Free Simply Love by Mary Balogh Page B

sought him out to beg his pardon. And then she had mentioned her child and her feeling of intimidation as Bewcastle’s guest. Her beauty, he had realized, did not give her an immunity to feelings of insecurity. But then he supposed that unwed mothers did not have easy lives. In her own way she had quite possibly gone through hell and back just as he had, the only real difference being that his hell was visible to the beholder whereas hers was not.
    He moved, intending to turn and walk in the opposite direction from the one she took. But something must have caught at the edge of her vision, and she turned her head to look at him and then stopped walking.
    It would have been churlish to make off in another direction. And of course, he did not really want to even though he did not wish to walk with her either. He made his way reluctantly across the beach toward her.
    She was wearing a pale blue high-waisted dress, whose hem she held above her ankles on one side. Her hair was dressed more simply than it had been last evening. Somehow she looked more beautiful. She looked quite achingly lovely, in fact. She looked strangely as if this were her proper milieu, as if she belonged here.
    â€œMr. Butler,” she said as soon as he was within earshot. “Everyone went back to the house quite awhile ago. I stayed to enjoy the quiet after all the noise and turmoil.”
    â€œI am sorry to have disturbed you, then,” he said.
    â€œOh, you need not be,” she said. “I daresay
I
am disturbing
you
.”
    â€œDid everyone enjoy the picnic?” he asked her, stopping at the edge of the wet sand a short distance from her.
    â€œI believe so.” For a moment she looked bleak, but then she smiled and her eyes sparkled with such merriment that he was suddenly dazzled by her. “The duchess went paddling in the waves with a few of the children, but somehow she lost her balance and fell right in. And then the duke waded out to rescue her, Hessian boots and all, and got himself almost as wet as she. The other adults thought it all a huge joke, and the children screeched with glee. The duchess was laughing helplessly too even though her teeth were chattering. It was all quite extraordinary.”
    â€œThat would have been something to behold,” he said. “Bewcastle wading into the sea with his boots on. Did he laugh too?”
    â€œOh, no,” she said. “And yet there was a certain gleam in his eyes that might possibly have been inner laughter.”
    They grinned merrily at each other. To add to all her other perfections, she had white, even teeth.
    â€œI should go back to the house,” she said, her smile fading, “and leave you here in peace.”
    It was what he wanted, surely. It was what he had come in search of. He certainly had not come here looking for her. And yet…
    â€œShall we stroll together for a while?” he suggested.
    He realized suddenly what it was he had most admired about her last evening—and she was doing it again today. She was looking directly into his face. Most people, he had observed, either did not look quite at him at all or else focused their eyes on his left ear or his left shoulder. With most people he felt the urge to turn his head slightly to the side so that they would not have to be repulsed quite so badly. He did not feel that urge with her, though she
had
run from him at first.
    She might be repulsed by him, he thought—and how could she
not
be?—but she was displaying unusual courtesy in her dealings with him. He was grateful to her.
    â€œYes.” Her gaze dropped to his top boots and she smiled again. “Shall I come onto the dry sand?”
    But he walked deliberately onto the wet sand and fell into step beside her.
    They strolled in silence for a while. He watched the sun sparkle off the water and felt the light breeze against his left cheek. He breathed in the salt warmth of the air and had the feeling that had