David came tumbling out of the second carriage as soon as he spied her standing there and came dashing toward her, his legs pumping, his eyes sparkling, his mouth in motion, the volume of his treble voice almost deafening. She caught him up in a tight hug, laughing, and kissed the top of his head.
“You should have been there, Mama…Cousin Joshua…and you should have seen me…Davy…and then we…Lord Aidan…it was such fun…Cousin Joshua…Becky and Marianne were scared of the winding stairs, but I helped them up and Lady Aidan said I was a perfect gentleman and…Alexander…Cousin Joshua and Daniel…the little ones…I wish you had been there, Mama, to see…”
Anne laughed again as they made their way up to the nursery. She had missed most of the details of his day, but it did not seem to matter.
“It would seem, then,” she said, “that you had a good time.”
“I had the best time,” he said. “But I wish you could have seen the castle, Mama. You would have loved it.”
“I am quite sure I would have,” she said.
“Did you enjoy the place Mr. Butler took you?” he asked her.
“Ty Gwyn?” she said. “Very much.”
“But you really ought to have come with us,” he said. “You would have had much more fun. Cousin Joshua…” And he was off again.
It was wonderful to see him happy and animated, his face bronzed from the sun.
But the day out had tired him. When Anne went looking for him after returning to her room to wash and change for the evening, she found him in his room alone, sitting on his bed in his nightshirt with his knees drawn up and his arms wrapped around them. He was looking listless and anything but happy.
“Tired?” she asked, bending over him to push back a lock of his hair and kiss his forehead.
“We are going home tomorrow,” he said.
At the foot of his bed, his trunk was almost completely packed.
She felt weak-kneed at the thought and sat down on the side of the bed.
“Yes,” she said. “It is time. We have been here a whole month.”
“I do not see,” he said, sounding aggrieved, “why everyone has to go home when we are all having such a jolly time.”
“But the trouble with jolly times,” she said, “is that they would lose their jolliness if they went on forever and become merely tedious.”
“No, they would not,” he protested.
And perhaps he was right. Who had first mouthed that piece of dubious wisdom anyway?
“Everyone else’s mama went today except you,” he said, the words coming rather jerkily from his mouth.
It was unlike David to be petulant. Anne was smitten with dismay-and guilt.
“I asked you if you minded my not going,” she said, “and you said no. I would have come if-”
“And everyone else’s papa went too,” he said. “Except Davy’s, who is dead. But he has his Uncle Aidan, who is as good as a papa because Davy lives with him and they do things together. They go riding and fishing and swimming and other things.”
“Oh, David,” she said.
“And Daniel lives with Cousin Joshua,” he continued. “Cousin Joshua is his papa. He takes him into the village where we used to live and out in a fishing boat. And he lets him ride on his shoulders and pull his hair and do all sorts of things.”
“David-”
“I did so have a papa once, didn’t I?” he asked. “You said no, but Davy says everyone has to have a papa even if he is dead. Is my papa dead?”
Anne closed her eyes briefly. Why did all of life’s crises seem to come along when one felt least ready to deal with them? She was still feeling raw from a good-bye that had not quite been said. But this was of greater importance. She tried to focus her mind.
It was true that every time David had asked her in the past why he did not have a father she had told him that he was special and had only a mama, who loved him twice as much as any other mama loved her child. It had been a foolish answer even for a young child, and she had always known that she must do better eventually.
She just wished it had not happened tonight of all nights.
“Yes, David,” she said. “He is dead. He drowned. He was swimming at night and he drowned. I am so sorry.”
She braced herself for the question about his father’s identity that was surely going to come next. But it seemed there was a more important question to ask first.
“Did he love me?” he asked, his eyes like two large bruises in his pale face. “Did he do things with me?”
“Oh, my sweetheart,” she said, setting the backs of her fingers against his cheek, “he would have loved you more than anyone else in the world. But he died before you were born.”
“How could he have been my papa, then?” he asked her, frowning.
“He had…given you to me before he died,” she said, “and I kept you safe until you were born. I will explain to you one day when you are a little older. But right now you are having a hard time keeping your eyes open and tomorrow is going to be a busy day. Wriggle under the sheets now and I’ll tell you a story and tuck you in and kiss you good night.”
Ten minutes later he looked up at her with sleepy eyes-and then smiled with pure mischief.
“I am glad you did not come to the castle,” he said. “Now I get to tell Mr. Keeble and Matron and Miss Martin all about it myself.”
She laughed softly. “And about cricket and boating and playing pirates and painting,” she said. “I promise to let you tell it all. It will be good to see everyone again, will it not?”
“Mmm,” he said.
And just like that, in the way of children, he was asleep.
Anne sat beside him until Davy and Alexander came tiptoeing in a while later.
One day soon David was going to think of the questions he had not asked tonight, and she was going to have to give him answers. She was going to have to tell him about Albert Moore. His father.
She shivered.
Glenys, sniffling just as if they had been mistress and maid for years, had insisted upon doing her packing for her. There was nothing to do now, then, except go downstairs to the drawing room to be sociable for an hour or two. And sociable she must be. No one must suspect that the visit to Ty Gwyn had been anything more than a pleasant afternoon’s outing.
But just so many hours ago-she counted them off on her fingers-she had lain with Sydnam Butler and it had been good. She knew it had been good. Perhaps if it could just have happened again her body would have known that as well as her mind.
She ached with a sudden longing to have it happen again.
Was she quite, quite mad to have refused his offer of marriage?