The wind whipped in from the sea as David slammed the front door behind him. The force helped release some of his fury, but he still felt sick with anger. He set off at a brisk pace down the drive, hands in his pockets, shoulders bowed against the weight of the world. What had the woman been thinking, offering herself up to him like he was an obligation and she a prize? He kicked at a lump of gravel and swore. And she had been damp from her bath, golden hair loose across her pale shoulders, rose-scented water seeping into the thin fabric of her nightgown, her shadowed, fragile gaze begging protection. She was a ruined beauty now, too thin, too pale, too tired to be pretty. He had not expected how ill she would look when he came to her cottage. It had shocked him. She had wilted and faded like a cut rose. Yet he was no less under her power for that. Lust had uncoiled in his belly when she sat patiently on his bed. Anger had risen with it, as sickly a combination as gin and hemlock.

His stride lengthened as he reached the road. Under the moonless sky, the world was nothing but shadows upon shadows and the faint flickering lights of houses in the distance. His feet, however, remembered the ground from his boyhood days, running wild over these hills with Paul, hunting rabbits, fishing, building fires, and then, inevitably, getting turned off by their uncle's gamekeeper.

They were lucky Uncle Lewis never brought them up before the magistrate. He was spiteful enough to have done so, even if they were family, but too lazy.

David headed up the hill towards the cliffs, keeping well back from their edge. The sea stretched out black and treacherous to the horizon. He breathed in the salt air like a tonic. Long walks always relieved him of poisonous feelings, though in London, they never had the same regenerative effect as in the wilds of Wales. London crowded him. The sky was narrower there. You could never see it but hemmed in by rows of houses. Even Hyde Park felt constrained. The city hummed at its borders like sheets tucked too tight on an otherwise comfortable bed.

Why had he brought Catherine here? David swore out loud, the sound snatched away on the wind. He should have sent her anywhere else. Taken a cottage in some quiet spa town, made her comfortable, arranged her allowance, and then left her behind.

But that would be abandoning her. When he had seen the desolate cottage she lived in, its absolute isolation from all company but her baby, her cold companion, and her two servants, he had felt a stirring of anger on her behalf. It was cruelty to send her there, a prisoner in all but name. She needed people around her, and the people he trusted most were his family. They would look after her. They would give her what he could not bear to.

He would leave for London as soon as he could. He would learn to tolerate the narrow sky. Others did.

Without him being aware of it, his feet had taken him to the edge of a strip of dark, stunted woods between the village and Plas Bryn. A light burned in the window of a house at the edge of the woods. Baxter was still awake.

David headed for the house and — stopping himself from reaching for the iron knocker — tapped on the lit window instead. Through the glass he could see a cheerful kitchen parlour with a fire burning in the grate and a woman and a man sitting before it. The man got to his feet when he heard the tap and limped heavily, squinting, towards the window. Then he shook his head, laughed, and limped for the front door.

David came around as it opened.

"You're back." The man clapped David on the shoulder. "You married her then?"

"I did." David came at his beckoning through the passage and into the parlour. "Good evening, Mrs Baxter."

"Good morning is closer," the woman said wearily. "Baby's just fallen asleep. Don't you dare wake her."

"Wouldn't dream of it," David said, keeping his voice low.

"Would you like tea?" the woman asked, rocking the bundle in her arms.

"No, thank you. I've come for conversation."

David lowered himself onto a stool and allowed Baxter to take the more comfortable armchair. The cannon shot that had torn Baxter's right leg from his body at Waterloo could just have easily have hit David instead. Baxter had been his captain at the time. Pensioned off after the loss of his leg, he had nonetheless remained a friend to David and advised him on his career. Uncle Lewis never cared to help, and David's father had died when he was a boy. When David had inherited his uncle's estate, he had repaid his debt of gratitude by giving his friend a position as the estate's steward — a position that allowed Baxter to at last marry the woman he had loved for years.

"Is this about the mine?" Baxter asked.

"No. I'll leave business for business hours. This is personal."

"Ah." Baxter grinned. "You want to talk about your wife."

"I think I've made a mistake. I hate her."

"Oh dear." Baxter always had been slow to choose his words. He stared at the fire for some time. "Is the mistake in hating her, or in marrying her?"

"Does it make a difference?"

"I think it might. If the mistake was in marrying her, it can never be undone now, but if the mistake is in hating her, that might be undone with time."

"Impossible." David shuddered. "The mere sight of her is like a shot of arsenic. I cannot be around her. I swear, it will kill me to try."

Baxter rested his boot on the grate. "You took a sabre to the heart and it did not kill you. I think you will survive a woman."

David traced the scar on his sternum through his shirt. "There was no force behind the blow. This woman..."

Mrs Baxter was watching them steadily through her tired eyes. It was impossible for David to say what he wished to say in front of her, so he said nothing. Baxter knew, anyway. He had heard everything David had to say about Catherine many times before.

"If you cannot be around her, what will you do?" Baxter asked after a while.

"I will go to London. It is all I can do. I have enough business to keep me there most of the year. Perhaps it will be a blessing in disguise, if I can find investors for the expansion of the mine."

"Hm." Baxter considered this for several long moments. "You will leave your wife here, alone, unguarded?"

"I have asked my family to look after her. And she has a companion — a cat of a woman, but an old governess, so I suppose there is history enough there."

"You believe your mother will look after her?"

"In the essentials, yes."

"But never in the peripherals. Mrs John Demery is not the type of woman who cares for such things. Does Mrs David Demery?"

David remembered Catherine as he had known her in London. Quietly beautiful, sitting on the edges of conversation and sweetly smiling, always with the right word to say when turned to. Sometimes he saw her talking with her female friends, intent and animated and lively. With men — with him — she was quieter. He had thought her a little shy of men.

She was never animated with Miss Skinner. He had not seen her animated since their first engagement had broken up, though the way she smiled at Luke made his heart ache.

"She may be lonely here," David admitted. "I hoped Laurie would take pity her on. Laurie knows what it is to be in the heart of scandal."

"Mrs Wynn pities no one, least of all herself," Baxter said.

"She would never admit it," David countered. "You do not know my sister as well as you might think. She hides her feelings. With time, I think, they will be friends. If I can persuade Laurie to forgive Cate on my behalf."

"How ever will you do that if you cannot forgive her yourself?"

David shrugged. They fell into silence, but for the lapping of flames over the logs and the crackling of the fire. David's mind began to drift back to the first days of his courtship with Catherine. He had newly inherited his uncle's estate and sought marriage as a matter of duty. He had expected to take his time about it, perhaps a year or two attending the season in London before he found the woman he needed. And then, well, he saw her, and that was it. Standing quietly next to her mother with that sweet smile on her face and a sad look in her eyes. It was not merely that she was beautiful. There were many beautiful women in London. It was as though his heart had been sleeping til he saw her face. He asked the man next to him who she was. Catherine Balley, Sir William's daughter, don't you know? He did not know. Bit of old hat, really. In her fifth season, but never managed to get engaged. Too shy. Besides, Sir William was loth to let her go. Prouder of her than she deserved.

In his intoxicated state of mind, David had felt as though Catherine had been preserved for him by fate. He had asked for an introduction, begged for a dance. She had politely accepted. Her voice made his heart leap. The way her sad eyes would dart to his and then away thrilled him. He wanted to be the one to bring happiness to those eyes.

By God, what a fool he had been.

"I have no idea what to do with Catherine," David confessed. "I've never been so confused, so mistaken, about anything in life as I have been about her. But I know I cannot be near her. For my own sake."

"She is the one who sinned, and she is the one who should be exiled, if one of you must be."

"But she has nowhere else to go."

"There are few families in the area who will welcome her with open arms. An illegitimate baby would be less of a scandal in London."

"In London, it would only be less of a scandal with the kinds of people no one should know. The kinds of people who would take advantage of Catherine for it." David clenched his fist. "Men like the father of the poor brat."

Mrs Baxter, who until now had been listening intently but silently, spoke. "There is the assembly ball at Holywell next month."

David looked at her. "What of it?"

"If you took your wife, she might make a friend there. Your sister and mother, I think, cannot be more allies, but the surrounding families of the countryside will surely not all spurn your wife. Mrs Lewis, for instance, has had five husbands. I think she is sympathetic to how complicated relationships can be."

"Complicated is too delicate a word to describe it."

"Whatever happened must be far from simple."

"I don't want to know." David scowled at the crackling fire. "I have no curiosity in that regard. She betrayed me, and that is all there is to it."

Despite that, he ruminated on Mrs Baxter's suggestion, staring at the fire. The trouble with Catherine was that he was her only support right now. His family had been openly rude to her, except for Paul, but that was only because Paul preferred stabbing people in the back to slapping them in the face. They might have begrudgingly offered Catherine their support, but it would only come if Demery asked them for it. If he could find Catherine some other friends — reliable friends — then she would require less of him. Even one other true friend would take some of the weight off his shoulders.

"It's not a bad idea," he said. "In fact, I think it a quite good one — the ball at Holywell. It has been a long time since I have been to a ball in these parts. I would enjoy it, even if it were not successful."

Mrs Baxter smiled slowly and widely. "I am full of good ideas."

"You will be there?"

"With the baby, I think not. And your wife, daughter of baronet and second-cousin to an earl, would hardly wish to be my friend if I were. No. She will have little to do with farmers' wives and squires' daughters. A far cry down from her usual crowd, I imagine."

"Beggars cannot be choosers," David said. "Besides, if she were to turn you down for such a reason, then I have chosen poorly indeed." He laughed softly and bitterly to himself. "But then I have already proven that."

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2022-10-30: So. New Hero. Bit of a different type from the rest. What do you think of David?