There on the shingle the boys took off their boots and dabbled their feet in the sea while I sat watching them.

The waves were a little rough on that day and every time one came in they would shriek with laughter, run forward daringly and then run back. Then they amused themselves by sending pebbles skimming over the water.

The noise of the sea, the odour of seaweed, the happy shrieks of the boys were a background to my thoughts. I remembered the boat’s coming in. I pictured Edwin and Harriet exchanging looks. I tried to remember what they had said, and how they had said it. It was there for me to see and I had been blind.

I was aware suddenly of a crunching of boots on the shingle and looking up I saw a man coming along. He carried a basket in which he had some pieces of driftwood and perhaps other things he had picked up during his beachcombing.

He was muttering to himself. “Sinful. Should be beaten.” I knew instinctively that I was face to face with Young Jethro whose father had murdered my husband. I could not let him pass. “Sinful?” I cried. “Who is sinful?” He pulled up and looked at me with fierce, fanatical eyes shaded by brownish yellow brows so untidy that they sprouted in all directions and threatened to cover his eyes themselves. His great pupils stood out, for the whites of his eyes showed all round them so he had a look of fierce surprise and horror. His mouth was tight and drawn in, turning down at each side.

“Them bits of sin,” he said pointing to the boys. “I can assure you that they do not know the meaning of sin.”

“You go against God’s Word, woman. We be all born in sin.”

“Even you?”

“God help me, yes.”

“Well since you share in the sin, why are you so eager to point it out in others?”

“Laughing, shrieking … two days off the Sabbath!” I felt angry with him. His father had killed Edwin. But for his father Edwin would not have died. I might never have discovered his infidelities. But could he have gone on through his life pretending …

“Nonsense,” I said, “people are meant to be happy.” He moved away from me as though he feared to be contaminated by such wickedness. “You’re a sinful woman,” he said. “God will not be mocked.” Edwin had seen the man. He thought I needed protecting and came running up.

“Mama, Mama, did you want me?”

I was so proud of him. He looked up boldly into that repulsive face and said: “Don’t you dare hurt my mama.”

I had risen to my feet and placed my hand protectively on my son’s head.

Recognition dawned on Young Jethro’s face. “I knew your father,” he said.

“My father was the best man in the world,” said Edwin.

“Ananias,” cried Young Jethro. “Ananias.”

“What does he mean, Mama?” asked Edwin.

I did not speak. I was very shaken by this man who knew so much about my husband.

“The wages of sin …” muttered Young Jethro, his eyes on Edwin.

Leigh came running up. He was breathless. “I’ve thrown a pebble over and over the water. It’s gone all the way to France.”

“It couldn’t have,” said Edwin.

“It did. It did. I saw it go.”

Young Jethro had gone off muttering, “And the wages of sin is death.”

“Who’s that old man?” asked Leigh.

But Edwin was thinking of the pebble which had gone skimming across the water to France and was determined to throw one himself.

“Show me,” he said. “I’ll send one farther than you.”

They raced back to the water while I watched the retreating figure of Young Jethro.

I think I knew it was going to happen, and when I was sure, I felt a sense of relief because fate had made up my mind for me.

I knew I must act quickly and I did.

When I was alone with Carleton, I said: “I am pregnant.”

His eyes lighted up. His face seemed to shine with the enormity of his satisfaction.

“My dearest Arabella. I knew it.” He had lifted me in his arms. He held me tightly. He kissed me again and again. We were in the garden and I said: “We could be seen.”

“Does it matter? A man is allowed to embrace his future wife. Oh, my dear girl, this is the happiest moment of my life.”

“It is what you wanted. You will be Edwin’s stepfather and Eversleigh will be yours in all but name.”

“As if I was thinking of Eversleigh.”

“You know you always are thinking of it.”

“I am thinking of everything. My wife and already carrying our child. That is wonderful. I am an impatient man, you will find, my darling. This suits my mood. I am to acquire a wife and a child in the shortest possible space of time.”

“I see no alternative but marriage,” I said, trying to sound doleful.

“There is no alternative. I shall go straight in and tell my uncle. I know he’ll be delighted. It was what he wanted. Or shall we marry secretly? Then we might have another ceremony and festivities later. That would account for the early arrival of our child.”

“I did not think you were one to set such store by the proprieties.”

“I like to observe them when they fit in with my needs. Oh, Arabella, I am a happy man this day. That which I have so long desired has come to pass. Yes, let us marry in secret. I will arrange for a priest to do this. Then we will tell my uncle, and I know they will probably want another ceremony and celebrations here.”

“There seems no point in such subterfuge.”

“Yes. Because the sort of wedding they will wish us to have might take a little time to arrange. There is our child to consider. We want him to make a respectable entrance into the world.”

“Please do not think I am duty bound to provide you with a boy.”

“Believe me, it is Arabella I want. I shall be grateful for whatever she deigns to give me. Leave this to me, Arabella. Arabella, how I adore you.”

“At least,” I said, “I should be grateful that you are ready to make an honest woman of me.”

“Never change.” He smiled at me gently. “I could not bear you to change. There was always something of the polygamist in me, so I need my two Arabellas. Arabella of the sharp tongue by day and Arabella adorable, loving me as I love her in the dark of the night.”

“There is only one of me, you know. Do you think I can really supply all your needs?”

“You already have the answer to that. Proof positive.”

He went off that day and did not come back until the morning of the following one. I was to meet him at the stables that afternoon. We rode off some five miles together and there in a small church we were married. Two of his Court friends were witnesses.

I said: “It is exactly like what I hear of a mock marriage. I believe that is a practice some of your profligate friends indulge in now and then.”

“Alas, they do. But this is no mockery. This is true and binding. We shall go straight back to Eversleigh and I will tell my uncle that we are married, but I shall not tell him when the ceremony took place. I’ll promise you he will insist on our being married in the Eversleigh church with many spectators and a feast to follow. Then you will not be able to say it is like a mock marriage.”

I felt an odd elation, a desire not to look beyond the moment. I was too excited to be unhappy.

By a stream we paused to rest awhile. We tethered the horses and sat on the grass.

Carleton took my hand and said: “So at last it has happened.”

“You always knew it would, didn’t you?” I said. “You made up your mind and what you decide you want you get eventually.”

“It seems to work that way,” he admitted with unaccustomed modesty.

I looked at the ring he had put on my finger. I had taken off that which Edwin had given me and had left it in a drawer in my court cupboard.

He took my hand and kissed the ring. Then he put his arms about me and drew me down beside him.

I said uneasily: “We should be going.”

He answered that we should celebrate our marriage.

I knew what he meant and I tried to rise. “Someone could come past,” I said.

“This is a very isolated spot. Besides, I want you now. Do you realize this stupendous fact? You and I have just been married.”

Then he held me to him and laughed and the leaves fluttered down on us as he made love to me.

The notion came to me that it would always be what he wanted unless I firmly resisted which, I promised myself, I should do if the inclination so moved me.

But I would be honest. I was elated. I didn’t know whether this was happiness. It was not what I had found with Edwin, but I wanted no more of that.

Excitement, passion, satisfaction. How much more appealing than romantic love!

I never intend to be hurt again, I told myself.

Carleton was right. There was great rejoicing when my father and mother-in-law were told the news.

“You sly dog,” cried Lord Eversleigh, gripping Carleton’s hand. “Marrying in secret, eh? Keeping it from us.”

Matilda embraced me warmly. “My dearest daughter,” she said, “for that is what you are to me. Nothing could have pleased me more.” She whispered: “You will be so good for Carleton … after that unfortunate marriage. It makes everything so right.”

“Why did you keep it secret?” asked Charlotte; her voice was cool but there was a strange edge to it.

Carleton was ready for her. “We decided on the spur of the moment. We knew that if we announced a formal betrothal, you would have wanted us to wait and do everything in style. I know you, Aunt Matilda.”

“Yes,” said her husband, “that would have been just like you, Matilda.”

“Naturally I should have wanted to have had a beautiful wedding. In fact …”

“It’s coming,” said Carleton. “What did I tell you, Arabella?”

Then Matilda said that of course if would be pleasant to have another celebration. That could be done. “Everyone will be so disappointed if we don’t. We owe it to everyone on the estate …”

Carleton looked at me and smiled.

“We’ll consider it, eh, Arabella.”

I said we would, for I could see that Matilda was already making her plans.

She thought that we should have a ceremony in the church—people never really liked those secret ceremonies—and there would be a reception afterwards at the house. The servants should have theirs in the hall beyond the screens. It was traditional.

“We must let everyone know that it is a repeat performance,” said Carleton.

“Oh …” said Matilda, a slow smile spreading across her face.

Then she turned to me and embraced me. “You have brought great happiness to Eversleigh, Arabella … as always.”

Charlotte sought an opportunity to speak to me. I was passing her bedroom and she called me in to show me, she said, how she was progressing with a piece of tapestry she was working. That was just a pretext, I quickly realized.

“I am thinking of working in a new shade of red, so you think it would be the right thing to do?”

I said I thought it would be very good.

“So you are already married to Carleton?” she went on.

“Yes.”

“It seems so strange. I thought you didn’t like him. Were you pretending?”

“Of course not. It was just … our way.”

“You always seemed to be sparring together … trying to score over each other.”

“I suppose we were.”

“Then how could you be …?”

“Relationships are complicated, Charlotte.”

“I see that they are. You were different with Edwin.”

My lips tightened. “Yes,” I said.

“You loved Edwin dearly. It was a terrible tragedy. People suffer when they fall in love. Perhaps it would be better not to.”

“That’s certainly a point of view.”

“Was Carleton implying that you are already …?”

“I am going to have a child,” I said.

“Is that why … I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that. It was just that it was such a surprise. You and Carleton, when I thought you disliked him. Of course I knew he was interested in you … but then, if all accounts are true, he is interested in lots of women.”

“From now on,” I said lightly, “he will have to be interested in one only.”

“Do you think that you can make a man interested in you only?”

“I believe that is what a wife must find out for herself by trying, of course.”

“You are attractive, Arabella. I’ve always seen that. It was only when that woman came …”

“You mean Harriet,” I said firmly.