by Mary Balogh
Sometimes Samantha wanted to scream.
And Gabriel and Albert quite clearly shared all those affections with their wives.
Samantha had been at Chalcote since just before Christmas. The Boyles had been there for a month. Aunt Agatha—Lady Brill—Samantha’s constant companion, had come with her. Lord Francis Kneller, another of Gabriel’s friends, had been there for a week. Everything was so wonderful, so peaceful, so cheerful, so domesticated. Everyone, it seemed, was in the process of living happily ever after.
Oh, yes. Samantha’s steps quickened. Sometimes she could scream and scream and scream.
And she felt horribly guilty. No one could be kinder to her than Jenny and Gabriel. At least Jenny was her cousin. Gabriel was nothing to her, and yet he treated her with as much courtesy and even affection as if she were his cousin, too. It was horribly ungrateful to want to scream at their domestic bliss. She did not resent their happiness. Indeed, she was very happy for them. Their marriage had had such an inauspicious beginning. And she had felt that it was partly her fault. …
No, it was not that she resented them. It was just that … Well, she did not know just what it was. It was not jealousy or even envy. Darkly handsome as Gabriel was, she had never felt attracted to him herself. And she was not in search of a man of her own. She did not believe in love. Not for herself, anyway. And she had no intention of marrying. She wanted to remain free and independent. She was almost both already—Uncle Gerald had not kept firm reins on her since she reached her majority. But when she was five-and-twenty, her parents’ small fortune would be hers to manage herself.
She could hardly wait.
Her life was as she wanted it to be. She was not lonely. She had Aunt Aggy all the time, there were always Jenny and Gabriel to be visited, there were numerous other friends. And there was that group of gentlemen whom it pleased Gabriel to call her court. It was flatteringly large, considering her advanced age. She believed it was so large just because all its members knew very well that she intended never to marry. They felt safe flirting with her and sighing over her and sometimes stealing kisses from her, and even occasionally making her marriage offers. Francis had made her two, Sir Robin Talbot one, and Jeremy Nicholson so many that both of them had lost count.
Her life was as she wanted it to be. And yet … She could not even complete the thought. She supposed it was the normal human condition never to be quite happy, quite satisfied. She did not know what it was that was missing from her life, if anything. When she turned five-and-twenty, perhaps everything would be finally perfect. And there was not long to wait.
She did not know where she was walking. Except that it was in the opposite direction from the lake. And again she felt guilty. Jenny’s Michael and Rosalie’s Emily, both five years old, were intelligent and interesting children. Rosalie’s Jane, three years old, was a mischief, and Jenny’s Mary, aged two, was a sweetheart. Rosalie was in a delicate way again and was due to deliver later in the spring. Perhaps for Jenny’s sake Samantha should have gone with them.
She recognized where she was when she came to the line of trees. She was close to the boundary between Chalcote and Highmoor. They were two unusually large estates adjoining each other. Highmoor belonged to the Marquess of Carew, but Samantha had never met him. He was from home a great deal. He was from home now.
She walked among the trees. There was no real sign of spring yet above her head, though the sky was blue and there was definite warmth in the air. The branches were still bare. But soon now there would be buds, and then young leaves, and then a green canopy. There were snowdrops and primroses growing among the trees, though. And there was the stream, which she knew was the exact boundary line, though she had not walked in this particular place before. She strolled to the edge of it and gazed down into the clear water gurgling over the stones at the bottom of the streambed.
Not far to her left she could see broad stepping-stones that would take one safely across to the other side. After strolling toward them and hesitating for only a moment, she crossed them and smiled to find that Highmoor land looked and felt the same as Chalcote land.
She had no wish to turn back yet. If she returned to the house, Aunt Aggy might be up after her rest and Samantha would be obliged to bear her company. Not that she did not love her aunt dearly, but … well, sometimes she just liked to be alone. Besides, it was far too lovely an afternoon for part of it to be wasted indoors. The winter had been long enough and cold enough.
Samantha continued on her way through the trees, expecting that soon she would come out into open land again and would be able to see the estate. Perhaps she would be able to glimpse the house, though she did not know if it was close. On such a large estate it might be miles away. Jenny had told her, though, that it was a magnificent house, with features of the old abbey it had once been still visible from the outside.
The trees did not thin out. But the land rose quite steadily and quite steeply. Samantha climbed, pausing a few times to lean one hand against the trunk of a tree. She must be dreadfully out of condition, she thought, panting and feeling the heat of the sun almost as if it were July rather than early March.
But finally she was rewarded for her effort. The land and the forest continued upward—there was even a quite visible path now—but to one side of her the land fell away sharply to open grassland below. And Highmoor Abbey was in the distance, though she had no clear view of it. She moved about a bit, until finally there was almost a clear opening downhill, with only one tree obstructing the view. There was no seeing it quite clearly, it seemed, and the slope looked rather too steep to be scrambled down.
But there was a feeling of magnificence. A feeling of excitement, almost. It looked wilder than Chalcote, more magical.
“Yes, that tree does need to be removed,” a voice said from quite close by, making Samantha jump with alarm. “I was just noticing the same thing.”
He was leaning against a tree, one booted foot propped back against it. She felt an instant surging of relief. She had expected to see an arrogant and irate Marquess of Carew—not that she had ever seen him before, of course. It would have been unbearably humiliating to have been caught trespassing and gawking at his ancestral home. Even this was bad enough.
Her first impression that he was a gardener was dismissed even before she reacted to his words. He spoke with cultured English accents, even though he was dressed very informally and not at all elegantly in a brown coat that would have made Weston of Old Bond Street shudder for a week without stopping, breeches that looked as if they were worn for comfort rather than good fit, and top boots that had seen not only better days, but better years.
He was a very ordinary looking gentleman, neither tall nor short, neither herculean nor puny, neither handsome nor ugly. His hair—he was not wearing a hat—was a nondescript brown. His eyes looked gray.
A very unthreatening looking gentleman, she was happy to note. He must be the marquess’s steward, or perhaps a minion of the steward.
“I—I do beg your pardon,” she said. “I was, um, I was trespassing.”
“I will not have the constables sent out to arrest you and haul you before the nearest magistrate,” he said. “Not this time, anyway.” His eyes were smiling. They were very nice eyes, Samantha decided, definitely a distinguishing feature in an otherwise very ordinary face.
“I am staying at Chalcote,” she said, pointing downward through the trees. “With my cousin, the Countess of Thornhill. And her husband, the Earl of Thornhill,” she added unnecessarily.
He continued to smile at her with his eyes and she found herself beginning to relax. “Have you never seen Highmoor Abbey before?” he asked. “It is rather splendid, is it not? If that tree were not there, you would have the best view of it from this vantage point. The tree will be moved.”
“Moved?” She smiled broadly at him. “Plucked out and planted somewhere else, just like a flower?”
“Yes,” he said. “Why kill a tree when it need n
ot die?”
He was serious.
“But it is so huge,” she said, laughing.
He pushed away from the tree trunk against which he had been leaning and came toward her. He walked with a decided limp, Samantha noticed. She also noticed that he held his right arm cradled against his side, his wrist and hand turned in against his hip. He was wearing leather gloves.
“Oh, did you hurt yourself?” she asked.
“No.” He stopped beside her. He was not a great deal taller than she, and she was considered small. “Not recently, anyway.”
She felt herself blushing uncomfortably. How gauche of her. The man was partly crippled and she had asked if he had hurt himself.
“You see?” he said, pointing downward with his good arm. “If the tree is moved, there will be a full frontal view of the abbey from here, perfectly centered between the other trees on the slope. It is all of two miles away, but an artist could not have done better on a canvas, could he? Except to have left that particular tree off the slope. We will be artists and imagine it removed. Soon it will be removed in fact. We can be artists with nature as surely as with watercolors or oils, you see. It is merely a matter of having an eye for the picturesque or the majestic, or merely for what will be visually pleasing.”
“Are you the steward here?” she asked.
“No.” He turned his head to look at her over his outstretched arm before lowering it.
“I did not think you could be a gardener,” she said. “Your accent suggests that you are a gentleman.” She blushed again. “I do beg your pardon. It is none of my business, especially as a trespasser.” But it struck her suddenly that perhaps he was a trespasser, too.
“I am Hartley Wade,” he said, still looking into her face.
“How do you do, Mr. Wade,” she said. She extended her right hand to him rather than curtsying—he did not seem the sort of man to whom one would curtsy. “Samantha Newman.”
“Miss Newman,” he said, “I am pleased to make your acquaintance.”
He shook her hand with his right one. She could feel through his glove that his hand was thin and the fingers stiffly bent. She was afraid to exert any pressure and was sorry then for the impulsive gesture of offering the handshake.
“I am considered something of a landscape artist,” he said. “I have tramped the estates of many of England’s most prominent landowners, giving them advice on how they can make the most of their parks. Many people believe that having well-kept formal gardens before the house and regularly mown lawns is enough.”
“And it is not?” she asked.
“Not always. Not often.” His eyes were smiling again. “Formal gardens are not always even particularly attractive, especially if the land before the house is unusually flat and there is no possibility of terracing. One would have to be suspended in the sky—in a balloon, perhaps—and looking downward to appreciate the full effect. And usually there is a great deal more to parks than just the house and the mile or so of land directly in front of it. Parks can be extremely pleasant places in which to walk and relax and feast the senses if one exercises just a little care and planning in organizing them.”
“Oh,” she said, smiling. “And is that what you are doing here? Has the Marquess of Carew employed you to tramp about his park and give him advice?”
“He is about to have one of his trees repositioned at the very least,” he said.
“Will he mind?” she asked.
“When someone asks for advice,” he said, “he had better be prepared to hear some. A number of things have already been done here to make the most of nature, and to add to it and change it just a little for more pleasing effects. This is not my first visit, you see. But it is always possible to imagine new improvements. As with that tree. I cannot understand how it has escaped my notice before now. Once it is gone, a stone grotto can be erected here so that the marquess and his guests can sit here and enjoy the prospect at their leisure.”
“Yes.” She looked about her. “It would be the perfect spot, would it not? It would be wonderfully peaceful. If I lived here, I believe I would spend a great deal of time sitting in such a grotto, thinking and dreaming.”
“Two very underrated activities,” he said. “I am glad you appreciate them, Miss Newman. Or one might be tempted to sit, perhaps, with a special companion, one with whom one can talk or be silent with equal comfort.”
She looked at him with sudden understanding. Yes, that was what it was. That was it. That was what was missing. She had felt it and wondered about it and puzzled over it. And here was the answer, so simple that she had not even considered it before. She had no special companion. No one with whom she could be silent in comfort. Even with her dearest relatives, Aunt Aggy and Jenny, she always felt the necessity to converse.
“Yes,” she said, a curious ache in her throat. “That would be pleasant. Very pleasant.”
“Are you in a hurry to return to Chalcote?” he asked. “Or is there anyone who will be anxious over your absence? A chaperone, perhaps?”
“I have outgrown the need for chaperones, Mr. Wade,” she said. “I am four-and-twenty years old.”
“You do not look it,” he said, smiling. “Would you like to stroll up over the hill, then, and see some of the improvements that have already been made and hear some of my ideas for new ones?”
It was very improper. She was a lady very much alone in a wooded area of the countryside with a strange gentleman, albeit a very ordinary and rather shabby gentleman. She should have turned very firmly in the direction of home. But there was nothing at all threatening about him. He was pleasant. And he had aroused a curiosity in her to see how nature could be manipulated, but not harmed or destroyed, for the pleasure of humans.
“I should like that,” she said, looking up the slope.
“I have always thought the marquess was fortunate,” he said, “having the hill on his land, while the Earl of Thornhill was left with the flat land. Hills have so many possibilities. Do you need assistance?”
“No.” She laughed. “I am just ashamed of my breathlessness. The winter has been endless, and I have been far too long without strenuous exercise.”
“We are almost at the top,” he said. His limp was quite a bad one, she noticed, but he appeared far more fit than she. “There is a folly there, in a very obvious place. I normally like to be more subtle, but the marquess has assured me that any guests he brings this way are always thankful for the chance to sit and rest there.”
Samantha was thankful for it, too. They sat side by side on the stone seat inside the mock temple, looking down over the tops of the trees to the fields and meadows below. The house could be seen over to one side, but it was not as splendid a view as would be that from the top of the slope where she had stood earlier. He pointed out to her places where trees had been removed and replanted in previous years. He indicated two paths down the steeper part of the slope, each leading to a folly that had been carefully placed for the view it afforded. He explained that there was a lake just out of sight that he was particularly working on this year.
“The secret is,” he said, “to leave an area looking as if all its beauty and effects are attributable to nature. The lake must look like an area of wild beauty by the time I have finished with it. In reality I will have made several changes. I will take you down there afterward and show you if you wish.”
But he made no immediate move to do so. They were sheltered from the slight breeze where they sat, and the sun shone directly on them. It felt almost warm. There were birds singing in the trees, almost invisible except when one rose into the air for some reason before settling back again. And there were all the fresh smells of spring.
They sat in silence for many minutes, though Samantha was largely unaware of the fact. There was no awkwardness, no feeling that the conversation must be picked up again. There was too much of nature to enjoy for it to be missed in conversation.
She sighed at last. “This has been wonderful,” she sa
id. “Wonderfully relaxing. I could have gone to the lake at Chalcote with my cousin and Lady Boyle, one of her other guests, and their children. At the risk of offending them, I preferred to be alone.”
“And I ruined that attempt,” he said.
“No.” She turned her head to smile at him. “Being with you has been as good as being alone, Mr. Wade.” And then she laughed, only partly embarrassed. “Oh, dear, I did not mean that the way it sounded. I mean I have enjoyed your company and been comfortable with you. Thank you for opening my eyes to what I had not even thought about before.”
“It is too late to go down to the lake now,” he said. “It must be past teatime, and you will be missed. Perhaps some other time?”
“I would love to,” she said. “But you are working. I would not want to waste your time.”
“Artists,” he said, “and writers and musicians are often accused of being idle when they are staring into space. Often they are hardest at work at such times. I have been sitting here beside you, Miss Newman, having ideas for my—employer’s park. I would not have sat here, perhaps, if I had not been with you, and would not therefore have had the ideas. Will you come again? Tomorrow, perhaps? Here, at the same time we met today?”
“Yes,” she said, coming to a sudden decision. She could not recall an afternoon she had enjoyed more since coming to Chalcote almost three months before. The thought made her feel disloyal to Jenny and Gabriel, who had been so kind to her. “Yes, I will.”
“Come,” he said, getting to his feet. “I shall escort you as far as the stream.” His eyes smiled at her in that attractive way he had—almost the only thing about him that was actually physically attractive, she thought. “I must see you safely off Carew’s property.”
She was afraid that all the walking would be hard on his infirmity, but she did not like to mention it again. He limped beside her all the way back down the hill to the stream. They talked the whole while, though she would not have been able to say afterward exactly what they talked about.
