Simply Love (8 page)

“David,” Mr. Butler said, turning to look at him.

“Sir.” David bobbed his head and pressed harder against Anne. “My painting is no good. I cannot see things that big.” He indicated Lady Rosthorn's painting with one sweep of the hand.

“And I cannot see things that little,” the countess said, nodding in the direction of his own painting. “But big and little both exist, David, and they both show us the soul of God. I remember you telling me that once, Sydnam, when I was about your age and I was convinced that I could never paint as well as you.”

Ah, Anne thought with an uncomfortable lurching of the stomach as she stared at his back and remembered her impression that his long fingers looked artistic. He really had been a painter, then?

“May I see your painting, David?” Mr. Butler asked, and they all moved around to look at it, David still pressed as close to Anne as he could get.

“It is too flat,” David said.

But Mr. Butler was examining it in silence as he had done with Lady Rosthorn's.

“Someone has taught you,” he said, “to use a great variety of colors to produce the one the untutored eye thinks it sees when it looks at any object.”

“Mr. Upton,” David said. “The art master at Mama's school.”

“You have learned the lesson well for one so young,” Mr. Butler said. “If you were to paint this same rock at a different time of day or in different weather, the colors would be different, would they not?”

“And it would look different too,” David said. “Light is a funny thing. Light is not just light. Mr. Upton told me that too. Did you know, sir, that light is like the rainbow all the time—all those colors, even though we cannot see them?”

“Remarkable, is it not?” Mr. Butler said. “It makes us realize that there are all sorts of things—millions of things—around us all the time that we are not aware of because there are limits to our senses. Does that make sense to you?”

“Yes, sir,” David said. “Sight, touch, smell, sound, and taste—five of them.” He counted them off on the fingers of one hand. “But maybe there are hundreds more that we do not have. Miss Martin told me that once.”

Mr. Butler pointed at the place on the painting where the rock was joined to the rest of the promontory, held there, it seemed, by clumps of grass.

“I like this,” he said. “That rock is going to fall soon and begin a new phase of its existence down on the beach, but at the moment it is clinging bravely to its life up here, and the life up here is holding on to it as long as it can. How clever of you to notice that. I do not believe I would have. Indeed, I have stood here many times and not noticed.”

What Anne noticed was that David had moved from her side to stand closer to the easel—and Mr. Butler.

“I can see the slope of the rock, with a hint of the depths below and the land above,” Mr. Butler said. “The perspective is really quite good. What did you mean when you said your painting was flat?”

“It…” For a few moments it seemed as if David could not find the words to explain what he meant. He pointed at the painting and made beckoning gestures with his fingers. “It just
stays
there. It is
flat
.”

Mr. Butler turned to look at him, and Anne was struck again by his breathtaking good looks—and his kindness in giving time and attention to a child.

“Have you ever painted with oils, David?” he asked.

David shook his head.

“There aren't any at the school,” he said. “Mr. Upton says that only watercolors are suitable for ladies. I am the only boy there.”

“Watercolors are fine for gentlemen too,” Mr. Butler said. “And oils are fine for ladies. Some artists use one or the other. Some use both in different circumstances. But there are some artists who
need
to paint with oils. I believe you may be one of them. Oil paints help to create texture. They help the artist bring the painting off the canvas. They also help one paint with passion, if you are old enough to understand what that means. Perhaps your mama can have a talk with Mr. Upton when you return to school to see if there is any chance he can teach you to paint with oils. However, this watercolor is very, very good. Thank you for letting me see it.”

David turned toward Anne, his face beaming.

“Do you think Mr. Upton will, Mama?” he asked.

“We will have to talk with him,” she said, smiling down at him and pushing the lock of hair off his forehead again before glancing up to see Mr. Butler looking steadily at her.

He took his leave then. He bade them all a good morning, put his hat back on, and touched his hand to the brim.

“Oh, Syd,” Lady Rosthorn said as he made his way back to the path, “I
do
wish you could come and paint with us someday.”

He looked back.

“I don't think, Morg,” he said, his tone light, “Wulfric would be too delighted if I so misused the time for which he is paying me.”

For a few moments as she watched him walk away, Anne wondered what he had done to hurt himself. He was limping. But even as she thought it he adjusted his stride and walked normally.

“Mr. Butler,” David said excitedly when he was only just out of earshot, “is the monster.”

“David!” Anne cried.

The countess set a hand on his shoulder.

“The monster?” she said.

“That is what Alexander calls him,” David told her. “He says he is monstrously ugly and lies in wait for children on stormy nights to eat out their liver.”

“David,” Anne said sharply. “Mr. Butler is the Duke of Bewcastle's steward. He was a brave soldier in the wars against Napoléon Bonaparte that you have learned of in your history lessons, and he was horribly wounded while fighting. He is a man to be admired, not someone to be turned into a monster.”

“I am only saying what Alexander said,” David protested. “It was stupid and I will tell him so.”

“I grew up at Lindsey Hall, David,” the countess said as she washed her brushes and tidied up her painting things. “My brothers and sister and I used to play with the Butler boys from the neighboring estate. I was very much the youngest in my family, and they were usually impatient with me and would have left me behind if they could when they went to play. Kit Butler was my hero because he would usually take me up on his shoulders so that I could keep up with them all. But it was Sydnam who was always most kind to me and most willing to talk to me and listen to me as if I were a real person. He was the one who encouraged me to paint as I wished to paint. When he was brought home from the wars deathly ill and dreadfully maimed, I felt as if a little part of me had died. I thought he would never be the same again, and indeed I was right. He made himself into a new person and came here. Those who did not know him before and those who do not take the time to get to know him now will perhaps always look at him and see a monster. But you and I are artists. We know that the real meaning of things lies deep down and that the real meaning of things is always beautiful because it is simply love.”

“He knows about painting,” David said. “I wish
he
could show me how to use oil paints. But he cannot, can he? He doesn't have his arm.”

“No, he does not,” the countess said sadly. “And, oh, dear, we must have been here far too long. Here come Gervase and Joshua to drag us home.”

…the real meaning of things is always beautiful because it is simply love.

Could that possibly be right? Anne wondered. Was it true?

“Well,
chérie,
” the earl called as he came within earshot, “did you do it this time?” He stepped up to the countess's easel and set one hand on her shoulder.

“Not quite.” She laughed ruefully. “But I will never stop trying, Gervase.”

She tipped her head sideways and touched her cheek to his hand.

It was a brief gesture and quite unostentatious. But it smote Anne with its suggestion of a close marital relationship.

Joshua meanwhile was complimenting David on his painting and squeezing the back of his neck affectionately.

He walked beside Anne on the way back to the house, carrying David's easel and painting while the boy ran on ahead through the trees and then across the lawn, his arms stretched to the sides, pretending to be a kite in the breeze.

“He says you are going to make him into a formidable bowler at cricket,” she said.

Joshua laughed. “He will be tolerably competent if he works hard at it,” he said. “Are you going to join in the game this afternoon, Anne, or are you going to play coward as you did yesterday and hide out on the beach again?”

“I have promised to go walking,” she said.

“Have you, by Jove?” he said. “With another truant? It cannot be allowed. Give me her name and I will set to work on her.”

“I am going walking with Mr. Butler,” she said. “The duke's steward.” Her cheeks felt hot. She hoped it would not be obvious that she was blushing. And why
was
she blushing?

“Indeed?” He looked down at her and kept looking as they walked on in silence.

“Joshua,” she said at last, “I am merely going for a walk with him. I met him on the beach yesterday and we strolled together for a while. He asked if I wished to do it again today.”

He was smiling at her.

“I wondered why you stayed down on the beach,” he said. “You had a clandestine tryst there, did you?”

“Nonsense!” She laughed. But she sobered almost immediately. “I wish you would not encourage David to call you
Cousin Joshua
.”

“You would prefer
sir
or
my lord,
then?” he asked her. “He
is
my cousin.”

“He is
not,
” she protested.

“Anne,” he said, “Albert was a black-hearted villain. I am glad for your sake and David's and Prue's that he is dead. But he was my first cousin, and David is his son. I am David's relative, not just any man who has taken an interest in him. Prue and Constance and Chastity are his
aunts
and are very ready to acknowledge the fact. And he needs all the relatives he can get. He has none on your side, has he—none you will allow him to know anyway.”

“Because
they
do not wish to know
him,
” she cried.

He sighed. “I have upset you,” he said. “I am sorry. I truly am. Freyja assures me that she knows exactly how you must feel and has advised me to respect your wish to raise David alone. But let the child call me Cousin, Anne. All the other children here have someone to call Papa—or Uncle, in Davy's case, since Aidan and Eve have always actively encouraged him to remember his own dead father.”

She might have argued further even though she recognized the sense of what he said—and his kindness in accepting an illegitimate child as a relative. It was just that she could not
bear
to acknowledge that relationship herself. But the Countess of Rosthorn turned her head at that moment to make some remark to them, and they proceeded the rest of the way as a group of four.

Anne watched the cricket game for a few minutes before slipping
away to walk down the driveway in the direction of the thatched cottage she had noticed on the day of her arrival. She was not after all, she was relieved to notice, the only one not playing. The duchess was playing a circle game with the infants a little distance away, and the duke was watching her, looking his usual severe self, though he had their son in his arms, wrapped warmly in a blanket. No one seemed particularly to notice Anne's leaving. She hoped Joshua would not draw attention to it.

The very idea of the Bedwyns all knowing where she was going and drawing quite the wrong conclusions was horrifying. This was not a romantic tryst. But surely they would think she was trying to take advantage of a lonely, wounded man.

She turned off the driveway and approached the cottage in some trepidation. Were there servants there? What would they think of a strange woman knocking on the door and asking for Mr. Butler?

But she was saved from having to find out. Even before she reached the low stone wall and wooden gate that enclosed a pretty flower garden surrounding the whitewashed cottage, the door opened and he stepped outside.

Anne stopped on the path.

“I wondered if you would come,” he called, coming toward her, opening the gate, and closing it behind him. “It was presumptuous of me to ask you when you are a guest at the house. And this morning you were with your son and Morgan. Perhaps—”

“I wanted to come,” she said.

“And I wanted you to come.” He smiled uncertainly at her.

She felt suddenly shy with him, as if this were indeed a romantic tryst. How foolishly pathetic they would look to any observer, she thought, hoping no servant was peering through a window. They must look as awkward as any boy and girl half their age.

“Have you seen the valley?” he asked her.

She shook her head. “Only the park about the house and the cliffs and the beach.”

“It is not the very best time of year to see it,” he said, indicating that they should return to the driveway and cross it to the other side. “In spring the wild daffodils and bluebells carpeting the ground in the woods make the whole scene magical, and in autumn there is a multicolored roof above one's head and a multicolored carpet beneath one's feet. But it is always lovely, even in winter. Now all is green, but if you have an artist's eye, you will understand that there are so many shades of green that summer trees and grass are a complete and sumptuous feast for the senses without any accompaniment of flowers.”

She could soon see that there was indeed a valley—they walked through a copse of widely spaced trees and shrubs until the land fell away at their feet to reveal a thick forest of trees growing below them.

They scrambled down a long, steep slope, clumps of coarse grass and firm soil and exposed tree roots enabling them to find safe footholds, until they reached the bottom, where a wide, shallow stream gurgled and meandered its way toward the sea. The sea itself was not visible from where they stood, but Anne could smell it. She could also smell the trees and feel the warmth of the summer air, though the branches above her head provided a welcome shade from the bright glare of the sun.

There was an instant feeling of seclusion and peace down here, as if they had come miles from where they had been mere minutes before. The leaves of the trees rustled softly about her.

“It is beautiful,” she said, her hand against the bark of a tree, her head tipped back. She could hear a single seagull calling overhead.

“Wales is a beautiful country,” he told her. “It is quite different from England here even though most of the landowners in this part are English. There are ancient Celtic history and mysticism and peace and music to be discovered here, Miss Jewell—riches untold. Until you have heard a Welsh man or woman play the harp or until you have heard Welsh voices sing—preferably together in a choir—you cannot claim to know what music can do for the soul. Tudor Rhys, the Welsh minister at the chapel here, is teaching me the language, but it is a long, slow process. It is a complex tongue.”

“I can see,” she said, “that you have fallen in love with Wales, Mr. Butler.”

“I hope to spend the rest of my life here,” he said, “though not necessarily right here at Glandwr. A man needs a place of his own, a sense of his own belonging. His own home.”

She felt an unexpected wave of longing and pressed her hand hard against the rough bark of the tree.

“And do you have such a place in mind?” she asked him.

“I do.”

She thought for a moment that he would say more, but he did not do so. He turned away so that she could see only the perfect, handsome side of his body. It was too private a subject for him, she thought. She was, after all, just a stranger. But she was envious.

A man needs a place of his own, a sense of his own belonging. His own home.

Yes. A woman needed those things too.

“If we walk along beside the stream,” he said, “we will pass beneath the bridge by which you must have approached Glandwr when you came here, and come out onto a small beach that is connected to the larger one at low tide. Would you like to see it?”

“Yes,” she said, and fell into step beside him. “Oh, I remember the bridge now and the impression I had that it spanned a lovely wooded valley, but I had forgotten. Now here I am in the valley itself.”

For a minute or two their silence was companionable and she was content to let it stretch between them. But she was the one who broke it eventually.

“It was good of you,” she said, “to spend some time with David this morning. Your comments on his painting meant a great deal to him.”

“For a nine-year-old,” he said, “he has a remarkable vision and considerable skills. He deserves to be encouraged. But I do not need to tell that to you of all people.”

“You were a painter yourself?” she asked.

She realized even before he answered that it was a question she ought not to have asked—there was a certain stiffening in his manner. But it was too late to recall her words. He took some time to answer.

“I was but am not,” he said then rather curtly. “I was born right-handed, Miss Jewell.”

The silence resumed, but it was no longer as comfortable as it had been before. Clearly she had intruded too far into his private world—into his private
pain,
she supposed, if the Countess of Rosthorn had spoken truly of his artistic talent. He was right-handed, but no longer had his right hand. He could no longer paint.

He stopped walking suddenly and set his back against a tree. She stopped too, close to the bank of the stream, and looked rather warily up at him. He was gazing off over her head to the opposite slope.

“I am sorry,” she said. “I ought not to have asked that last question. Please forgive me.”

His gaze lowered to rest on her. “That is part of the trouble, Miss Jewell,” he said. “There are so many topics people—especially my loved ones—are afraid to broach with me that nothing is safe except the weather and politics. And even with politics people feel the need to steer clear of some events, like anything to do with the recent wars. Everyone is afraid of hurting me and as a consequence I have become touchy. Because parts of my body have been permanently broken, I must be seen forever, it seems, as a fragile flower.”

“But you are not?” she asked him.

He smiled ruefully.

“Are
you
?” he asked in return. “Because you have an illegitimate child?”

People did not usually state that fact quite so bluntly in her hearing.

“I asked first.” She stooped to pick up some loose pebbles and lifted one hand high to drop them one at a time with a plop into the water.

“I have learned,” he said, “that humans can be remarkably resilient creatures, Miss Jewell. I thought my life was over. When I realized it was not, I
wished
it were for a long time. And I could have gone on wishing it and feeling sorry for myself and drawing the pity of others, and so lived miserably ever after. I chose not to live that way. I took my life in a totally new direction, and have been rather successful at it. I have avoided having anything to do with painting and painters until this morning. It was painful to accept Morgan's invitation to view her painting—excruciatingly so. Even the smell of the paints…Well, I survived it, and even felt rather proud of myself as I walked home. I brought all the account books up to date when I got there and wrote a few letters that needed writing. Life goes on, you see.”

“And are you happy most of the time?” she asked him. But he had admitted to being lonely.

“Happy?
Most
of the time? Happiness is always a fleeting thing,” he said. “It never rests upon anyone as a permanent state, though many of us persist in believing in the foolish idea that if this would just happen or that we would be happy for the rest of our lives. I know moments of happiness just as most other people do. Perhaps I have learned to find it in ways that would pass some people by. I feel the summer heat here at this moment and see the trees and the water and hear that invisible gull overhead. I feel the novelty of having company when I usually come here alone. And this moment brings me happiness.”

She felt an unexpected rush of tears to her eyes and turned her head away. He was happy to be here with her. A stranger—a man—was happy to be with
her
.

“Your turn,” he said.

“Oh, I am not fragile,” she said. “My life changed when David was born, and it is sometimes tempting to think that it was a dreadful change. But he brought a love into my life that was and is so intense that I know myself to be one of the most blessed of mortals. And then, like you, I turned my life in a new direction, with some help, and made a meaningful life for myself at Miss Martin's school. You are right, Mr. Butler. We adjust our lives to circumstances and take happiness where it is to be found, even if only in fleeting moments. It is either that or miss our chance to welcome grace into our lives. This
is
a happy moment. I will remember it.”

“To welcome grace into our lives,”
he said softly. “And I will remember that phrase. I like it.”

She rubbed her hands together to rid them of the particles of soil she had picked up with the pebbles and lifted her head to smile up at him.

“Did you love his father?” he asked.

She felt an almost physical shock at the words. She closed her eyes and felt slightly dizzy. Now he had intruded upon her private world—her private pain. Perhaps it was a fair exchange.

“No,” she said. “No, I did not. I hated him. God help me, I hated him.”

“Where is he?” he asked.

“Dead.”

She had never ever been able to feel one moment's sorrow over that fact—or one pang of guilt over the fact that she may have been in some small way to blame.

“Shall we continue on our way?” he suggested, pushing away from the tree.

“Yes.”

It was a relief to walk again, and she could see the bridge and the end of the valley ahead and the grassy dunes that separated it from the beach.

They admired the three stone arches that supported the bridge as they passed beneath it and a few minutes later waded over the grassy sand dunes to the harder, more level sand of the small beach, which was enclosed by cliffs that drew the eye ahead to the blue, foam-flecked sea and upward to the paler blue of the sky. The stream had separated into many strands around the dunes and flowed in little runnels down the beach to the sea.

Yesterday, Anne thought, they had admitted their loneliness to each other. Today they had denied their fragility. Yesterday they had spoken the truth. Today, she suspected, they had both lied.

They were both fragile. He would never again paint. She would never have a husband and home and more children of her own.

“One cannot dwell upon what is forever lost,” he said as if his thoughts had been following a parallel path to hers. “I cannot grow back my eye and my arm just as you cannot get back your innocence or your reputation in the eyes of society. I have gained something that
was
possible for me, though. I have made myself into the best steward in all of Britain. Have you made yourself into the best teacher?”

He turned to look at her and she could see that his lips were drawn up into that strangely attractive, lopsided grin again.

“In Britain?” She set one hand over her heart and looked at him in mock horror. “I would disdain to set my goals so low, Mr. Butler. I have made myself into the
world's
best teacher.”

They both laughed at the silly joke—and she felt a sudden, totally startling sexual awareness of him.

She turned and ran lightly down the beach, stopping only when her feet threatened to sink into the wet sand left behind by the receding tide. She was seriously discomposed by her feelings. She usually had far better control over them. And to have such feelings for
him
—for Mr. Butler! She still found it hard to look directly at him.