Was he apologizing to her grandfather? Samantha raised her chin and glared at them both.
“I did not need the protection of any man,” she said, “but Sir Benedict insisted.”
They both looked at her, Ben a little sheepishly, her grandfather with a smile that revealed a fan of attractive lines at the outer corners of both eyes. He must smile frequently.
“That is my girl,” he said, further incensing her.
“Oh, do have a seat,” she said ungraciously. “Both of you.”
But of course, they both waited for her to be seated first. They were being perfect gentlemen.
“I have neglected you for the last six or seven years, Samantha,” Mr. Bevan said. He was smoothing one hand over Tramp’s head while the dog’s eyes closed in ecstasy.
“For the last six or seven years?” She raised her eyebrows.
“After your father wrote to say you were married,” he said, “I decided to stop writing to you. Captain McKay was the son of an earl, wasn’t he? Very high class. I did not want you embarrassed by a family member who had made his fortune in coal and iron. I knew your husband had been wounded and that you were living in the north of England. I have kept myself informed, you see, even if only from a distance. I had not heard of his passing, though. I am sorry about that. And I am deeply sorry for you, girl.”
He had decided to stop writing? He had kept himself informed? He had known all about her? All her life? Samantha gazed at the hands she had clasped in her lap. She could see the whites of her knuckles.
“Thank you,” she murmured just for something to say into the silence.
“I have been in Swansea for a week,” he said. “When I got back yesterday and heard you were here, I thought you must be annoyed with me since you had not let me know you were coming. I sent Evans over this morning to test the waters, so to speak, and he reported back that you were indeed annoyed. Sometimes we are damned if we do and damned if we don’t, if you will pardon my language, which is probably not the finest for the daughter-in-law of an earl. But would you not agree, Major? If I had kept writing, that might have been the trouble. I stopped, and it looks as if that was the wrong thing. Though you never wrote back, Samantha, except for the messages you sometimes sent.”
Messages? Samantha looked up at him. A suspicion was beginning to form in her mind. More than a suspicion. Her father had written to him at least once. How much had her father kept from her?
“You abandoned my mother,” she said, “when she was little more than an infant. You had nothing to do with her while she lived here with your sister. When she ran away to London, you did not follow. When she married and had me, you did not come. When she died, you did not come. There was never anything. There was nothing.”
She wanted to be right. She did not want her world turned suddenly upside down again.
His face had turned pale. His hand was motionless on Tramp’s head.
“What did they tell you, girl?” he asked her. “What did they tell you about me?”
“Nothing,” she said, “except that early abandonment of my mother after her mother had gone back to her Gypsy people. Nothing at all. You disappeared from her life.”
“Ah.” His hand slid away from Tramp’s head to rest on the arm of his chair. “It was not just that you were ashamed of me for my very middle-class wealth, then?”
“I did not know about your wealth,” she cried. “I did not know anything. I assumed you were a laborer or a wanderer who had made a foolish marriage and was left with the encumbrance of a daughter, whom you then foisted upon your sister. I did not know anything about her, except that she had owned this cottage, which my mother described as a hovel. I assumed it was a hovel. I only hoped it would be somehow habitable while I made a new life for myself. I did not even know you were alive.”
Ben got to his feet again, crossed to her chair, set a large handkerchief in her hand, and then made his slow way over to the window. Samantha swiped at her eyes. She had not even realized she was crying.
“Ah, my dear girl,” her grandfather said.
But he had no chance to say any more for a while. The door opened and Mrs. Price came in with a large tray, her face wreathed in smiles. Samantha hastily pushed the handkerchief down the side of her chair.
“Ah, Mrs. Price,” Mr. Bevan said. “Trying to fatten people up as always, are you?”
“Just a few pieces of cake to go with your tea,” she said, placing the tray on the table beside Samantha and proceeding to pour the tea herself. “What else am I to do with my time but cook? Mrs. McKay is a very tidy lady and she has Gladys Jones to look after her personal needs.”
“And how is your son, the blacksmith?” he asked her. “His hand has healed, has it? Hammers are always better used on anvils than on the backs of fingers. In my opinion, anyway.”
“They were swollen to three times their size,” she told him, “and black and painful too, though he would never admit it. He is better now, though, Mr. Bevan, and thanks for asking. I’ll tell him you did. And thank you for sending—”
But she broke off at a slight motion of his hand.
“Well, it was greatly appreciated,” she said. “He couldn’t work much for a week.”
She handed around the tea and left the room.
“I have been justly punished, it seems,” he said with a sigh. “And poor Mrs. Price. The last thing I feel like doing is eating a piece of her cake, delicious as I am sure it is. I suppose you feel off your food too, Samantha. Perhaps we had better force some down anyway, had we? She will be hurt if we do not. Major, come and help us, if you will.”