Matthew had lost his boyish look, though he was still lean and still had all his hair. Five years ago he had been appointed vicar of a church five miles away-he had just said so. His wife, Susan, was pretty and fair-haired and was doing her very best to converse as if this were any ordinary social occasion. They had two children-Amanda, aged seven, and Michael, aged five.

Strangers.

Sarah had grown plump, and Henry had grown bald. They had four children-Charles, aged nine, Jeremy, aged seven, Louisa, aged four, and Penelope, aged two.

Charles, aged nine.

David was with the children, his cousins, somewhere else in the house. He was probably reveling in their company and in their relationship to him. He never seemed to be able to get enough of other children, particularly cousins. Yet his life until a very short while ago had been quite devoid of the latter.

Anne sipped her tea without tasting it and was content to leave all the talking to her mother, Sydnam, Matthew, and Susan.

She had not expected this sort of reception. She had expected her mother and father to be alone. She had imagined that Matthew, as a clergyman, might disdain to receive her. She had expected Sarah and Henry to stay well out of her sight until she was long gone. She had not decided if she would try to force them to confront her.

But they had come here, knowing she was expected.

Neither of them had spoken a word.

But then neither had she since coming inside the house except to murmur thanks every time someone offered her food or tea.

The last time she had been in this house was when she had come from Cornwall to spend a short vacation. They had celebrated Henry’s twentieth birthday and planned that the next year they would celebrate his coming of age by announcing their betrothal. But by his twenty-first birthday she was with child and Henry was married to Sarah.

Sydnam was telling them all about Alvesley and his family. He was telling them about Glandwr, where he was the Duke of Bewcastle’s steward, and about Ty Gwyn, which he had recently purchased and to which he was eager to take his bride and stepson. He told them that he had been a military officer in the Peninsula, where he had sustained his injuries.

“But I survived.” He smiled at all of them. “Many thousands did not.”

It struck Anne suddenly that at Glandwr Sydnam had always been quiet, that he had always taken up a position in a quiet corner of the drawing room, that while he was never morose or unsociable, he never put himself forward either. Yet here he was, taking upon himself the brunt of the conversation, knowing himself to be the very center of attention.

She felt a wave of gratitude and love.

Her mother got to her feet.

“Matthew and Susan live five miles away,” she said, “and Sarah and Henry scarcely less. It is quite a distance with young children. They are all to stay here tonight since no one wanted to rush away before dinner. You must be tired after your journey, Anne. And Mr. Butler too. Come upstairs to your room and have a rest. We can all talk again later.”

Yes, she had come here to talk, Anne thought. She had come here to face them, to confront them, to make some sort of peace with them if it was possible. But perhaps it was best left until later. Her mother was right-she was tired.

But she did not get up. She stared at her hands spread in her lap instead.

“Why?” she asked. “It is what I want to know from all of you, what I came to ask. Why?”

She was appalled at her own words. It was why she had come. But there was surely a better time. When, though? When would be a better time? She had already waited ten years.

Everyone else was appalled too. She could tell that by the quality of the silence that filled the room. But they must have known she would ask the question. Or hadn’t they? Had they thought she would come now that she was married and respectable again to be taken back to the bosom of the family, content that nothing be said about the past?

Her mother sat down again. Anne looked up at her.

“What did you mean,” she asked, “when you said that you forgave me. We was the word you used. Who was we? And what had I done to need forgiveness?”

Matthew cleared his throat, but it was their father who replied.

“He was a wealthy man, Anne,” he said, “and heir to a marquess’s title. I daresay you thought he would marry you, and so he ought to have done. But you should have known that such as he would not marry such as you-especially after you had already given him what he wanted.”

Anne’s mother made an inarticulate sound of distress, Sydnam got to his feet and crossed to the window, where he stood looking out, and Anne clasped her hands very tightly in her lap.

“You thought I was trying to snare Albert Moore as a husband?” she asked.

“Maybe not quite in the way it turned out,” her father said. “But I daresay you teased him and he lost control. It is what happens. And the man always gets blamed.”

Blamed.

The man always gets blamed.

“I was to marry Henry,” Anne said, ignoring the almost palpable discomfort of Henry himself-and of Sarah. “You knew that. I had known him and loved him all my life. I did not look higher. It never even occurred to me to be ambitious. I lived for the day when I could come back home to marry.”

“Anne,” Sarah said, but she did not continue, and everyone ignored her anyway.

“But you must have been able to stop him if you had really wanted to do so, Anne,” her father said. “Surely you could have.”

“He was stronger than I,” she said. “Much stronger.”

He winced almost noticeably and then frowned. Her mother’s face was hidden in her handkerchief.

“Your mother wanted to go to you,” her father said. “I was going to write to the marquess to ask what his son’s intentions to you were. But what would have been the point? You were a governess there. I would merely have made myself look foolish. And then Sarah told us that she was going to marry Arnold, and he came on the heels of her announcement to offer for her and when I refused my consent they both threatened to elope. Matthew was about to take up his first curacy where he is now and there was all the question of what the scandals would do to his career. I refused to allow your mother to go to you-there was a wedding to arrange, anyway. But I did instruct her to write to you and tell you we forgave you. I did not believe you had been deliberately depraved.”

It was, Anne supposed, little different from what she had imagined. She gazed at her father, at the pillar of strength she had loved and admired and obeyed as a girl. But there came a time in everyone’s life, she supposed, when one’s parent became a person in one’s eyes. And persons, unlike parents, were never perfect. Sometimes they were far from perfection.

Her mother lowered her hands.

“And your father-and we,” she said, “thought it best that you not come back here, Anne-at least for a while. It would have been upsetting, and there would have been scandal in the neighborhood. It would have been dreadful for you.”

And for her and Papa and Sarah and Henry and Matthew, Anne thought with a half-smile.

“But I have missed you dreadfully,” her mother cried. “I have pined for you, Anne. And for David.”

But not enough ever to come and visit her? Anne thought. But then her mother had always been a dutiful wife. She had never done anything without Papa’s full approval and consent. It had always seemed to be a virtue…

“He is such a handsome child, Anne,” her mother said. “And he looks just like you.”

“David looks,” Anne said, “like Albert Moore, his father. He was a handsome man. David also has some of my characteristics. But more than anything else, he is himself. He has most in common with his new father. Sydnam is a painter and so is David. They paint together.”

It astounded her that she could admit aloud that David looked like his father without cringing from the very fact that Albert Moore was his father. She glanced at Sydnam, who still stood with his back to the room, and felt a knee-weakening love for him.

“Anne,” Sarah said, “please forgive me. Please do. It was a terrible thing I did, but I was so in love. That was no excuse, though. I have not known a day’s happiness since. I am so very sorry. But I cannot expect you to forgive me.”

Anne looked at her fully for the first time. She had grown plumper. She looked very much like their mother. But she was still the sister who had been Anne’s closest friend and confidante throughout their growing years.

“Anne,” Henry said, “I would have married you if you had come home as planned without-Well…You must know I would have. But you were there and Sarah was here.”

Anne bent her gaze on him. She would have liked to see him as ugly and unappealing. She would like to wonder what she had ever seen in him. He certainly had weaknesses of character that were unattractive. But he was Henry, and they had been close friends for years before planning a closer relationship.

“All things happen for a purpose,” she said, “though sometimes they take their time. If I had married you, Henry, there would not be David, and he has been the most precious person in my life for many years. And if I had married you, I would not have been able to marry Sydnam. And so I would have lost my chance for a lifetime of happiness.”

Matthew cleared his throat again.

“You have done well for yourself, Anne,” he said. “First you had a home and some pupils in that village in Cornwall, and then you got that teaching post in Bath. And now you have married a son of the Earl of Redfield.”