He turned away from the window to look at Samantha. “You loved your husband with passion,” he said, “and survived its early loss, putting duty before self-pity when he needed you. You are stronger than I was, and I am proud to call you granddaughter. You will find it again—passion, that is, and love. Perhaps you already have. But take it and offer it from a position of strength, Samantha. Use these months to—” He stopped and smiled suddenly with an expression of great warmth. “And listen to me, giving advice upon loving wisely and well.”
“You are my grandfather,” she said, “and someone who has had experience of life and of hell.”
He nodded toward Tramp, who was lying at her feet. “And what is the story of your dog?” he asked. “He does not look like the type one would willingly choose unless he was a tiny pup at the time and one did not know his full parentage.”
“Oh, poor Tramp.” She laughed and told his story, or the part of it she knew.
Her grandfather left the next day and stayed away for two weeks. He was frequently gone after that. But whenever he was at home, he would come to the cottage or she would go to Cartref. They became gradually acquainted with and fond of each other, until she realized that he had become quite central to her life. He was family, something she had craved since her marriage and the death of her father not long after.
They sat together at church on Sundays. He escorted her to a concert in the school hall when a visiting choir was performing there with some solo artists, and to the harvest assembly at the inn, which she enjoyed immensely though she did not dance. He invited her to dinner whenever he was entertaining guests, which happened quite frequently when he was at home. He was a sociable man.
He never mentioned Ben directly to her. She would not even have known for certain that Ben was still working for him if he had not answered an inquiry from one of his guests at a dinner one evening in October with the information that yes, the man in question was indeed a baronet—Major Sir Benedict Harper.
It was Ben who kept Samantha from being perfectly happy during those months. She had not swum since he left. She had not even walked much on the beach, and when she had, usually at Tramp’s insistence, she had found it desolate rather than magical.
For she did not know for sure that he would come back. She had more or less forced him to accompany her on her journey here, after all. She had forced him to stay when she arrived and he would have resumed his own travels. Perhaps she had even half forced him into their affair. Perhaps once he had left here he had found that he was glad to be free of her.
And what about her? For such a long time she had yearned to be free. Now she was free. Would it be wise to give up that freedom so soon after her bereavement? If she was asked to give it up, that was.
It was only at night that all doubts fled and she knew that she loved him quite differently from the way she had loved Matthew. She liked his looks, yes, and his charm. But whereas at the age of seventeen she had not looked beyond outer appearance to wonder if Matthew had the character to match his looks, at the age of twenty-four she had looked. And her love was for Ben himself. His looks were unimportant. His half-crippled state was no encumbrance whatsoever to her. She loved him.
And surely he loved her. He would not have taken employment with her grandfather, she believed, if he did not. Or, if he had, he would not have come to consult her first. He would not have talked about coming back. He would not have told her what her grandfather had said about their having feelings for each other. He had even admitted that he had feelings, though, like a typical man, he had not elaborated.
And then, in December, her grandfather called at the cottage one morning while she was practicing at the pianoforte to tell her that he was going to host a ball at Cartref a week before Christmas for everyone in the neighborhood and a few friends from more distant places who would stay with him for a few days. He wanted her to come to stay too and to be his hostess at the ball.
“All of which you can do with a clear conscience, my dear,” he said. “For your year of mourning is at an end, is it not?”
“It is,” she said. “I will be happy to come, Grandpapa.”
Was Ben to be one of those more distant friends?
“Major Harper will be one of my guests,” he said as if she had asked aloud.
“Ah,” she said. “It will be good to see him again.”
His eyes twinkled at her.
“Come into the sitting room,” she said, rising from the bench to lead the way. “Mrs. Price has been baking and will be eager for you to sample her cake.”
“I could smell it all the way up at Cartref,” he said. “Why else do you think I walked over here?”
Ben was coming, she thought, a flutter of mingled excitement and anxiety in her stomach. It had been such a long time. It had seemed like forever. Sometimes she struggled to remember just how he looked.
He was coming, of course, to discuss business with Grandpapa.
And maybe …
Well. Maybe.
23
It had been arranged that Ben would arrive at Cartref the day before the ball. His departure from Swansea was delayed, however, by a minor crisis at the ironworks. As a result, he did not arrive until late afternoon on the day of the ball. It did not much matter, he supposed, even though his legs were stiff and aching. It was not as though he would be dancing, after all.
The journey had been a long one across bare, windswept countryside, never far from the sight of a leaden gray, foam-flecked sea, under heavy lowering clouds. Hot bricks at his feet did not remain hot for long, and his greatcoat did not keep out as much cold as it ought. A few times there were flurries of fine pellets of snow, though fortunately they did not develop into any fall thick enough to gather on the road and make travel hazardous. There were tollgates at tediously close intervals to slow travel, though, and tollgate keepers too tired or too cold to hurry.