“And to have the Duke of Bewcastle for a brother-in-law,” Susanna said, smiling at Anne, her eyes dancing with merriment. She even winked when Claudia was not looking. “It is a great shame that he is married. I would have come with you and wooed him. It is still my primary goal in life to marry a duke.”

Claudia snorted-and then chuckled.

“Between the two of you,” she said, “you will have me plucking gray hairs from my head every night until I am bald before the age of forty.”

“I do envy you, Anne,” Susanna said, setting down her bonnet and sitting up straighter in her chair. “The idea of a month by the sea in Wales is very appealing, is it not? If you do not want to take David yourself, I will take him. He and I get along famously.”

Her eyes were still twinkling, but Anne could see some wistfulness in their depths. Susanna was twenty-two years old and exquisitely lovely, with her small stature and auburn hair and green eyes. She had come to the school at the age of twelve as a charity girl, after failing to find employment in London as a lady’s maid by pretending to be older. Six years later she had stayed at the school after Miss Martin offered her a position on her staff, and she had accomplished the transition from pupil to teacher remarkably well. Anne did not know much about her life before the age of twelve, but she did know that Susanna was all alone in the world. She had never had any beaux even though she turned male heads whenever she stepped out on the street. Sunny-natured though she was, there was always an air of melancholy about her that only a close friend would sense.

“Are you quite, quite sure, Anne,” Claudia asked, “that you would not rather stay here for the summer? But no, of course you would not. And you are quite right. David does need the companionship of other children, especially boys, and this is a very good opportunity for him. Go then with my blessing-not that you need it-and try to steer as clear of adult Bedwyns as you would the plague.”

“I solemnly swear,” Anne said, raising her right hand. “Though it is just as likely to be the other way around.”

It was not that he felt intimidated, but Sydnam Butler was nevertheless moving out of Glandwr House into the thatched, whitewashed cottage that lay in a small clearing among the trees not far from the sea cliffs on one side and the park gates and driveway on the other.

As steward of the estate for the past five years, Sydnam had lived in his own spacious apartments in the main house, and he had always continued to live there even when the owner, the Duke of Bewcastle, was in residence. Bewcastle had always come alone and had never stayed for longer than a few weeks at a time. He had always kept much to himself while he was there, though he had visited and entertained neighbors as courtesy dictated. He had spent part of his days with his steward, since catching up with estate business had been the main reason for such visits, and he had usually invited Sydnam to dine when there was no other company.

Those visits had been totally unthreatening, though Bewcastle could be a strict taskmaster. Since Sydnam was a conscientious steward and took as much pride in running Bewcastle’s Welsh estate as he would have done were it his own, there had never been any cause for unpleasantness.

But this coming visit was going to be altogether different from what he was accustomed to. This time Bewcastle was bringing his wife with him. Sydnam had never met the Duchess of Bewcastle. He had heard from his brother Kit, Viscount Ravensberg, who lived on the estate adjoining Lindsey Hall, that she was a jolly good sort, who had been known to coax laughter even from such a perennial iceberg as Bewcastle. And he had heard from his sister-in-law Lauren, the viscountess, that the duchess loved everyone and everyone returned the compliment, including-to the incredulity of all who had witnessed the phenomenon-Bewcastle himself. Lauren had added that the duke was, in fact, in a fair way to doting on her.

Sydnam was somewhat shy with strangers, especially when they were to be sharing a roof with him. And no sooner had he grown accustomed to the idea that the duchess was accompanying Bewcastle on this particular visit than he received another brief letter from his grace’s secretary to the effect that all the other Bedwyns were coming too, with their spouses and children, to spend a month or so by the sea.

Sydnam had grown up with the Bedwyns. They had all been playmates together, despite a broad range in their ages-the boisterous Bedwyn boys, the fierce Freyja, who had always refused to be treated as a girl, and young Morgan, who though the youngest of them all and female to boot had usually found a way to be included in the frolics; and the Butlers, Kit and Sydnam and their late eldest brother, Jerome. All except Wulfric, now Bewcastle, in fact.

Sydnam was not intimidated by the prospect of their coming to Glandwr, then. He was only a little overwhelmed by it. They were all married now. He had met some of their spouses-Lady Aidan, Lady Rannulf, the Marquess of Hallmere-and he had found them all amiable enough. And they all had children now. Perhaps if there were some small feeling of intimidation, that was its cause. They were very young children who would very possibly look at him with fear and not understand.

And even apart from all else there was the fact that the house, large as it was, would be unceasingly busy with so many people coming and going and making noise.

Sydnam was not a recluse. As Bewcastle’s steward he had to see all sorts of people on business. There were also neighbors who liked to consult him on farming issues and other matters to do with the land and the community in which they all lived together. And he had a few personal friends-the Welsh minister and the schoolmaster in particular. His acquaintances were almost exclusively male, though. There had been one or two women during the past five years who had indicated a willingness to pursue a relationship with him-it was no secret, he supposed, that he was a son of the Earl of Redfield and independently wealthy even though he worked for a living. But he had given them no encouragement. He had always been very well aware that it was his social status and his wealth that had encouraged them to overlook a physical revulsion that none of them had been quite able to hide.

He had been content to live a quiet, semireclusive life since coming here. He liked this part of southwest Wales, which was in many ways anglicized but in which one nevertheless heard lilting accents in the English language and often the Welsh language itself being spoken, and where one sensed a love of sea and mountain and heard a love of music and was aware of a deep spirituality that denoted a culture both ancient and richly developed.

He wanted to live out the rest of his life here. There was a house and property-Ty Gwyn, White House in English, though in fact it was a manor built of gray stone-that were separate from Glandwr though they adjoined it and were owned by Bewcastle, having been purchased by a former duke. Ty Gwyn was unentailed. It was Sydnam’s dream and his hope that he could persuade Bewcastle to sell it to him. He would then own his own home and land, though he would be able to continue as Glandwr’s steward if Bewcastle so wished.

Having to face the bustle of a large gathering at Glandwr was just too much for him when he was accustomed to the vast, empty, quiet house. And so he was moving out and into the cottage, at least until the house was empty again.

He resented the expected intrusion, if the truth were known, even though he knew that he had no right to object to a man’s coming to his own home with his own wife and his brothers and sisters-and anyone else he chose to invite for that matter.