a crowd of them, is there not?”

“He is always a good boy,” she said. “The teachers and girls at the school are all fond of him. At first, when he was younger, I thought the school a wonderful environment for him. But he cannot stay there indefinitely. I have become more than ever aware of that this month. I dread the thought of letting Joshua find a boys’ school for him, though. Oh, Mr. Butler, it is very much harder to be a parent than I could possibly have expected.”

“Is it?” He looked across at her before turning the gig off the narrow road and onto a rutted path between two fields.

“I find myself wanting to mold him and control him,” she said, “because I know what is best for him and because I know what sort of person I wish him to be. I have tried, for example, to persuade him to think of painting merely as an interesting pastime. He is going to have to earn his living when he grows up. But I have been surprised to discover that he is a unique individual quite separate from myself and very different from me-and with a will of his own. Why should that be a shock? I have always known with my intellect that it is true of all people. But some lessons have to be learned with the heart too before we really understand them. It is so easy to be a parent before we have children of our own.”

He laughed softly. “You make me believe, Miss Jewell,” he said, “that perhaps it is fortunate I will never have children of my own.”

“Oh,” she said, turning sharply toward him, “please do not misunderstand me. David is the most precious being in my life.”

And she felt immediately guilty because she had been enjoying a day without him. She had scarcely spared him a thought, in fact. Was he enjoying the castle? Was he taking unnecessary risks on the stairs or battlements? Was Joshua keeping a careful enough eye on him? Was he behaving well?

Mr. Butler turned his head to smile at her.

Why would he never have children of his own? Because he intended never to marry? Because he could not? Had the torture included…

But her attention was suddenly distracted. He had drawn the gig to a halt, and Anne saw that ahead of them the land fell away into what looked like a large, shallow bowl. It was ringed about with trees, except here where the track gave way to a wider, graveled driveway beyond a wooden, five-bar gate with a rustic stile beside it and a footpath. Ahead of them wide grassy meadows stretched to either side of the driveway, woolly sheep grazing on them, some taking shelter from the sun beneath the shade of a few old oaks and elms.

There must be a ha-ha close to the bottom of the slope opposite, Anne thought. Above it she could see close-cropped lawns and flower beds and what looked like a rose arbor. But it was the house, also on the far slope, that drew most of her attention. It was of gray stone, and architecturally it was not particularly beautiful. It was three stories high and square and solid, with long windows on the bottom two floors and square windows at the top. The walls were more than half covered with ivy. It was framed by trees.

It was neither house nor mansion. It was small in comparison with Glandwr just a few miles away. Manor was the right word for it. The hollow in which house and park were nestled gave an impression of seclusion and intimacy if not quite of smallness.

The sea was on the other side of the road they had turned off, maybe a mile or two away.

Mr. Butler had made no move to get down to open the gate, Anne realized. He was looking at her.

“What do you think?” he asked.

“I think,” she said, her eyes drinking in the house, the trees, the flower garden, the sheep-dotted meadow, the whole circle of the park, “you will be happy here, Mr. Butler. How could you not be?”

How could anyone not be happy here? Suddenly she was consumed by such envy and such a yearning that it seemed there was a definite physical pain about her heart.

“A retired naval captain and his wife were living here on a ten-year lease when I came to Glandwr,” he said. “When they left last year, I made very little effort to find new tenants. I believe it is the only instance of neglect I have been guilty of in my duties as Bewcastle’s steward.”

“Will he sell it to you?” she asked.

“He has not said no,” he told her. “But he has not said yes either. He will give me an answer before he leaves here, though.”

It struck her suddenly that he must be a very wealthy man if he was able to make an offer for such a property. There was a huge distance between them socially. It was a good thing she did not have designs on him.

But she was very glad they had become friends.

“Will you hold the ribbons while I open the gate?” he asked.

“Let me do it.” She did not wait for his answer but jumped out of the gig, opened the gate, and swung it back on its hinges. She stood on the bottom bar and rode part of the way, looking up as she did so to laugh at Mr. Butler in the gig. She was very aware suddenly of the rural beauty of her surroundings, the green grass, the blue sky, birds singing, insects whirring, a very slight breeze. She could smell vegetation and animals and the sea. She could feel the heat of the sun.