She had grown to respect, like, and even admire Lady Hallmere-and her marriage to Joshua appeared to be a love match.
For several minutes David was the focus of attention as he answered questions, seated beside Joshua and gazing almost worshipfully up at his hero. Then, just before the tea tray was brought in, he was sent up to the nursery, where he was promised fairy cakes and lemonade.
“We have just come from Lindsey Hall,” Joshua explained to Anne as the tea was being poured, “and a grand family celebration for the christening of Bewcastle’s son and heir.”
“I trust he is a healthy child,” Anne said politely, “and that the duchess has recovered her health.”
“Both.” Joshua grinned. “I do believe the new Marquess of Lindsey is going to be worthy of the Bedwyn name. He has a powerful set of lungs and has no hesitation at all in using them to get whatever he wishes.”
“And now,” Lady Hallmere added, “we are all on our way to Wales for a month. Bewcastle has an estate there and was planning a brief visit. But the duchess insisted upon accompanying him, and then we all decided to go too since it was far too soon to disperse and go our separate ways.”
“A holiday by the sea is a pleasant prospect,” Joshua said with a grin, “despite the fact that we live within a stone’s throw of it in Cornwall. But the Bedwyns are not often all together, and all our children were in such transports of delight at having one another with whom to play and quarrel at Lindsey Hall that it seemed almost cruel to deprive them of one another’s company for a month or so longer.”
How lovely it must be, Anne thought wistfully, to belong to a large, close-knit, boisterous family. How lovely for the children.
“School has finished for the year, Miss Jewell?” Lady Potford asked.
“Most of the girls went home yesterday, ma’am,” Anne told her.
“And will you be going home too?” Lady Potford asked.
“No, ma’am,” Anne said. “I will remain at the school. Miss Martin takes in charity pupils as well as paying ones, and they must be cared for through the holidays.”
Of course, there was no need for Claudia, Susanna, and Anne all to remain. But none of them had anywhere else to go unless their close friend Frances Marshall, Countess of Edgecombe, a former teacher at the school, arrived home from the Continent, where she had gone with the earl on a singing tour, and invited one of them to Barclay Court in Somersetshire, as she often did whenever she was at home during a school holiday.
“You still have not been home, then, Anne?” Joshua asked.
“No,” she said.
Not since the year before David was born-more than ten years ago now. It was a long time. She had been only nineteen then, her sister Sarah, seventeen. Matthew, their brother, now a clergyman, a mere twenty-year-old, had still been up at Oxford. Henry Arnold had just turned twenty at that time too-she had been home for his birthday. They had spoken of his coming-of-age birthday the following year, and she had felt no premonition at all of the fact that she would not be there for that occasion-or ever see him again, in fact.
“We have a request to make of you, Anne,” Joshua said.
“Oh?” Anne looked from him to Lady Hallmere and back again.
“I am increasingly aware,” Joshua said with a sigh, “that David is my blood relative, Anne, my cousin.”
“No!” Anne stiffened. “He is my son.”
“And he would have had my title too,” Joshua continued, “and everything that came along with it, if Albert had married you.”
Anne shot to her feet, slopping some of her tea over into the saucer before setting it down on a table beside her chair.
“David is my son,” she said.
“Of course he is,” Lady Hallmere said, sounding haughty and even somewhat bored, though her eyes regarded Anne keenly. “It occurred to Joshua as we left Lindsey Hall that your son might enjoy a summer in the company of other children, though most of them admittedly are considerably younger than he. There will be Davy, though, Aidan and Eve’s adopted son, who is now eleven. It is rather unfortunate that he and your son have the same name, but I daresay everyone will contrive to know them apart-and it might actually be fun for each of them to ignore unwelcome orders and claim afterward that they thought the command was for the other. The duchess’s nephew Alexander will also be there, and he is ten.”
“We would really like to take the lad with us, Anne,” Joshua said. “What do you say?”
Anne bit her lip and sat down again.
“It is always one of my greatest concerns,” she said, “that he is growing up at a girls’ school with women teachers except for the art and dancing masters. He is a general favorite and is made much of by everyone-I could not be more fortunate in that respect. But he has very little contact with men and almost none at all with boys.”
“Yes,” Joshua said, “I realize that. I still intend to send him to school when he is older, with your permission, of course, but in the meantime he ought to have some contact with other children. Daniel and Emily are much younger than he, but they are his second cousins. And therefore all the other Bedwyn children are loosely related to him too. I will not press the issue because I know it distresses you, but it is the truth nevertheless. Will you let him come?”
An unreasonable sense of panic balled in the pit of Anne’s stomach. She had never been separated from David for longer than a few hours at a time. He was hers. Though he was only nine, she knew she would lose him in the not too distant future. How could she deny him a proper schooling with boys of his own age, after all? But must it start even now? Must she give him up for a whole month or longer now, this summer?
But how could she say no? If the question were put to David, she knew very well that she would see that brightness of excited anticipation in his eyes as he looked to her for permission.
Her hands, she realized as she spread them across her lap, were actually shaking. For the first time in the more than ten years that she had known him, she resented Joshua. She almost hated him, in fact-especially his insistence that David was his blood relative and therefore partly his responsibility.
David was not his relative.
He was her son.
“Miss Jewell,” the marchioness said, “a child of nine is too young to be separated from his mother for a whole month. And though I can speak at present only as the mother of a three- and one-year-old, I am even more convinced that no mother is ready to be separated from her child when he is only nine. Of course you must come to Wales too.”
“You are quite right, Freyja,” Lady Potford said. “Is your presence at the school for the summer quite essential, Miss Jewell?”
“No, ma’am,” Anne said. “Miss Martin and Miss Osbourne will both be remaining there too.”
“Then it is settled,” Joshua said cheerfully. “You and David will both come, Anne, and Daniel will be so excited that we may well have to tie him down. Will you come?”
“But how can I?” she asked, aghast. Inviting her, she was well aware, had been an afterthought. “It is the Duke of Bewcastle’s home.”
“Oh, pooh,” Lady Hallmere said with a dismissive gesture of one hand. “It is a Bedwyn home, and I am a Bedwyn. It is also a very large home. You must certainly come.”
The Duke of Bewcastle, Anne reflected, was reputed to be one of the coldest and most toplofty aristocrats in the country. All the Bedwyns had a reputation for being impossibly high in the instep. She was the daughter of a gentleman of very little social significance beyond the neighborhood in which he lived. She was also a teacher, an ex-governess. All of which paled beside the fact that she was also the unmarried mother of an illegitimate son.
How could she possibly…
“We will not take no for an answer,” Lady Hallmere said imperiously, looking along the length of her rather prominent nose at Anne. “And so you might as well resign yourself to returning to your school after tea to begin packing your bags.”
The house in Wales was a large one, the marchioness had said. There were many Bedwyns, and they were all now married with children. It would surely be easy enough, then, to remain aloof from them. She could spend most of her time making herself useful with the children. And in the meantime, David would have the freedom of a country house and estate close to the sea, and-more important-he would have other children to play with, some of them boys of his own age. He would have Joshua, whom he adored, as an adult male role model.
She could not possibly deny him all that. But equally, she could not possibly let him go alone.
“Very well,” she said. “We will come. Thank you.”
“Splendid!” Joshua said, beaming at her and rubbing his hands together.
As Anne walked back to the school a short while later, though, she was not at all sure she agreed. But it was too late to change her mind now. Joshua had already told David and Daniel while Anne was acquainting herself with his young daughter in the nursery, and her son was now skipping along at her side like a much younger child and prattling in a loud, excited voice that drew more than one glance from passersby.
“And we are to go boating and swimming and rock climbing,” he was saying. “And we will build sand forts and play cricket and climb trees and play pirates. Davy is going to be there-do you remember him, Mama, from years ago, before we came to Bath? And there is to be a boy called Alexander. And some girls-I remember Becky. Do you? And the little ones will need someone to play with them, and I will enjoy doing that. I like Daniel-he follows me around as if I were a great hero. Is he really my cousin?”
“No,” Anne said quickly. “But to him you are a hero, David. You are a big boy. You are all of nine years old.”