Simply Love by Mary Balogh Page B

beach again?”
    â€œI have promised to go walking,” she said.
    â€œHave you, by Jove?” he said. “With another truant? It cannot be allowed. Give me her name and I will set to work on her.”
    â€œI am going walking with Mr. Butler,” she said. “The duke’s steward.” Her cheeks felt hot. She hoped it would not be obvious that she was blushing. And why
was
she blushing?
    â€œIndeed?” He looked down at her and kept looking as they walked on in silence.
    â€œJoshua,” she said at last, “I am merely going for a walk with him. I met him on the beach yesterday and we strolled together for a while. He asked if I wished to do it again today.”
    He was smiling at her.
    â€œI wondered why you stayed down on the beach,” he said. “You had a clandestine tryst there, did you?”
    â€œNonsense!” She laughed. But she sobered almost immediately. “I wish you would not encourage David to call you
Cousin Joshua
.”
    â€œYou would prefer
sir
or
my lord,
then?” he asked her. “He
is
my cousin.”
    â€œHe is
not,
” she protested.
    â€œAnne,” he said, “Albert was a black-hearted villain. I am glad for your sake and David’s and Prue’s that he is dead. But he was my first cousin, and David is his son. I am David’s relative, not just any man who has taken an interest in him. Prue and Constance and Chastity are his
aunts
and are very ready to acknowledge the fact. And he needs all the relatives he can get. He has none on your side, has he—none you will allow him to know anyway.”
    â€œBecause
they
do not wish to know
him,
” she cried.
    He sighed. “I have upset you,” he said. “I am sorry. I truly am. Freyja assures me that she knows exactly how you must feel and has advised me to respect your wish to raise David alone. But let the child call me Cousin, Anne. All the other children here have someone to call Papa—or Uncle, in Davy’s case, since Aidan and Eve have always actively encouraged him to remember his own dead father.”
    She might have argued further even though she recognized the sense of what he said—and his kindness in accepting an illegitimate child as a relative. It was just that she could not
bear
to acknowledge that relationship herself. But the Countess of Rosthorn turned her head at that moment to make some remark to them, and they proceeded the rest of the way as a group of four.

Anne watched the cricket game for a few minutes before slipping
away to walk down the driveway in the direction of the thatched cottage she had noticed on the day of her arrival. She was not after all, she was relieved to notice, the only one not playing. The duchess was playing a circle game with the infants a little distance away, and the duke was watching her, looking his usual severe self, though he had their son in his arms, wrapped warmly in a blanket. No one seemed particularly to notice Anne’s leaving. She hoped Joshua would not draw attention to it.
    The very idea of the Bedwyns all knowing where she was going and drawing quite the wrong conclusions was horrifying. This was not a romantic tryst. But surely they would think she was trying to take advantage of a lonely, wounded man.
    She turned off the driveway and approached the cottage in some trepidation. Were there servants there? What would they think of a strange woman knocking on the door and asking for Mr. Butler?
    But she was saved from having to find out. Even before she reached the low stone wall and wooden gate that enclosed a pretty flower garden surrounding the whitewashed cottage, the door opened and he stepped outside.
    Anne stopped on the path.
    â€œI wondered if you would come,” he called, coming toward her, opening the gate, and closing it behind him. “It was presumptuous of me to ask you when you are a guest at the house. And this morning you were with your son and Morgan.