บท 54: Chapter 54

"So tell me, Marietta," he began as they ate, "where is it you come from? Your accent is very refined for a farmer's daughter."

"I come from a small hamlet in Kent," she replied. "The vicar's wife was my mother's dearest friend and I was educated with her daughters."

He studied her as she spoke and saw the tension that crept into her shoulders and the tightening of her lips. He knew there was something, somewhere in her background that had hurt her terribly. Perhaps it was simply that she had loved her husband deeply and never gotten over losing him, but he didn't think that was it. There was something darker, some reason that such a warm woman was so shy when it came to men. "Tell me about your husband, if you would. You said you wed at sixteen? And he was a soldier, was he not?"

"Yes." She stared down at her plate. "Jack was the youngest son of a baron and determined to be a soldier. Six months after our wedding, he was sent to India and I never saw him again."