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.

He had come after her, she realized. She turned her head to smile at him.

“Listen!” she said.