She was going to go to Robland Park even if it meant going alone. Indeed, she would far prefer to go without Matilda. Good heavens, she had allowed herself to become a virtual prisoner in her own home since Matthew’s death. And she had somehow relinquished her role as lady of the house.
She liked Lady Gramley, who was refined and elegant with the easy manners of a true lady. She had always been kind, though even after five years of living here Samantha scarcely knew her or any of her other neighbors. She hoped it would be possible to make something of a friend of Lady Gramley in the future, even though there must be a ten-year gap in their ages.
Sir Benedict Harper was a different matter. She had felt considerable antipathy toward him before his visit, and it was only with the greatest reluctance that she had admitted to herself that it had been handsome of him to call on her and maneuver matters in such a way that his apology was made to her alone. He had been sensitive enough to realize that it was altogether possible Matilda knew nothing of her escapade that day. And his apology itself had been irreproachable, for he had taken all the blame upon himself. It had been unhandsome of her, on the other hand, to withhold the words of forgiveness for which he had asked. But it was hard to forgive someone who had ruined the only hour of true freedom she had enjoyed in at least six years.
And now she felt like the guilty one. Perversely, she resented him for that. But he was merely visiting at Robland Park. Perhaps he would be gone soon and she need never see him again. Perhaps he would be out riding again when she called on Lady Gramley.
She remembered with some embarrassment her passionate outburst in Sir Benedict’s hearing. Whatever had possessed her? She had told him she wanted to live. She had even told him she wanted to dance. But she knew what had caused her to speak so. He was more than half crippled. He had suffered other injuries, all courtesy of the late wars. If she had had to encounter a stranger, even under the circumstances in which they had met, did he have to be yet another wounded soldier?
She could positively scream!
But he wanted to dance too. She wished he had not said that. The words had unnerved her, for they had expressed such an impossible dream that she had wanted to weep. The last man on earth over whom she wished to shed tears was Sir Benedict Harper.
But he wanted to dance.
Matilda came down to sit in the drawing room early the following afternoon, though she still had a wretched cold, poor thing. She sat near the fire, a shawl drawn closely about her shoulders, a handkerchief clutched in one hand and never too far from her reddened nose.
Samantha mentioned casually that since the rain had stopped at last perhaps she would take the gig and return Lady Gramley’s call.
“Your sense of duty is misplaced,” Matilda said. “But you will not go, of course, especially since I am unable to accompany you. Matthew would forbid it if he could, God rest his soul.”
Quite possibly he would not have done. He had made great demands on her time and presence while he was ill, it was true, but he hated the puritanical, straitlaced attitudes of his family. It was a measure of his annoyance with her, after she had kicked up a fuss over his infidelity, that he had decided against taking her to the Peninsula with him or permitting her to go home to her own father, but had sent her to Leyland Abbey to live for that year instead. It was undoubtedly the worst punishment he could devise. It had been downright mean.
“There is an assembly in the village in a few days’ time,” Samantha said. “Attending that would be scandalous, Matilda. I do not, however, have the least intention of going. Paying a courtesy visit to a neighbor who paid one here last week, on the other hand, must be quite unexceptionable. And as for going in the gig myself, I did it every Sunday while Matthew lived, until you came a short while before his death, that is, and he never once voiced any objection.”
“Then he ought to have done,” Matilda said sharply before pausing to blow her nose. “Father would not have allowed it.”
“The Earl of Heathmoor was not my husband,” Samantha retorted, “or my own father. Oh, Matilda, let us not quarrel. How tedious this topic is! I need air and a change of scene. And I really ought to show a courtesy to Lady Gramley, who has called here twice since Matthew’s funeral despite the fact that she was not at all well the first time. I am going. I daresay I will not be gone long. The bell pull is within your reach. If you need anything at all, Rose or one of the other servants will bring it.”
Her sister-in-law looked thin-lipped and mulish as Samantha got to her feet. No doubt she would inform her father about this in her next letter home. Well, so be it. The rules he imposed upon his family, even at this distance, were Gothic, to say the least. Samantha was no longer going to accept them without question. She could show respect for the memory of her husband without incarcerating herself in her own home and being slavishly obedient to a family whose standards of propriety went far beyond what society demanded.
These thoughts caused her only a fleeting moment of uneasiness. Bramble Hall, which Matthew had been convinced would be made over to him while he lived, still belonged to the earl. But it had been willed to Matthew—except that Matthew was now dead. It would be her home for life, though, he had assured Samantha shortly before his passing. His father had to look after her since she had no fortune of her own and no relatives who would be glad to take her in, and he never shirked his responsibilities. It would suit his purpose to perfection to keep her far away here in the north of England in a house he had never lived in himself. The very last thing he would want was to have her living as a pensioner at Leyland and as a constant thorn in his side. Her future was quite secured.