He opened the door for her without betraying any emotion whatever.
‘It will be a bigger house, more responsibility, better wages,’ she said as she preceded him out of the house.
‘And to where, may I ask, are you planning to move?’
Did he have good reason for wanting to stay in the area? She frowned. She had never wondered about his private life before. Or considered he had a right to one. He’d always just been there. A servant. Not a real person.
She’d slipped into the habit of treating him exactly the same as her aunt had always done.
Well, those days were over.
‘Somewhere near Southampton. To be close to Fenella.’
‘And Miss Sophie,’ said Adams, his face softening in what looked like sympathy.
‘Yes. Of course, I will understand if you have...ties to this place and do not wish to move away. But I shall be sorry.’
He gave her a nod as he opened the garden gate for her. ‘I shall give the matter serious consideration,’ was all he would say.
Well, it was a big decision for anyone to make. He’d been here ever since she could remember. And not everyone liked change. Particularly not when they got to his age.
‘If you don’t come with me and would rather retire,’ she said, ‘I will make sure you have a decent pension.’
‘That is...generous of you,’ he acknowledged. ‘I had hoped, when your aunt passed, that she might have...’ He trailed away. But he had no need to elaborate. Her aunt had not left any of the servants anything.
She shook her head at the slavish way she’d moulded her behaviour to please her aunt. More evidence of her desperate need for approval, she sighed. Well, it had to stop. She wasn’t going to live to please anyone else, ever again. She would live by her own beliefs, act according to her own principles and stand on her own two feet.
* * *
Her own two feet carried her all the way to church without her mind having to direct their way. They carried her to the pew where she’d always sat without her having to think about that either.
The service commenced. She got to her feet, then dropped to her knees in all the appropriate places, but she was only going through the motions.
Because she couldn’t get over the fact that she’d been such a fool. She’d lost Nathan because she’d listened to her aunt’s warped views, rather than her own heart.
She’d been happy, in Paris, with him, she sighed. He’d helped her to unfurl, like a tightly defensive blossom in the warmth of spring sunshine. He hadn’t tried to dominate her, or change her. He’d just made her feel...first beautiful, then intelligent, and then as though she had an interesting personality. Oh, why hadn’t she remembered any of that when he’d said he loved her? Why hadn’t she been brave enough to take that leap of faith? Why had she listened to the nasty, suspicious voice in her head telling her he was only interested in her wealth?
She screwed her eyes shut as she repressed a groan. The whole point of travelling to Paris in the first place had been an attempt to...to break free. Hiring Fenella had been her first act of independence and defying her father over the will had been her second.
It was harder to break free from patterns of thought, she realised, than outward behaviour. She could leave Stanton Basset, buy fine clothes and even take a lover. But inside she was still the bewildered child who’d been denied unquestioning love so often that she’d grown the equivalent of a hedge of thorns round her heart.
She sank on to the pew, shutting her hymn book with a chill certainty. She was going to shrivel up and die alone because there would never be, had never been, any other man for her but Nathan.
Even now she knew the very worst of him, it made no difference. As soon as she’d calmed down and had time to reflect, she could see exactly why he’d done every bad thing he’d done. He’d tried, for years, to please his exacting father and then to maintain his honour whilst chained to a woman who despised him. Until he’d got to breaking point and lashed out in rage and pain. Just as she’d done when her own father had demonstrated his lack of faith in her.
But when he’d come to make a clean breast of it, to ask if they could make a fresh start, instead of reaching out to grasp at the chance of happiness, she’d scuttled back behind her hedge of thorns. Which no man could penetrate, without risking getting cut to ribbons.
There wasn’t a man alive who could possibly love her enough to do it.
The congregation was stirring, moving towards the door. She could scarcely believe that the service was over without her having taken in one word of it. But everyone else was already streaming out into the churchyard where they would mill about and gossip for at least half an hour.
She fumbled in her reticule for a handkerchief to blow her nose as tears stung her eyes. How on earth was she going to be able to endure the collective inquisition the citizens of Stanton Basset were bound to subject her to, when she was so raw she felt as though someone had been scouring her insides with a scrubbing brush?
The same way she always had, she supposed. With a series of terse, cutting words that would make them all retreat lest she turn the rapier sharpness of her tongue in their direction.
Oh, God—she deserved to end up alone!
‘My dear Miss Dalby, do excuse me, but there is someone I would love you to meet.’
All but thick-skinned Mrs Podmore, she sighed. Her unshakeable belief in herself rendered her impervious to even Amethyst’s barbs.
She stuffed her handkerchief back in her reticule and prepared herself to meet the poor woman Mrs Podmore had no doubt cajoled and bullied into applying for the post of her companion. She didn’t want to frighten the poor creature by unleashing her own pain in a display of venom.
Besides, it was herself she was cross with. If she’d had her wits about her she would have been first out of the door and marched straight down the path for home before anyone could waylay her. But it was too late now. She was well and truly trapped, with only herself to blame.
‘I did not have time to tell you our most interesting news,’ panted Mrs Podmore, ‘when I visited you the other day. But now I should like to introduce you to the newest resident of Stanton Basset.’ She stepped aside and waved her hand to summon the person who’d been hovering behind her, rather in the manner of a conjuror producing coins from thin air.
‘Allow me to present Mr Brown,’ she said, as Nathan stepped forwards.
Nathan? Here in Stanton Basset? Amethyst could not have been more stunned if Mrs Podmore had conjured up a unicorn from behind her velvet-and-bombazine bulk. She was glad she was still seated or her legs might have given way.
‘I am pleased to meet you, Miss Dalby,’ said Nathan suavely. ‘I have heard so much about you.’
‘Mr...Brown?’ She gazed at him in bewilderment. And excitement that warred with trepidation.
‘Mr Brown is an artist,’ said Mrs Podmore, completely oblivious, as usual, to the effect she was creating
