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"Untie it completely," he said, his hands at her small and warm waist. "And undo those buttons again,
Priss. It is a new shirt and the infernal things are too small for sense and sharp at the edges, too. And then
get back into bed. I don't know about you, but I'm tired. And there is no saying what I will be feeling
after a sleep."
She smiled and pulled his neckcloth loose.
The barriers behind her eyes had all been lifted again, he saw when he looked into them.
Chapter 7
She got to know him better after they had moved to the country, but she was not at all sure that she
wished to do so. Her heart ached with the new knowledge and all the evidence it brought that he was a
real person, with all the complexities and inconsistencies and pains and pleasures of a real man. It had
been better, perhaps, to know him only as her employer, to know only his body with any degree of
intimacy.
They arrived at Brookhurst early one evening, too tired to do anything but sink gratefully into baths, eat
sparingly of a lavish meal that the cook had prepared in anticipation of their arrival, and retire to bed. He
spent one hour in hers before retiring to his own.
But the next morning, though cloudy, was warm and inviting. Both had awoken to the loudness of silence
and the chirping of birds and the distant barking of a dog. He took her outside after breakfast to show
her the part of the park closest to the house.
"It is not a large estate," he said, drawing her arm through his. "We were never among the grand
landholders ofEngland. But it is large enough and the park has always been jealously preserved."
"It is lovely, Gerald," she said, closing her eyes for a moment and breathing in the warm smell of summer
vegetation.
"The formal gardens are old-fashioned," he said, "but I would not have them changed after my father's
death, although I had a head gardener who was bursting with progressive ideas.'"
"I'm glad." she said. "The colors and smells are glorious."
He led her to the side of the house, where there was a small rose arbor shaded by trees. He led her
through a trellised archway into an enchanted world of delicate blooms and heady perfumes.
"My mother's," he said. "It was her pride and joy."
"You have no family left?" she asked him. "Did she die long ago, Gerald?" She released his arm in order
to cup a pink bud gently in her hands and breathe in its fragrance.
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"She died when I was thirteen," he said. He laughed. "I discovered that she was dead at the same time
as I discovered that she had been alive."
She looked up at him inquiringly.
"My father told me she was dead when she left us," he said. "I was eight at the time. Priss, what mother
would leave her son at so young an age, eh? I had thought she was fond of me, fool that I was. And then
when I was thirteen he told me she was being brought home for burial, and we were both plunged into
the farce of deep mourning, five whole years after I had suffered all of a child's grief at her loss. It seemed
she had been living all the time with my aunts."
"I am so sorry." she said.
"Why?" he asked, looking at her coolly. "Were you responsible for anything that happened?"
She shook her head. "And you were an only child?" she asked.
"I was the one that escaped, so to speak," he said. "There were an alarming number of miscarriages and
stillbirths, I gather. Something like six before me and four after me, though I may have the numbers
wrong."
She closed her eyes. "Ah, poor lady," she said.
He shrugged. "It made it easier for her to abandon her responsibilities," he said. "She might have felt
obliged to stay if there had been more of us, especially if there had been one still at her breast. One of
those stillbirths happened only six months or so before she died the first time." He smiled and plucked a
rose to weave into her hair. "You would think she would have loved the one child to live, wouldn't you?"
he said.
"Oh, Gerald." She touched the lapels of his coat. "Are you sure she did not? Could an eight-year-old
understand the complexities of what was going on in the adult world around him? Perhaps she had no
choice but to leave you."
"Perhaps you are right," he said, turning away abruptly and striding out through the arch. "She was a
woman, after all."
Priscilla went after him and walked silently beside him. He had his hands clasped behind his back. He
did not offer his arm.
"You are the wise one, Priss," he said. "You know how to stop yourself from having children, stillborn or
live. Whenever you wish to take yourself off, you can do so with a clear conscience, can't you? And in
the process you will save a few poor mortals from imagining that there is such a thing as love in this
world."
"Gerald," she whispered. And she was not sure if the intense pain she felt and the tears she fought were
for the cruelty of his words or for the bleak disillusion that he had carried forward into his life from the
age of thirteen.
He took his duties as landlord very seriously. She discovered that within just a few days of their arrival.
He rode out almost every morning to visit his tenants and laborers, sometimes not arriving back until well
after luncheon. And he talked about their problems and concerns and suggestions to his bailiff and
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sometimes to her, with furrowed brow. He usually stopped himself after a few minutes with her.
"But I must not bore you with man talk, Priss," he would say. "You must tell me to be quiet when I start
prosing on."
"But I like to hear about your people, Gerald," she would say, and sometimes he would flash her a
grateful smile and continue with what he had been saying.
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