By which time the cause of all this annoyance, the woman who would call herself Bessany Blodden, was working her little boat out of a tangle of trees on the east side of the fourth island out from county Ruckward, where she had been since the previous evening.
Lyndafal had been afraid the child might cry in the night when, with sound traveling so far over water, it could lead people in her direction. The baby, however, had been hungry whenever she was not asleep, which kept her busy rooting at the nipple like a little pig, grunting contentedly and otherwise quiet as could be in her mother’s arms while Lyndafal waited for first light to take advantage of the wind and get herself beyond finding. She figured she had four more days to make it the rest of the way east to Ramspize Point, where, pray heaven, someone would be waiting for her.
Just now her greatest worry was not herself or the baby in the basket but her other daughter, Evaline, left at Ruckward Manor with Dora. Two years old, Evaline. Too headstrong and noisy to bring on this trip without risking all their lives, but otherwise sweet and dear and all too vulnerable. Well, Alicia would soon hear of Lyndafal’s “disappearance.” She would come to Ruckward to beg Evaline’s company for a time. The Earl had never paid much attention to Evaline. He wouldn’t care where the child went, so, pray heaven, Evaline would be taken back to Merdune where she’d be safe. If she ever could be!
Lyndafal had thought she herself was safe. She had believed it, utterly. She had convinced her mother.
“He loves me,” she had said of the Earl, who had come courting at the school she attended in Baiverberg, introduced to her there by the Duke of Merdune, Lyndafal’s step-father.
“He may think so,” her mother had whispered. “I am sure he wants you.”
“No, Mama, he really loves me. He loved his first wife, too, but she died. He’s a good man, really he is.”
Her mother had not answered, had merely stared at her, as though looking into a crystal ball, trying to find a separate dweller within, someone who might respond independently, differently. “Have you had a … vision of your being married to him?” This mentioning of visions was a rare thing. The Duchess did not have the talent, though her mother had had it. Lyndafal never knew whether her mother envied the talent or rued it, so they spoke of it seldom.
“Mama, the only visions I’ve had about me are sailing in a little boat with my children.” Not children, precisely. Child, but it was the same thing. She wanted half a dozen, at least.
The Duchess’s eyes were teary as she said, “I wish Gardagger had not introduced you to Earl Solven, for I believe you are too young. Still, you want children, and having them is easier when one is young. Oh, Lyndafal. I wish your grandmother were alive to counsel us both. I’ll not stand in your way, but be careful.”
“I will be, Mama. And Solven will take good care of me.” He had been ardent, and she had loved their lovemaking. He had been attentive, and she had loved that, too. And when the ardor waned with her first pregnancy, she had said to herself, well, it is appropriate at this time. The newness wears off, but he loves me none the less. And Evaline had been born, and there had been that joy, and then she became pregnant with this little one.
When had she realized that she was no longer safe? When had she understood that she never had been? Was it the cool way that Solven had spoken to her during this last pregnancy, a kind of terminal detachment in his voice. Was it the way he had stopped looking at her, as though he was trying to forget she was there. Was it his avoidance of those times when they had formerly been alone together, as at breakfast or during late afternoon walks in the garden. Suddenly he had been very busy morning and night with his estate men. Suddenly he had had many trips to take, here or there.