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CHAPTER SIX

S he would have to leave Greenfield, and she couldn’t return to Vine Court. Anne needed a plan.

She needed to talk to Daron, but he was nowhere to be found.

Anne walked around and through the house several times, and at last saw some sense to the labyrinth.

The main block, two stories with its five bays of windows, held the reception rooms, along with the front door under its pedimented porch and the hall with its grand marble stair.

She’d peeked into most of the rooms in the wing that spread out to the west, dressing rooms, bedchambers, a grand dining parlor, and a library.

The servants’ quarters and kitchen offices extended to the back, places Anne didn’t set foot and Daron wouldn’t, either.

She knew the gardens better. There was the walled Elizabethan garden, where Hewitt Vaughn had found her.

There was a stately parterre, mostly roses and shrubs, a few small trees in the corners.

She’d wandered through a vegetable and herb garden, property of the kitchens, and threaded through the fruit trees in the orchard.

She’d ventured down to the fish pond, not close enough to peer in—she didn’t care what kind of fish lived there—and she’d passed a paddock where sleek, well-fed horses raised their heads to examine her.

Perhaps Daron had walked into Rogerstone, a hamlet of not more than five hundred souls, but Anne doubted it held any amusements beyond a public house, the church, and perhaps a village green where people would stare at her if she wandered through.

Greenfield lay at the foot of unfolding hills—as did most every place in Wales, even here along the fringes of the sea—but Anne was not one to set out on solitary rambles across countryside she didn’t know, and who would go with her?

Daron would not have left on his own, abandoning Anne at Greenfield—would he? But with Hewitt Vaughn returned, he must know all of his and Calvin’s plans were a loss.

Anne had never been alone in her life. There was always a maid, a mother, a neighbor, a friend. Family. A house guest. Someone to chaperone, someone to oversee. Gwen, for all those years, growing at her side like clematis and ivy.

She ought to be terrified at the prospect of solitude.

But instead, Anne felt that stirring inside her once more.

All her life she had been a dragonfly nymph, clinging to her branch, afraid to become prey.

Now her skin was falling away, everything inside of her shifting, and something new was emerging. Something with wings.

Calvin Vaughn was nowhere to be found, either, but his absence was a reprieve.

Lady Vaughn disappeared into the kitchens to confer with Mrs. Harries on how they might welcome Hewitt home.

As it seemed she would not be turned out until after dinner, Anne dressed for it, dispensing with the need for a maid and pulling on a simple round gown of spotted muslin.

She mustn’t soil it, because she didn’t have many.

Say no. Refuse to marry.

If she did not marry, there would be no new gowns, not for a long while. And if Calvin married her without his brother’s approval, very likely his source of funds would be cut off. She would live in genteel poverty with a husband she could not like and knew his neighbors did not respect.

Not that she wanted a husband who would make it impossible to hire decent maids. What she wanted was that someone else—including Hewitt Vaughn—not settle her life for her. Anne wanted, for the first time, to decide something for herself.

Embroidery always soothed her. She loved the precision of it, the steady progress, the orderly stitches that in time came together to form something useful and beautiful.

Daron was most likely roaming the park, so Anne took her embroidery to the small terrace at the back of the house where she could wait for him.

The raised patio opened onto careful landscaping that had improved upon nature’s choices, creating small coppices in their swales of green that sloped down to the meandering river.

There, the gently sloping hills to the south grew spines and climbed to rounded mountains in the west. The prospect reminded her of Llanfyllin and the familiar features of home, and a wild loneliness pierced Anne’s heart.

She’d be surrounded by people had she stayed at St. Sefin’s. But would she feel less alone? Her friendship with Gwen had been broken beyond repair. The acquaintances she’d had in Llanfyllin had all, to a one, gone and married or taken up their trades. Anne had no companion left except Daron.

The rumble of a masculine voice reached her ear. Not Daron’s voice; Hewitt Vaughn. The library sat beside the terrace, with a French door that opened onto the flagged stone. He must be meeting his solicitor there.

She could not escape him, wherever she went.

“—that much a loss in profits?” His low voice held concern.

Another man answered, his voice high, nasal, peeved. “—divested as you instructed,” Anne heard. “I warned you to expect a significant loss.”

“No wonder my mother is fretting. Still, I refuse to profit from such a shameful …” Hewitt’s voice drifted away. It sounded as if he were moving through the room.

A treacherous impulse slowed Anne’s feet. Eavesdroppers never heard well of themselves, her mother always said. But even her scrupulous mother would be led to listen if she happened across the men deciding her fate.

Someone had conveniently placed a willow chair on the terrace, along with the small folding table. It was designed for gentle repose. Anne had already tossed her pride to the wind a dozen times this day. What was one more trespass?

Embroidery was the one thing she was good at, Anne reflected as she waited for the gentlemen to move back near the window.

Her stitches were neat and even. She had a fine eye for color and the harmony of a design.

Her creations were graceful and elegant, and hardly anyone outside her own household saw them.

Could she make a trade out of that, making and selling embroidery for fine ladies? She could design trousseaus or help with special occasions, baptismal gowns, court gowns. Dress debutantes for their come-out, brides for their weddings. Could she earn enough to support herself?

But she was a gentlewoman, and gentlewomen did not go into trade.

Their work was to create a comfortable and charming home for their husbands, lay a pleasant table when hosting dinners, offer an elegant tea.

A housewife used her skill at numbers to ensure the accounts were in order and they were not being robbed by merchants or servants.

A gentlewoman displayed her embroidery in the altar cloths she decorated for church and chapel, for the darling clocks she stitched on stockings for herself and her children.

Anne plunged her needle into the linen cloth.

That urge to break something was still upon her.

Or rather, the sense as she sat in that chapel watching Gwen put her heart and life in the keeping of a man who adored her, some great overarching order to Anne’s world was breaking and falling away.

All her life she had followed the proper steps, and they led to an abyss.

So where did she go next? What other paths lay before her?

“—the canal?” Hewitt asked, finally coming close enough for her to hear.

“Not performing as well as expected,” the other man replied. “The issue of water—” Their voices came and went. “—other investments,” the solicitor finished.

“I don’t expect I need to honor all of my father’s commitments,” Hewitt said sharply.

A silence followed. Anne expected the solicitor was as surprised by this declaration as Anne was.

A gentleman always honored his commitments.

She’d learned that from Daron. True, he honored his commitments to other gentlemen first, for somehow the debts accrued at a gaming table were more pressing to discharge than paying tradesmen or servants or keeping intact a sister’s dowry.

Anne stabbed her linen, her heart beating in her ears. Did Hewitt mean he did not need to honor his father’s promise that Calvin would marry Anne?

“—buildings,” Hewitt was saying. “And a fund set aside for repairs. The household fund, of course, and pin money for my mother, along with her jointure.” A beat passed. “But my brother’s allowance could be less.”

Anne missed the solicitor’s response to this, if there was one, because of her own intake of breath. If Calvin Vaughn had no money, and Anne had no money, there was no reason to marry.

People of their station married for money, after all, affection being a convenient gloss if the couple got on well.

A lord like Penrydd picking a country maid like Gwen was unheard of.

Only her father’s knighthood, and her inheritance of his mines, made the choice explicable.

Penrydd needed to repair his fortunes, and Gwen was an heiress. Everyone wanted an heiress.

And no one wanted Anne.

The heartbeat rose behind her eyes, pounding at her head.

Without a dowry, she knew what her marital options were.

Spinsterhood. Really, she was a spinster already; only her engagement to Calvin Vaughn had let her hold up her head around Llanfyllin.

The best her parents would find for her now would be some doddering squire who required a nurse, or a widower with a houseful of children who wanted a governess and nanny whom he would not have to pay a wage.

But she didn’t have to marry. Prunella had said it. Hewitt Vaughn had said it.

She could choose something else. Freedom.

“—the bridge … other investments,” the solicitor said. “They’re wanting ways to transport more ore to the ports. If the problems with the Monmouthshire Canal cannot be remedied?—”

“They can be,” Hewitt said firmly. “I am sure of it. It only needs a good engineer to look at the lay of it.”