Sydnam was not a recluse. As Bewcastleas steward he had to see all sorts of people on business. There were also neighbors who liked to consult him on farming issues and other matters to do with the land and the community in which they all lived together. And he had a few personal friendsa"the Welsh minister and the schoolmaster in particular. His acquaintances were almost exclusively male, though. There had been one or two women during the past five years who had indicated a willingnesss to pursue a relationship with hima"it was no secret, he supposed, that he was a son of the Earl of Redfield and independently wealthy even though he worked for a living. But he had given them no encouragement. He had always been very well aware that it was his social status and his wealth that had encouraged them to overlook a physical revulsion that none of them had been quite able to hide.

Having to face the bustle of a large gathering at Glandwr was just too much for him when he was accustomed to the vast, empty, quiet house. And so he was moving out and into the cottage, at least until the house was empty again.

He resented the expected intrusion, if the truth were known, even though he knew that he had no right to object to a manas coming to his own home with his own wife and his brothers and sistersa"and anyone else he chose to invite, for that matter.

He did not look forward to the summer.

He would stay out of the way as much as he was able. He would try at least to remain out of sight of the children. He did not want to frighten them. The worst feeling in the world was to see fear, revulsion, horror, and panic on the faces of children and to know that it was his own appearance that had caused it.

One month, Bewcastleas secretary had written. Thirty-one days, if that statement was to be taken literally. It seemed like an eternity.

But he would survive it.

He had survived a great deal worse. There had been daysa"and nightsa"when he had wished he had not done so. Survived, that was.

But he had.

And in more recent years he had been glad that he had.

ANNE HAD INSISTED UPON TRAVELING the long distance to the Duke of Bewcastleas estate in Wales in the marquessas second carriage with the children and their nurse, despite the fact that at each stop she was urged to join Joshua and Lady Hallmere in theirs. She preferred to think of herself as a servant rather than a guesta"and good heavens, the duke and duchess did not even know she was coming!

It was a thought that sometimes brought her close to panic. They would quite possibly have strong objections even if she did hide in the nursery for the whole month.

They arrived late in the afternoon of the third day, turning off the coast road with its scenery that reminded Anne of Cornwall to pass between two large open gates and proceed along a driveway that wound between shrubs and trees and eventually rolling lawns to either side.

aOh, look, Mama.a David, who had been seated quietly beside her while both Daniel and Emily slept on the seat opposite, Emily in the nurseas arms, suddenly plucked at her sleeve and pointed ahead. The side of his face was pressed against the glass.

Anne tipped her head sideways and looked. The house had come into view, and the sight of it did nothing to settle the butterflies that were dancing in her stomach. Glandwr was indeed a vast mansion of gray brick in the Palladian style. It was both impressive and beautiful. And yet, she thought, this was not even the dukeas principal seat. He spent only a week or two of each year here, Joshua had said.

How could anyone be that wealthy?

aI can hardly wait,a David said, his eyes huge, his cheeks flushed. aWill the other children be here already?a He felt none of Anneas misgivings, of course. He felt only excitement over the prospect of having other childrena"other boysa"to play with for a whole month.

Fortunately their actual arrival occured in a flurry of cheerful confusion as the three carriages drew up on the graveled terrace before the main doors and disgorged their passengers and luggage while at the same time a vast number of people spilled out of the house to greet them. Among them Anne recognized the tall, dark figure of Lord Aidan Bedwyn with his military bearing and the dark, lovely Lady Morgan Bedwyn, whose married name she could not recall. She had met them in Cornwall four years ago.

David was swept forward by a newly awakened, bright-cheeked Daniel to be caught up in all the noise and bustle of the greetingsa"one would have thought that none of them had seen one another for a decade instead of a week or so. Anne abandoned him and hurried inside through a side entrance with the nurse.

She had no wish whatsoever to be mistaken for a guest.

She was not to remain unnoticed, though, she soon discovered. The housekeeper came looking for her after she had been in the nursery for a while, seeing David settled in the large room he was to share with Davy and Alexander and watching him glow with excitement as he met all the children and was absorbed into their midst as if he had been one of them all his life.

He was in safe hands, Anne realized as she followed the housekeeper down to the floor below and into a sizable bedchamber with comfortable furnishings, pretty floral curtains and bed hangings, and a view of the sea in the distance.

It was unmistakably a guest chamber rather than a servantas room, she saw with some dismay. She ought to have clarified her exact status here with Joshua and Lady Hallmere before their arrival. She ought to have made it clear to them that she wanted to be classed with the servants, or at least with the nurses and governessesa"if there were any of the latter. But then she had assumed that it did not need to be said.

aI hope I have not put you to a great deal of trouble,a she said with an apologetic smile, aarriving unexpectedly like this.a aI was delighted, mum, when Mr. Butler said the duke and duchess were coming with a large party,a the housekeeper told her with a pronounced Welsh accent. aWe donat see company often enough here. Mr. Butler hired extra help and I had every room in the house prepared just in case. So itas no trouble at all. Iam Mrs. Parry, mum.a aThank you, Mrs. Parry,a Anne said. aWhat a lovely view.a aIt is that,a the housekeeper agreed, athough the view from the back rooms is just as grand. You will want to tidy up and maybe rest awhile, mum. Iall send a maid up to unpack your things for you.a aThere really is no need,a Anne assured her hastily. Heavens, she was not really a guest. She was certainly not entitled to the services of a maid. aBut the idea of a rest sounds very inviting.a SHE UNPACKED HER MODEST TRUNK and put everything awaya"she even found that there was a dressing room attached to her bedchamber. She lay down on the bed when she was finished, more because she did not know what else to do than because she was weary.

She would cheerfully cower right here in this room for the next month, given half a chance, she thought. Buta"sadlya"it was too late to wish yet again that she had remained in Bath.

She fell asleep while she was in the middle of worrying.

When she awoke an indeterminate amount of time later, she jumped hastily off the bed and washed her hands and face. If the promised maid should arrive, she would perhaps not be able to avoid going down to dinner. She could not possibly do that. She was ravenously hungry, she realized, not having eaten since luncheon at a wayside inn, but being hungry and alone seemed preferable to having to dine with the duke and his family.

Good heavens, did Joshua really expect that she would be welcomed into their midst? As a social equal?

She slipped on her outdoor shoes and wrapped a cloak about herself in case the sea air was chilly. She could not avoid mealtimes for a whole month, of course, but perhaps by tomorrow she would feel sufficiently rested and in command of herself to suggest to the housekeeper that other arrangements be made for her accommodation and meals.

She slipped out down the back stairs and through the side door by which she had entered the house earlier. She hurried down the driveway, not sure where she was going exactly, but not really caring as long as it was far enough away to be out of sight of the house. Just past the thatched cottage, before she had to make the decision whether to leave the park entirely or turn back, she noticed a well-worn path to her right that must lead to the sea, which she had been able to see from the window of her bedchamber.

She turned and walked along it and soon found that she was indeed on top of high cliffs with the sea below and coarse grass to either side of the path and some gorse bushes and other wild flowers.

There was something about the sea that had always called to her spirit. Somehow it reminded her of her littleness in the grand scheme of things, and yet strangely that was a soothing rather than a belittling thought. It made her feel a part of something vast, her own little worries and concerns of no great moment after all. When she was close to the sea, she could believe that all was wella"and somehow always would be.

She could have lived contentedly in Cornwall for the rest of her life if only a Well, if only.

She would not have lived there all her life anyway. She had been going to marry Henry Arnold, and he lived in Gloucestershire, where she had grown up.

She sat where she was for a long time until she realized that the evening was now well advanced. She was suddenly glad of her cloak. The day had been warm, but dusk was approaching, and the breeze blowing off the sea was fresh and slightly moist. It smelled and tasted salty.

She got to her feet, scrambled back up to the cliff path, and strolled onward, her face lifted to the breeze, alternating her gaze between the beauty of the gradually darkening sky above and the corresponding loveliness of the sea below, which seemed to be absorbing the light from the sky so that it turned silver even as the gray overhead deepeneda"one of the universeas little mysteries.

It was as she walked onward that she became aware that she was not the only person out taking the evening air. There was a man standing out on a slight promontory ahead of her. He was gazing out to sea, unaware of her presence.

Anne stood quite still, undecided whether to turn back in the hope that he would not see her at all or to hurry past him with a brief greeting and a hope not to be detained.

She did not believe she had seen him before. He was not either Lord Aidan Bedwyn or Lord Alleyne. But he was probably one of the other Bedwyns or their spouses. This was, after all, the dukeas land, though it was possible he allowed strangers to wander here beyond the cultivated bounds of the park.

It was still only dusk. There was light by which to see the man. And as she looked Anne found it difficult either to retreat or to advance. She stood and stared instead.

He was not dressed for evening. He wore breeches and top boots, a tight fitting coat and waistcoat, and a white shirt and cravat. He was hatless. He was a tall man, with broad shoulders, slender waist and hips, and powerfully muscled legs. His dark, short hair was ruffled by the breeze.

But it was his face, seen in profile, that held Anne transfixed. With its finely chiseled features it was an extraordinarily handsome face. The word beautiful came to mind, inappropriate as it seemed to describe a man. He might have been a poeta"or a god.

He might well be, she thought, the most beautiful man she had ever set eyes upon.

She felt a craving to see him full face, but he was obviously still quite unaware of her presence. He looked as if he were in a world of his own, one that held him quite motionless, the gathering gray of the evening sky sharpening his silhouette as she gazed at him.

Something stirred inside her, something that had lain dormant in her for years and yearsa"and something that must remain dormant. Good heavens, he was a total stranger, and if her guess was correct he was someoneas husband. He was certainly not someone about whom to weave romantic fantasies.

She could not simply retreat, she decided. He would probably see her and think her behavior peculiar, even discourteous. She could only continue on her way and hope that a cheerful good evening would take her past him without the necessity of introductions or the embarrassment of having to walk back to the house with him, making labored conversation.

She wished then that she had decided to go back. But it was too late to do that. As she approached closer to the man, keeping to the footpath that would pass behind the promontory on which he stood, he became aware of her and turned rather sharply toward her.

She stopped short, not more than twenty feet from him.

And she stood transfixed againa"but with horror this time. The empty right sleeve of his coat was pinned against his side. But it was the right side of his face that caused the horror. Perhaps it was a trick of the evening light, but it seemed to her that there was nothing there, though afterward she did recall seeing a black eye patch.

He was a man with half a face, the extraordinary beautiful left side all the more grotesque because there was no right side to balance it. He was beauty and beast all rolled into one. And all of a sudden his height and those powerful thighs and broad shoulders seemed menacing rather than enticing. And equally suddenly the beauty of the gathering darkness and the peaceful solitude of the scene were filled with danger and the threat of an unknown evil.

She thought he took one step toward her. She did not wait to see if he would take another. She turned and ran, leaving the path and the cliff top behind her, half stumbling over the uneven ground, tugging at her cloak as it snagged against gorse bushes, and feeling the sharp sting of their scratches on her legs.

The trees surrounding the inner park were dark and threatening as she crashed through them, making all sorts of loud noises to reveal where she was. The lawn when she reached it looked dauntingly wide and very open, but she had no alternative but to dash across it and hope that at least she would be within screaming distance of the house before he caught up with her.

But her first panic was receding, and when she glanced quickly and fearfully over her shoulder, she could see that she was alone, that he had not followed her. And with that realization came a return of some rationality.

And deep shame.

Was she a child to believe in monsters?

He was merely a man who must have suffered some fearful accident. He had been out to take the air, as she had. He had been minding his own business, enjoying his own solitude, gazing quietly at the view, perhaps as affected by its loveliness as she had been. He had not said or done anything that was remotely threatening except to take that one step toward her. Probably all he had intended was to bid her a good evening and go on his way.

She felt quite mortified then.

She had run from him because he was maimed. She had judged him a monster purely on the strength of his outward appearance. And yet she had a reputation for tenderness toward the weak and handicapped. When she became a governess, she had deliberately taken a position with a child who was not normal, according to the definition of normality that society had concocted. She had loved Prue Moore dearly. She still did. And she was forever instilling into the girls at school and into David her conviction that every human being was a precious soul worthy of respect and courtesy and love.

Hunger and shame made her feel somewhat light-headed. But she closed her eyes, drew in deep lungfuls of sea air, and then opened her eyes and deliberately returned the way she had just come.

Darkness was definitely falling now, and she was aware that she ought not to be wandering thus in a strange place. But she had to go back and make amends if she could.

She came to the path she had been following. And there, she thought as she looked about to get her bearings, was surely the promontory. She looked left and right and decided that yes, that was certainly the place where he had been standing.

But he was no longer there.

She could not see him anywhere.

She hung her head and stood where she was for some time. She might have said good evening to him and nodded genially. He probably would have replied in kind. And she might then have walked onward, content with her behavior, and mourned whatever it was that had destroyed his beauty.

But she had recoiled from him, run away in fright and revulsion. How had he felt? Was this how other people treated him too? Poor man. At least all her hurts were inner ones. Peoplea"especially men who had looked on her with admiration and interesta"sometimes shrank from her when they knew her for what she was, an unwed mother, but at least she could walk along a street or a cliff path without causing anyone to turn in horror and run.

How could she have done it? How could she? And now she had been suitably punished for her cowardice in running away from the house. She had been discourteousa"worse!a"to a fellow human being who had in no way offended or hurt her.

It was suitable punishment, she thought as she drew near to the house and her stomach rumbled with emptiness, that she must go hungry to bed.

She could not get the maimed man out of her mind all night. She kept waking and thinking of him.

Poor man. What must it be like to carry oneas pain and oneas deformities like that, for all to see? Ah, the loneliness of it!

Poor man.

But such beauty! Such physical perfection to have been so cruelly destroyed!

SYDNAM WATCHED HER GO. For a moment he considered going after her, but he would only increase her panic by doing that.

Besides, he did not feel at all kindly disposed toward her.

Who the devil was she? Lady Alleyne Bedwyn perhaps? She was the only one of the Bedwyn wives he had not met. But what had she been doing out here alone? Why was Alleyne not with her? And had no one warned her about the monster who was Bewcastleas steward?

He had been in another world. Or rather he had been in this world, but he had been deeply immersed in the final, breathtaking moments of a dying day, with the sun just dropped behind the western horizon but the night not yet quite descended. It was a scene of grays and silvers and majesty. His right hand had itched to grasp his paintbrush more tightly so that he could reproduce the scene both as he saw it and as he felt it. But he had resisted the urge to flex the fingers of that hand, knowing that as soon as he did so he would have to admit to himself, yet again, that it was a phantom hand he carried at his side, that both it and his right arm were no longer there, just as his right eye was no longer there.

But he had still not come to the moment of that admission. He had still been transported by beauty. He had still been immersed in the illusion of happiness.

And then somethinga"a flutter at the corner of his eye, a footfall, perhapsa"had brought awareness crashing back and he had sensed that he was no longer alone.

And when he had turned, there she was.

For that moment before it happened the woman standing on the path had seemed part of the beauty of the evening. She had looked tall and willowy, her cloak flapping in the breeze and revealing a dress of lighter color beneath. She had not been wearing a bonnet. Her hair was fair, perhaps even blond, her face oval and blue-eyed and lovely.

She had looked like beauty personified. For one moment he had thought a Ah, what was it he had thought?

That she had walked out of the night into his dreams?

It was embarrassing even to consider that that was perhaps what he had thought before he had come jolting back to reality.

But certainly he had taken a step toward her without speaking a word. And she had stood there, apparently waiting for him.

And then he had seen the horror in her eyes. And then she had turned and fled in panic.

What had he expected? That she would smile and open her arms to him?

He gazed after her and was again Sydnam Butler, grotesquely ugly with his right eye gone and the purple scars of the old burns down the side of his face, paralyzing most of the nerves there, and all along his armless side to his knee.

He was Sydnam Butler, who would never paint again, and for whom no woman would ever walk beautiful out of the night.

But he had left self-pity behind long ago, and resented moments such as this when defenses had been lowered and it crept back in like a persistent and unwelcome guest to torment him. He knew that it would take him days to recover his equilibrium, to remind himself that he was now Sydnam Butler, the best and most efficient steward of the several Bewcastle employed to run his various estatesa"and that was the dukeas assessment, not his own.

He did not linger on the promotory. The magic was gone. The silver had gone from the sea to be replaced by a heaving gray, soon to be black. The sky no longer held even the memory of sunset. The breeze had turned chilly. It was time to go home.

He headed off along the path, in the direction from which the woman had come. After a few steps he realized that he was limping again and made a determined effort not to.

He was more glad than ever that he had moved out of the house and into the cottage. He liked it there. He might even stay after Bewcastle and all the others had returned home. A cottage, with a cook, a housekeeper, and a valet, was all a single man needed for his comfort.

Belatedly it struck him that there had been nothing grand about either the womanas cloak or the dress beneath it, and her hair had not been dressed elaborately. She must be just one of the servants who had come with the visitors.

It was a relief to realize that she was only a servant. There was less of a chance that he would see her again. Whenever she had any free time from now on, he did not doubt that she would stay far away from the cliffs and the beach, where she might encounter the monster of Glandwr again.

For an unguarded moment he had yearned toward her with his whole body and soul.

He thought resentfully that she would probably haunt his dreams for several nights to come.

If only he knew exactly how long Bewcastle intended to stay, he thought as he let himself into the cottage and closed the door gratefully behind him, he could begin counting down the days, like a child waiting for some longed-for treat.

Read on for an excerpt from The Secret Mistress.

by Mary Balogh.

Available from Delacorte Press.