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CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

E vidently, the new Anne was a complete, wanton hussy.

She chose her gowns with the intent to allure. She’d guessed the scarlet-tinged gown with its sheer tunic would set her apart with its vaguely Grecian outlines, and it had.

Instead of asking polite questions meant to draw her companions into conversation, the new Anne tested the impact of an interested smile or a gently teasing question.

Not on the young men beside her, who were eager to flatter, but on the straight-backed, somber master of the house, who glowered down the table from his high seat and looked impossible to please.

Which made a smile, a softening, an amused glance from him more precious than gold.

When a good girl would be in her chamber, reading sermons and saying her prayers, the new Anne sought out men in shadowed gardens.

The new Anne kissed that somber, brooding master in the moonlight.

The new Anne threw herself into his arms and twined her limbs around his body, rubbing against him like a cat that had chosen its mate.

She was glad there were no other drivers on the road to perceive the blush that burned her cheeks as she turned through Bassaleg toward Newport.

She’d abandoned all sense of decorum and modesty.

She’d fallen into the planetary pull that was Hewitt Vaughn, seduced by his blue eyes, his straight-lipped mouth, the way his features animated when he spoke about locks and bridges and wharves.

The way he looked at her as if she were the centerpiece of a feast he’d give his soul to be invited to.

The way he kissed her as if the world would end when he stopped.

He had told her to decide what she wanted. She was afraid what she wanted might be him .

And if everything else she’d longed for had turned to dust in her mouth, why would this be any different?

There was no one in the stable yard of St. Sefin’s.

Anne unhitched the pony cart and let the horse into the grassy paddock holding the goat, remembering to check that the trough held water, and somewhat surprised to accomplish all these things herself.

Not that the water mattered; the iron sky that had been lowering all morning finally opened and released its first windy spatters of rain as she heaved the bar of the paddock back in place, again, all by herself.

One hand on her hat and the other holding her pelisse to her neck, Anne ducked into the kitchens, which were customarily warm, quiet, and welcoming.

The kitchens were a damp, steaming, rowdy mess.

Quarreling voices drifted from the scullery, the widows in a brangle about something, their words floating out on the acrid odor of lye.

The kettle screamed on the hob, and something in the oven was burning.

Dovey wasn’t in evidence, nor Cerys, but Tomos was, sitting on a stool in a corner, holding his hand to his chest and sobbing.

Anne went to him first and laid a hand on his shoulder. “Tomos, what is it?”

“Cyw,” the boy blubbered and held out his pudgy hand. A red triangular mark stood out on the flesh between finger and thumb.

“Oh, dear one, did your chick take a fit and bite you? Poor, poor boy.”

She looked around for a way to distract and soothe him.

What had Pym always done when Anne was in a fret?

She spotted a jar of licorice sticks on a high shelf and pulled it down.

“Here, have a licorice.” Soothed the stomach and any upset, Anne had found for herself, and the same was true for Tomos.

He popped an end of the stick into his mouth, and instantly the tears cleared.

“Hiya, I wants one of those.” Ifor stamped in from a storeroom, a small cask beneath his arm that he plunked on the wooden table. “Licorice, is it, Miss Anne?”

Anne laid a stick in his outstretched palm. “Hello, Ifor. Do you know where I can find bandages? Tomos has a little nip on his hand.”

Ifor nodded and squatted next to Tomos, patting the other boy’s arm.

“Cyw is loose in the church,” he reported.

“Lodged under a pew and won’t come out. Cerys is trying to lure her with grain.

Told me to go out and dig up a worm, which I might at that.

Don’t cry, Tomos, Cyw just took a fright when Cerys was playing her trick on the vicar.

She’ll come out when she’s done with her sulk, Cyw and Cerys both. ”

He nodded toward Anne. “Bandages in the still room, Miss Anne, second shelf above the table, basket to your left.”

“Thank you.” Anne swept up a handful of the rags for handling hot things and pulled the kettle off the hob, silencing the scream. “Whose tea?”

“Something for the lady in the infirmary, or the babe, mayhap? Miss Dovey is seeing to her now, but she don’t know the herbs.

There’s something gone wrong, I dunno what, and the widows can’t settle what to do.

” Ifor tilted his head toward the voices in the scullery, not raised in anger, but sharp with concern.

Anne pulled the bread pan from the oven and regarded the dark crust. “Either it’s burned or this is bara brith,” she said.

Ifor sniffed, then chuckled. “ Bara brith. Missus Evans don’t make it quite like Miss Gwen did, but none of us is to tell her that. Are we, Tomos?” He turned with a small frown to the boy beside him.

“Cyw.” Tomos shook his head mournfully, cradling his bitten hand against his chest.

“Yes, you’re next, Tomos.” Anne set the bread out to cool, then went into what she hoped was the stillroom, a place she’d seen Gwen duck in and out of on her visits.

The bandages were right where Ifor predicted, beside a jar of sweet-smelling salve.

Anne brought out both, pulled up a chair, and set to the business of wrapping Tomos’s hand.

She’d never tended an injury in her life, but she hoped the application of a bandage would resolve whatever hurt to his hand, and his pride, the boy had sustained from his pet.

She was right. With a smile of relief, Tomos admired his bandage. “ Hapus ,” he pronounced.

“Hapus?” Anne looked to Ifor.

“Happy.” Ifor gave Tomos’s arm one last pat. “Your world is white now, all right? Hold, I hear Evans about. He’ll want a hand with that calf.”

“Calf?” Anne asked just as Dovey’s husband came into the room.

“Trett at the King’s Head bred his milker, but now he wants her weaned so he can have his milk back.

” Evans leaned on his crutch, taking in the room at a glance.

“I told him we could graze the calf here for a time, Ifor, but he’s to share the milk with us as he might.

Would you like cow’s milk with your tea, Tomos, instead of goat? ”

“ Buwch ?” Tomos blinked away the last of his tears, a grin forming.

“I know that one!” Anne exclaimed. “It means cow.”

Evans smiled. “We’ll make a Welshwoman of you yet, Miss Sutton. And you might slice up that bara brith if you wish.”

“I—” she started to demur. She hadn’t cooked it, didn’t know its purpose, what if she did something wrong? She was only a guest.

She bit back the protest. The new Anne wasn’t an ornament. She wasn’t useless. She acted .

“I shall, at that.” Anne ruffled through drawers until she found the knife for slicing bread.

The loaf fell open, releasing a warm yeasty smell, showing the dark spots of currants that had been soaked overnight in tea.

She added a scoop of salted butter that Widow Jones made herself and pushed the plate across the table to Evans.

He picked it up with his one hand, nodded, and took a bite.

He had strong teeth, all intact, and muscles flexed in his forearm, showing where his sleeve had been rolled back.

He wore a simple waistcoat and a cravat looped around his neck, which would be undress in any other scenario, but for some reason his workman’s attire, and his missing arm, didn’t upset Anne as they had before.

Now that she looked, Evans was an attractive man.

The brown hair falling slightly into his eyes held traces of silver, much like Hew’s, and the lines carved around his eyes and mouth suggested a man of strong spirit who had endured much.

Like Hew.

“Did you know Hewitt before he left?” Anne asked, slicing bread for the boys. “Since you both—well, I suppose you might not have.” Hew was in the Royal Artillery, and Evans had lost his arm in service with the Royal Navy, she’d heard.

“The captain? He’d already commissioned as an officer when I arrived, shipped out soon after,” Evan answered.

“Came back once or twice to see his mother, but didn’t have business at St. Sefin’s.

I think Gwen harped for them on his visit.

Her ladyship had a festival day. Hewitt was always her favorite, she made no bones about it.

But the lad didn’t return for his own father’s funeral, and we thought that odd, we did. ”

Ifor stretched out his legs, balancing his plate on his belly as he savored his treat. Tomos, watching him, did the same, injured hand forgotten.

“No one as much mourned Sir Lambert, did they,” Ifor remarked.

Evans nodded. “That Calvin is cast in the same mold, one as—” He caught himself, seeming to recollect that Anne was promised to Calvin and what he said next wouldn’t be wise. “Well. You’d know him better than I, perhaps.”

Anne shook his head. “Calvin wants to marry me for a dowry that doesn’t exist, and Hew—Captain Vaughn—has offered to save me from scandal.

” Her cheeks heated at her own admission—why was she confiding in this man, this utter stranger?

“But I know so little about what kind of man he is,” she concluded.