Eleven

To Kate’s delight, they had arrived in time to share dinner with the adults of the family: Evan’s parents, his elder brother, and his sister-in-law.

“Don’t look so pleased,” Evan warned her when he retrieved her in the corridor outside their guest chambers.

The pair had been given time to tidy themselves from travel, and Kate had donned one of her favorite gowns: butter-yellow, with tiny topaz beads edging the short sleeves and neck. She noted that Evan had dressed formally too, donning his lecturer garb of a traditional man of fashion. She preferred the slouching grace of the clothing he wore for outdoor work.

“I cannot help but be curious about your family,” she replied. “They made you, after all. What sort of people could they be?”

“Here’s an early look.” With a flick of his hand, he indicated the walls. Portraits in oils, pencil sketches, light watercolors, all in heavy gilt frames, marched alongside them. Painted-silk paper showed through the gaps. Luxury, history, tradition—all were on display on the first floor, above the main receiving rooms.

“Look at this Elizabethan fellow. Are those jeweled earrings? If I’d known you came from such elegant stock, I would have been kinder to you,” she teased.

“On a second son’s allowance? You mustn’t allow yourself to become too fond. Every family has its black sheep,” he replied.

“Surely not you.”

“I am more of a gray. Just wait, my dear friend, and you will see.”

He seemed not to relish this visit, but it was the best location from which to leave on the following morning’s packet across the sea. So. She would help. She’d make him laugh three times before the evening was out.

When they entered the dining room, Kate quailed for a moment. No table ever groaned—elegantly, of course—under the weight of more gleaming silver. The greetings of Mr. and Mrs. Rhys, a handsome silver-haired couple dressed in the height of fashion, were of as crisp an accent as Kate had ever heard from the tonnish crowd at Newmarket.

Evan’s older brother, Owen, was a bluff, stocky version of his younger brother. A solid wall wrapped in cravat and bespoke superfine, he escorted Kate in to dinner. Evan paired Owen’s wife—Elena, Kate heard Evan call her. The younger Mrs. Rhys was a tall and sturdy woman in beautiful silk, with a lovely, placid face.

As Kate took her seat at the long table beneath a gleaming chandelier, she became aware that her plain short sleeves and lightly trimmed skirt were three years out of fashion.

But despite Evan’s lukewarm introductions, they all seemed pleasant. Eager to see Evan, certainly. Willing enough to meet his friend’s widow.

“You look charming, Lady Whelan!” exclaimed the elder Mrs. Rhys. “I’d not have thought to see that color again since it went out of fashion in 1815. Dear me, I’ve missed it. I’ve never seen it worn so well as on you.”

Oh. Maybe this was what Evan had meant by wait, and you will see. “Thank you?” Kate asked with some doubt.

“And how went your latest lectures, Evan?” Mrs. Rhys served a whole roasted squab on a plate of petal-thin porcelain. “London and—where was it? Oxford?”

“Cambridge.” Evan was taking a little of whatever dishes surrounded him.

“Oh, Cambridge. Well, that is all right too.”

He turned his head to fix his mother with a curdled gaze. “I know it is. I was happy to speak at Cambridge.”

“That’s fine. You mustn’t dwell on it—you know how you get.”

“I don’t recall. How do I get?” He was everything polite and curious, but Kate noticed his knuckles were white as he held his cutlery.

“Honestly, dear! You know. So morose.” Mrs. Rhys sliced through the flesh of her squab. “Tut! Antoine has left these on the spit too long. The heart is shriveled almost beyond recognizing.”

Evan let out a bark of laughter. “Surely not that shriveled.”

That laugh didn’t count as one of Kate’s three. It hardly counted as a laugh at all.

Evan, morose? That was one of the last words she’d use to describe him. Evan, irreverent: that would be far more expected.

“I like the squab,” said Owen. The pile of tiny bones on his plate indicated that he had already consumed two. “Don’t you, Mrs. Rhys?”

“Yes, Mr. Rhys,” said his wife in a soothing, low voice. “But I know you enjoy them even more, so I wouldn’t dream of eating any.” With this, her husband served himself a third squab with a belly-deep sigh of gratification.

Elena Rhys’s quick, clear glance to Kate across the table indicated that the lady was not so docile as she seemed. Kate suspected that she did not care for squab, but she had found a way to do as she pleased while keeping peace.

Hmm. This might be useful for Kate’s next encounter with Good Old Gwyn.

“Even if it was in Cambridge, your lecture was a service.” For the first time, Evan’s father spoke. “You ought to be proud of that. Keeping the silly English from snapping up worthless fiddle-faddle.”

“Helping them recognize it, rather,” Evan said. “They’re no sillier than any people who haven’t had the opportunity to learn their own history.”

“So stuffy!” hooted Owen. “A younger son hasn’t any responsibility. You ought to be roistering around the world. Where’s your sense of fun?”

“I left it in Cambridge,” Evan replied. “It’s in a box with my magic lantern slides.”

“I don’t know about that,” Kate said. “I think you had your sense of fun with you in Newmarket.” This was a prod, and to him it would not seem subtle. I’m here, and I think you’re marvelous.

What of it? They were friends, and she had always thought him marvelous.

“As Welsh,” she added to his parents, “no doubt you have a great admiration and understanding of the genuine Roman artifacts that originate on your soil. None of that English fiddle-faddle for you, correct?”

This gave rise to a gratifyingly awkward silence.

“You are English by birth, are you not, Lady Whelan?” asked the elder Mrs. Rhys.

“Indeed. My father is a horse breeder in Newmarket.” And a baronet, she could have added, but she did not. When she’d been born, being a horse breeder—a wealthy, successful, and well-connected one—was William Chandler’s sole honorific.

“But now, you’re a countess,” said Mr. Rhys. “Well done. It is an Irish title, but those still count for something, eh?”

Oh, for God’s sake. She would take up the reins of this conversation and crack it into a gallop. “A little something.” Kate sipped at her glass of wine—a fine dark red that tasted of plums and spicy herbs. “We have roofs and walls enough. You cannot imagine how glad I was to meet your son all those years ago. He told us…” She lowered her voice to a confidential volume. “…that one could create a pit for night soil, instead of flinging chamber pots out the window each morning.” Another shocked silence followed. Kate sipped at her wine again.

Evan cleared his throat. “You mustn’t make me out to be a genius of innovation. Con was familiar with the notion too, from his years at school in England.”

Kate shot Evan a quick look. A they don’t even guess that I was joking look. A tiny shrug, a smaller shake of his head. No, they don’t.

So she decided to amuse herself.

“True. The flower beds have suffered for it, but the gardeners are happier. And when I say gardeners, I mean the trio of little black Irish cows that we use to tend the lawn.”

“Very clever of you,” Mr. Rhys was the first to reply. “Use what you have, eh? That’s being resourceful.”

“Exactly. One does what one must. The cows make the devil of a mess—pardon my language—when they come into the kitchen. Which is a ring of stones with a spit, but you know, the earldom must have its indulgences.” A broad, knowing wink. “We cook over an open fire, and their hooves—you cannot think how quickly they can stomp out a fire.”

“But surely you can cook in ash,” said Owen helpfully. “Potatoes and…and whatnot.”

“And porridge. Oh, yes. We make do.”

Kate said this last with a pang. She liked both porridge and potatoes, and she missed the simple, hearty fare. It was filling and warm—though it did give Kate a figure that was more padded than she would wish.

The others were eating up her words as eagerly as their dinner. So she sauced a final remark.

“I am glad to have the chance to speak about Ireland,” Kate said. “Just as I am to learn about Wales. This is my first visit here. Can you credit it? I admit, I once assumed Wales was all colliers and shepherds and rocky tors. But even before I saw it for myself, I met Evan Rhys and realized that I must be wrong. He was cultured and rough and funny and considerate, and so I understood that the Welsh are a people of great variety. As are the Irish. And the English. And, no doubt, every other civilization on this planet. No, thank you, Mrs. Rhys, I won’t have a squab. But that asparagus looks fine. Thank you, I will take some.”

And she speared it on her fork and ate the whole stalk, end to end, without cutting it.

“Good lord, Ev,” said Owen. “She’s a lecturer like you.”

“I am a countess,” said Kate, with her mouth full.

Evan’s look was appraising. Through the candle wink on silver and crystal across the table, it was hard to interpret the shadings of expression. But she thought, maybe, that he was glad for what she had said.

She was glad she had said it. She could have said much more to his credit.

“Evan,” intoned Mr. Rhys—setting Kate’s outburst behind. “Do you plan to lecture more in England this season?”

“I cannot say. I don’t know how long I’ll be in Ireland. I need to gather more material. And in March, I’ll be off to Greece.”

Right, right. Kate must remember he’d come to Newmarket for the races, and would now travel to Ireland to look out for the source of the false artifacts. Their very friendship had an end date, three months after the date by which Kate needed a financial miracle.

Quickly, she drained the rest of her wine.

“Maybe you’ll meet a nice Irish lass while you’re there.” Owen winked at his brother from across the table and sucked with gusto on a wishbone. “Someone who doesn’t mind you traipsing about after ancient thingummies. Eh, Lady Whelan?”

“I agree wholeheartedly,” Kate said. “Ancient thingummies do not appeal to a great many women. Most prefer their, ah, thingummies to be modern and firm.”

Evan laughed. Good! That was one.

“But the discerning sort of woman,” she added, trying to catch his eye, “thinks of a thingummy’s source. And if she admires the source, nothing else is of consequence.”

Elena Rhys held a serviette up to her mouth, covering a coughing fit.

Owen Rhys, however, had more to say. “That’s fine for a fairy tale, but in truth the discerning sort of woman prefers an older son. Still, Evan is of good family. How should he have reached the age of thirty-four without finding someone to take him?”

“I don’t know,” Kate said. “It is difficult to imagine why someone did not snap him up long ago.”

“We thought he might take the daughter of one of the country squires,” said Mrs. Rhys. “But he never came up to scratch, and so she wed someone else. Samuel Jones, a farmer. She could have done better for herself. Now she’s thirty years old and has fourteen children.”

“I thought it was fifteen,” was Evan’s only contribution. He seemed unbothered by the discussion of his marriageability—but Kate was not so indifferent. Why, if Evan should wed, that would bring an end to their friendship. Another Mrs. Rhys would surely not understand its nature—even if she did not find out about their single, ill-advised liaison.

Which had been the greatest, most shaking pleasure Kate had taken in years, and she must not allow herself to think of it at table.

She pressed a cooling hand to her cheeks, but not before Evan noticed the rising color. In his dark eyes, something wicked kindled that was not the reflection of candlelight.

Then his brows knit. “I just remembered…” He shook his head. “Anne Jones.”

“Yes, dear. It’s too late for that,” said Mrs. Rhys.

“It was too late fourteen years and fourteen children ago.” Her husband chuckled.

“Not that, not that. It’s the name. Kate’s—ah, Lady Whelan’s father mentioned that he knew someone by the name of Anne Jones, but it is not that one. Do you know any others?”

The two sets of husbands and wives looked at each other. “Which one?” they said all together.

“The butcher’s wife?” asked one. “Or the innkeeper’s?”

“The vicar’s mother?” asked a second.

“Oh! The dressmaker’s assistant—the one on the street. You know the one, with the terrible gowns in the shop window.”

Judging from the laughter that succeeded, apparently in Wales it was considered extremely funny to discuss the commonness of the name Anne Jones.

Evan’s voice cut through the chatter. “The one I mean is forty or forty-five years of age. Prettyish.”

Kate shot him a questioning look. He made a gesture of surrender with his hands. “I don’t know any more. It’s the description your father gave me. He, er…knew her some years ago.”

Ha. That meant only one thing: a paramour. When a man dropped an er into a simple sentence about a past acquaintance, he was giving himself time to think of how to shield a listening lady from a more scandalous word.

Con had, er…known a lady in Thurles since before their marriage. He had, er…seen to her welfare when that lady developed smallpox—and then, shortly before his death, the longtime mistress had, er…delivered a son.

Such long-standing devotion was almost honorable. Er.

Kate cut her food into ruthless tiny pieces. “I have never heard the name.”

“There is a Mrs. Jones of about that age who runs a foundling home near the English border,” said Mrs. Rhys. “I cannot speak to her prettiness—”

“Oh, yes! Quite pretty, she is,” interjected her husband, causing his wife to frown.

“I know of her because she travels through to collect the orphans of the parish.” That lady spoke on in a determined rush. “She takes them off to her foundling home and finds work for them, and they needn’t then be a drain on our parish resources. It keeps everything so nice and tidy.”

“Does she have any children?” Evan asked. Odd.

“I know of none besides those she cares for in her foundling home. Quite as though they were her own. She says so.” Mrs. Rhys shaved the thinnest possible sliver of breast meat from the squab.

The remainder of the meal wore on in similar fashion. Kate ate more than she ought and drank more wine than she should, because it prevented her from talking. She didn’t find so much humor now in the role of Provincial Countess.

Evan was right. There was little of laughter here, at least of the sort in which she could share.

After the meal, Owen and Elena’s children were brought down to greet the company in the drawing room. A half dozen dark-haired, bouncing boys and girls, they ranged in age from two to ten years. When they saw Evan, the older ones ran to surround him, and the younger ones toddled after their siblings on fat little legs and embraced him about the knees with fat little arms.

Kate’s heart gave a squeeze. Oh, she wanted to snatch up those littlest ones and hug them, tight, tight. She missed that innocent age, when life was nothing but the present moment, and a child could be made happy merely by finding something interesting on the floor to shove into his mouth.

She missed all the ages through which her children had passed.

She felt a gaze on her, and looked from the children to meet Elena Rhys’s hazel eyes. The other woman smiled, and as she clapped her hands to summon her children back to the nursery, she brushed past Kate. “You’ll be good for him,” she murmured, then lifted her voice in a placid, polite good-night to the company.

And whatever did that mean? We’re friends, nothing more, Kate wanted to call after the younger Mrs. Rhys—but friends, nothing more, did not take each other to bed, and Kate did not know what name she ought to put to her relationship with Evan now.

When Evan excused himself, Kate did the same, pleading the excuse of travel fatigue. She followed him from the drawing room, letting the door shut behind them. They were in another rich corridor, this one tapestried and lit by beeswax candles in cut-crystal globes.

“I see why Good Old Gwyn doesn’t faze you,” she said.

He had gone a step ahead of her, but at the sound of her voice he halted. “Indeed.” He touched one of the tapestries, a stitched-silk depiction of a saint’s grotesque martyrdom. “I had hoped things would be different with you here. A new person, changing the shape of the old familiar interactions.”

“How could I change anything when I don’t even know what a privy is?”

“Or an indoor kitchen?” His smile was saturnine, all candlelit plane and shadow. “You were wicked. I can’t think of when I’ve enjoyed a meal more.”

“Wicked? A provincial charmer such as I?” She batted her lashes in exaggerated fashion.

“You were, in relation to me. You needn’t defend me to my family. It won’t make any difference to them.”

“Did it make a difference to you?”

“It wrung my heart.” Ah, the rakish charmer was back as he laid a palm over his chest. “It made my evening whole. It set me to swooning.”

She cuffed him on the shoulder. “Don’t tell me what you think, then. I know I was rude, but I cannot be sorry.”

His hand fell to clench at his waist, but he said nothing.

“I liked meeting your nieces and nephews too,” Kate added. “I hadn’t realized you had so many. You don’t need Nora and Declan at all.”

He laughed. “Nonsense! As though children are interchangeable.” That was two. With every laugh she coaxed from him, she felt the distance between them lessen.

A distance she had put into place. She knew that.

“Besides which,” Evan added, “yours are my only godchildren. So they must always be special to me.”

“It was not creative of us to name you godfather to Declan after having you serve so for Nora. But you gave such wonderful presents, how could we not?” she teased. “I didn’t mean to imply that children are all the same. Only I didn’t realize you have so much family of your own.”

“Hmmm.” He traced the line of a silken spear. She liked watching the movement of his hand, so strong over ancient thread so delicate. “You are wondering why I spent so much time in your house?”

“Not in an ungracious way. More in a curious way. If I could see my family so easily by crossing the Irish Sea, I would—”

“Do nothing differently at all, I’ll wager. If your heart lies across the sea, there’s no difference between a day’s travel and a week’s. You’ll follow it.”

“And where does your heart lie?”

He picked at a loose thread, turning an embroidered stab wound into a river of blood. “Oh, you know me. It’s buried in the earth hereabouts. Wales is full of old Roman ruins and standing stones that date back even farther. Dig awhile, and you never know what you’ll find.”

“Yes,” she said. “I have been thinking the same about you.”

“Ah, Lady Whelan. You’ll have me blushing if you keep that up.”

So easily, she became the one blushing. She didn’t know why—what—oh, she was a muddle of fiery cheeks and back to the way we were and confusion.

“Will you show me around this place?” she asked. “Not the rich and elegant bits, but something people don’t usually see.”

“Such as?” He caught her eyes, looking down at her with cool curiosity.

“Whatever makes you want to come back to Wales. Whatever…” She swallowed. “Whatever holds your heart here.”

“Ah.” His strong features took on a wistful cast. “For that, we’ll have to go to the stables.”

“Then lead the way.”