SHE CAUGHT THE FALLING CHILD FROM THE COLLAPSING BALCONY—UNAWARE THE DUKE SAW EVERYTHING

Chapter 8

Autumn came to the moors. The heather turned from purple to brown to gray. The wind grew sharper, carrying the first bite of winter. Hesper coughed a little in the mornings, and Viven began to bring her a shawl before she was asked.

The Duke wrote. His letters came each week, sometimes twice a week. They were not love letters. They were the letters of a serious man learning how to speak to a woman he did not yet know. He wrote of his lands and his tenants. He wrote of a young horse that would not take a saddle. He wrote of a book he was reading — a history of the reign of Queen Anne — and he asked her what she thought of it, because Hesper had a copy in her library, and it had once belonged to Viven’s mother, though he did not know that then.

Viven wrote back. Her letters were shorter than his, and she thought not so well composed, but she wrote them honestly, and that was what he seemed to want.

In November, a letter arrived that was not from the Duke. It came from Mrs. Puddik — or rather, it had been written for her by the vicar’s wife, who had grown less silly since Viven left, and who had quietly taken Mrs. Puddik’s side in the servants’ hall.

The letter said this:

The Duke of Sarrow came to Heavenreach one afternoon in September, when Lady Marchmir was in Bath for the waters. He asked to see the gardener’s sister. He spent an hour with her in the kitchen. He asked her the name of her child — Robin. He settled on the child, quietly, without any announcement. A small yearly sum that would carry him to his majority and see him apprentice to a decent trade. He asked the gardener’s sister not to speak of it. He asked me not to speak of it. Lady Marchmir does not know. He has not, so far as anyone in the house can tell, mentioned it to any living soul.

But I thought, miss, that you should know. For it seems to me that a man who does a good thing in the dark is a different sort of man than a man who does one in the light. And you have been very much on my mind.

Yours in service, Adela Puddik

Viven read the letter twice. She read it a third time. Then she folded it carefully and placed it with the Duke’s first note inside the front cover of her prayer book.

She went out onto the moors, though it was already growing dark. She walked with the wind in her face for a long time, her hands buried in the pockets of her cloak, her breath coming in white clouds. The sky above her was vast and gray, and the sea sounded in the distance, and she thought about a man who had ridden three days to find her, who had kept a promise made in a dim gallery, who had provided for a child he did not know and would never claim.

When she came back, her cheeks were red with cold and her eyes were bright. She sat down at the small desk in the front parlor and wrote him a letter that was not short. She did not mention the child, or Mrs. Puddik, or the gardener’s sister. She wrote instead about the moors and the sea and the book about Queen Anne. And at the end, she wrote only:

I have been thinking that a man is not, in the end, the sum of what he says, but of what he does when no one is watching. I hope you are well.

V.

His answer came four days later. It was short. It said only:

I am well. I think of you. — C.

Christmas came.