Chapter 19
It took him a few minutes to realize exactly what had happened. She had come upon him when he had least expected to see anyone, and she had caught him at his most vulnerable. He was almost never vulnerable. He had built a hard shell about himself long ago, probably from the very earliest years of his life.
He held her tightly and drew strength and comfort from her warm, relaxed body. She had her arms clasped about his waist and her head on his shoulder. She had not fought him—he could hear the distant echo of his voice commanding her not to. Neither had she turned limp and impassive in his arms. She was deliberately offering him the comfort of her presence.
It had seemed natural to him to turn to her, though it had been an unconscious, instinctive thing. She was, after all, Marged. And he was her lover. He had loved her just two nights ago with his body. But she did not know that. He was her enemy.
He lifted his cheek from her head and loosened his hold. He supposed there was no way of hiding the fact that he had been crying. He could not remember the last time he had cried. Not at his grandfather's funeral or even at his mother's. Perhaps when he was at Tegfan at the age of twelve and they would not allow him to see his mother.
Marged drew back her head and looked up at him, though she did not immediately drop her arms from about his waist.
"Can you imagine a greater cruelty," he asked, "than driving a poor pregnant woman out of a church and out of a community and forcing her to live her life as an outcast, so abjectly poor that she does not even know if she will be able to feed her child on any given day? And of doing such a thing in the name of Christianity?"
She gazed at him for a while before finally lowering her arms though she did not step away from him. "No," she said. "I don't believe I can."
"Even if she had been guilty," he said. "Don't the devout members of your church realize that love is what Christianity is all about? Just simply that? Nothing else. Only love." He was no expert on Christianity, but it seemed to him that that was the Gospel—the good news. Not the rigid, judgmental application of a code of rules and laws.
She did not answer him. Perhaps she thought he was not the person to be preaching love and Christianity.
He had to move. He had to get away from that house. But not alone. He shunned aloneness now as he had shunned company when he had left the churchyard earlier. He had always been alone, so very alone. He took her hand in his, willing her not to pull away, and drew her up the steep slope beside the house onto the top of the outcropping of rock. There was a view from up there, an unobstructed view of rolling hills and valleys that stretched for miles. And there was wind. It buffeted them, sending her dress and his cloak billowing out behind them.
She did not pull away. Neither did her hand lie quite limply in his. She curled her fingers lightly about it.
"She used to joke sometimes," he said. '"At least we have a back garden with a view,' she used to say. 'The best in the country.'"
They stood looking at the view. She said nothing. Their shoulders did not quite touch.
"She was my father's wife," he said quietly. "She gave birth to my father's son. She kept me alive and gave me all the love I have ever known and taught me all the important things I have learned in my life. She was my mother, my mam, and yet suddenly when I was twelve she became a contaminating force in my life. So much so that I must never see her. I must never even write to her or receive a letter from her. She was Welsh and a product of the lower classes—a lethal combination. They spoke of her—on the few occasions when she was mentioned at all—with contempt. I was encouraged to despise her."
"Did you?" Marged asked.
"No," he said. "Never for a moment."
It was perhaps the one comfort he could feel. But he had never been able to tell her that. When he finally saw her again, she was dead.
"Marged," he said, "they gave her a cottage to live in. She must have lived there for six years before her death. Was she quite alone?"
"No," she said. "Not quite. Many people tried to make amends. My father and the deacons and their wives called on her. Admittedly they would not have done it if they had not discovered that she had been legally married, but it took some courage. A few people called more than once or twice. I believe Mrs. Williams became her friend. I—I called on her several times. She would never go back to chapel."
He realized suddenly that he was gripping her hand very tightly. He relaxed his hold.
"I was not allowed to return here or to write to anyone," he said. "My past was to be obliterated as if it had never been. I became Geraint Marsh, Viscount Handford—though my grandfather and everyone else called me Gerald—an English gentleman whose life began at the age of twelve."
He turned without conscious thought to lead her down from the rise and to stroll across the hills with her. It seemed natural to share his thoughts and his pain with her. After all, she was his lover and his love. But the thought was not a conscious one.
She felt rather as if she had stepped out of time. What was happening did not quite belong in this time or this place. With her mind she could tell herself that she did not need to hear this or anything else that would somehow make him appear human to her. She could tell herself that he was her enemy, the man she hated more than anyone else in this world. If he suffered, he could never suffer enough for her liking. She could remind herself that she loved another man now—and that they had been lovers, however briefly. She loved a man who was this man's sworn enemy. She could remember that she had walked across the hills rather than go home because she had wanted to think and to dream about Rebecca.
But sometimes the mind has only a little influence over one's whole being. She walked with him and held his hand and listened, not only to his words but to his pain, and she could not think or feel any of the things she should think or feel.
He was Geraint and he needed her.
"I always assumed somehow that I would come back," he said. "Back home to my mother. When my education was finished. I thought they would be satisfied then. I thought I would be my own man. I thought I would come back to her and love and care for her during her declining years as she had loved and cared for me during my growing years. Even when I knew she was dead, I thought I was coming home. I thought I would assert myself and stay here." He drew a deep breath and exhaled audibly.
She found herself wanting to take a step closer to him so that she could lean her head on his shoulder. She resisted the urge. He was the Earl of Wyvern, she reminded herself.
"It was not home," he said. "There was no home. Anywhere. Nowhere where I belonged. No one I belonged to."
"Your grandfather—" she began.
"No," he said.
She remembered the handsome, arrogant, self-assured, very English young man who had returned from England for his mother's funeral.
"Marged," he said, "for what it is worth after so long, I am sorry for what happened. Deeply sorry. I selfishly grabbed for comfort where I thought—without any good reason—it was being offered. But I did care. You were still my wonderful friend—that was how I described you to my mother the day you befriended me and plied me with blackberries. Do you remember?"
She swallowed but still heard a gurgle in her throat. She fought tears. "Yes," she said.
He stopped walking and turned to her. "And I am sorry for this too," he said, lifting her hand in his own, though he did not release it. "I have kidnapped you and forced you to listen to an outpouring of self-pity. I am not given to such outpourings, Marged. You were in the wrong place at the wrong time. You will wish me to the devil—where I belong." He smiled rather wanly.
Yes, she must wish it. She bit her lower lip. He was not Geraint. Not any longer. He was the Earl of Wyvern. Why did you ignore my pleas for Eurwyn? she wanted to ask him. Why did you forget then about our wonderful friendship? But she did not want to hear his answer. Not now. She was feeling too confused and upset.
"Come," he said, and he brought her hand through his arm and finally released his hold on it. "I will walk you home."
It was on the tip of her tongue to tell him that she had walked far enough with him already. Too far. She could see herself home. But she could not say that either. Hatred, she was discovering, was too powerful an emotion. Too like love. Sometimes the two were indistinguishable. Perhaps if she had not loved him, she would never have hated him. She would merely have disliked and despised him.
Her heart ached with hatred and with the memory of love. It was only after they had walked for a few minutes in silence, back toward the path that would lead downward to Ty-Gwyn, that she felt resentment. She was twenty-six years old. She was no longer a girl to feel such confusion of emotions. She loved Rebecca now—or the man behind Rebecca's mask. There was even the chance, however remote, that she carried his child inside her. When one loved one man, one ought not to be able to feel any tenderness at all for any other. Especially when that other man was not even worthy of one's liking or respect.
And yet there had always been Geraint. And still was, it seemed. Always, all the time she had been married to Eurwyn, all the time she had loved him, there had been Geraint. And now that there was Rebecca—though there was no present or future tense in that relationship, only the past—even though it was a passionate relationship for her and an all-consuming one—even now there was Geraint.
'There will be the seeding to do soon," he said at last. He sounded like the Earl of Wyvern again, remote, haughty, rather cold. "And lime to haul for fertilizing. Do you need help, Marged? Can I send a man or two from the home farm?"
She felt a welcome surging of anger—and of smug satisfaction. But mostly anger. She had had help. She had had a man of her own. But that man was gone, thanks to the Earl of Wyvern.
"No, thank you," she said coolly. "I have all the help I need. I have hired Waldo Parry to work for me."
"Have you?" he said. "I am glad, Marged. I was under the impression when I saw you picking stones off the field that you could not afford to hire anyone."
How dared he!
"I have afforded my rent each year," she said, "and my tithes. What other money I have and how I spend it are my concern, my lord."
"Quite," he said, and they walked on in silence for a while. But he was not finished with her. "Marged," he said when they were a short distance from Ty-Gwyn, "I would hate to see you lose your help almost before you have him. If Waldo Parry—or any other man of your acquaintance—is a follower of Rebecca, it might be as well for you to warn them that I am hot on their trail. It is a mere matter of time before the whole foolish trouble is at an end."
"And there will be no mercy on any of them," she said. "I know that. But you cannot make me tremble with fear, Geraint Penderyn. If I knew any of Rebecca's followers, I would encourage them to continue what they are doing. Perhaps I would even become one of them myself. And perhaps I would see Rebecca as a hero, as someone to be admired and respected. Someone to be followed."
She did not care about the recklessness of her words. She had promised herself on a previous occasion that she would not allow him to play cat and mouse with her.
"He is a criminal, Marged," he said. They had stopped outside the gate and he was looking at her with his hard blue eyes—eyes that had been tear-filled and beautiful up on the moors just a short while before. "He has no way of winning."
"Sometimes"—she leaned a little toward him and looked directly into his eyes—"people, both men and women, would prefer to fight a hopeless cause than not to fight at all. Sometimes the worst that can happen to a person is that he lose his self-respect or his soul. Or hers. Don't threaten me, my lord, or try to make me run in a craven panic to warn off anyone I may know who marches with Rebecca. You are wasting your breath."
He nodded slowly, his eyes never leaving hers. "Yes," he said, "I can see that. Be careful, then. Far more careful than you were the night you put wet ashes in my bed. I caught you then, remember?"
She had just told him that he could not make her tremble with fear. But she felt cold with it as he took her right hand in his, raised it to his lips, and kissed the palm as he had done with both hands on a previous occasion. He knew. Not just about the ashes—of course he knew about those. He knew that she followed Rebecca. He was warning her that he could easily catch her, as he had that night. And that he would not help her when he did.
Was he warning her in the hope that he would not have to catch her and see her punished? Was it his way of acknowledging that he had once cared?
He turned without another word and continued on his way down the hill. She watched him go, the man who was so much a part of her that not even hatred, not even her love for another man could quite dislodge him.
She could not love him, she thought, frowning slightly for a moment. She had loved him once, then Eurwyn, now Rebecca. That at least made sense—one man at a time. She could not have loved him while she loved Eurwyn. But she knew she had. She certainly could not love him now while her passionate love for Rebecca was so new and so wonderful—and so painful. But she knew that she did in some strange, strange way.
In some way she would always love Geraint Penderyn. Unwillingly and with denial on her lips and in her mind at every turn. But in this moment of painful truth she knew that he would always be there—in the depths of her heart.
Where she did not want him to be.
But where he was and always would be.
Matthew Harley was taking a Friday afternoon off. It was something he rarely did, though he was entitled to it and to far more spare time than he ever took. Usually he did not look for time off. He was happiest when at work. But work was no longer satisfying. He had even wondered if he should start looking for a post elsewhere.
Except that he did not want to go elsewhere. He had begun to think of Tegfan almost as his. He had made it as prosperous and efficient as it was. He had made a reputation for himself. He had won the respect of every landowner in Carmarthenshire. He did not want to have to begin again somewhere else.
It did not seem fair to him that he would always be someone's steward, that he would never own land for himself. But then life was not fair and he had never been one to complain about what could not be helped. But he had begun to think of Tegfan as his own. He had begun to believe that the Earl of Wyvern would never want to live there himself. He had two larger estates in England, after all, and he was known as a man who preferred life in London to country living, anyway.
It had seemed safe to Harley to give in to the fantasy that Tegfan belonged to him. It had never mattered that he drew only a salary from it and not all the profits. Money had never meant a great deal to him provided he had enough for his needs.
But Wyvern was back and it seemed that he was going to stay. And he had become tougher lately and had fallen more in line with what was expected of him in this part of the British Isles. It was he who was conferring with Sir Hector Webb and the other landowners on what must be done about the threat the Rebecca Riots was posing. It was he who was talking with the special constables, planning strategy with them.
Harley had hoped at the start that Wyvern would return to England soon. He still hoped it though it was seeming less likely than it had. And he hoped for a way of reasserting his own importance. If only somehow he could be the one to trap the mob, particularly their Rebecca! His mind returned sometimes to that conversation he had had with Sir Hector, when the baronet had suggested that he find an informant.
Harley spent the Friday afternoon with Ceris. It was a beautiful day, and warm. They took a picnic up into the hills behind Tegfan—inside the park so that they could be alone together. But he could not think seriously of informants or riots or even his own frustrations as a steward on such an afternoon and in such company. He put it all out of his mind. He would think about it some other time.
"Now tell me," he said, lying back on the grass after they had finished eating, and setting one arm over his eyes to shield them from the sun while he reached for her hand with the other. She was seated on the grass beside him, her knees drawn up, her dress pulled decently down so that he was given not even a glimpse of her ankles. "Did you cook all those cakes and biscuits yourself? Or was it your mother?" He smiled, though he did not remove his arm to look at her.
"I baked them all myself," she said primly. "Mam was busy making the cheese. Did you think I was incapable?"
"Not for a moment," he said. He had tried very hard not to fall in love with her. When he had started to think about leaving his present employment, he had started to think too about England and a more suitable bride. His parents would not appreciate a Welsh peasant for a daughter-in-law. His grandfather was a baron. "Come down here to me."
She had turned her head to look down at him when he withdrew his arm to look. He tugged on her hand and then reached up his other arm to her waist. She came down rather awkwardly, half across him. But she kissed him as sweetly as ever, her lips pouted softly and closed. He felt the familiar rush of heat and tightening in the groin. He set his arms about her and turned her until she was lying on the grass and he was bent over her.
"I will swear on a stack of Welsh Bibles," he said, "that I consider you the best cook in Wales. Will you marry me?"
He heard his own question with some surprise. But he did not want to retract it.
He watched her eyes grow huge and rather sad and bright with tears. And he felt a stabbing of pain because she was going to reject him. It was the blacksmith, he thought. He did not know what had happened there, but it was the blacksmith.
"I should like that, Matthew," she said softly.
He gazed down at her. He had not realized quite how lonely his life had been. He pictured her, neat and pretty, in his cottage, waiting for him at the end of each working day, the house filled with the smells of cooking. And seated beside his hearth during the evenings, busy at her loom or with her needle. And in his bed. waiting to give him the comforts of her body. Kissing him farewell in the mornings. How had he ever thought that the sort of female companionship he got at brothels on occasion was all he needed or wanted?
He kissed her and prodded at her lips with his tongue. They trembled and parted to allow him access to the soft flesh behind, though she kept her teeth together. He fondled her breasts through the cotton of her dress—lovely full, firm breasts. And he pressed his palm down over her ribs and stomach and abdomen until he could push his fingers down between her legs and feel the heat of her there. He felt her stiffen before she relaxed again.
He kept his hand where it was as he lifted his head and looked down into her flushed face. "Are you a virgin, Ceris?" he asked. He did not know quite how he would feel if the answer was no.
"Yes," she whispered.
He tightened his hand a little. "Let me show you how pleasant it will be to lose it," he said. "Here, Ceris, in the warm sunshine? And on Sunday I will have the banns called in church for the first time."
He watched her gnawing at her lower lip while her eyes roamed over his face. "If it is very important to you, Matthew," she said. "But if it is all the same to you, I would prefer to wait."
"For a marriage bed?" It was very important to him. He was hard and throbbing, and denying himself would cause several minutes of acute pain. She had not said no. And he would make it pleasant for her. He knew how, even though he had never broken in a virgin. "The marriage bed it will be, then."
He lay down beside her and set his arm over his eyes again. He tried to focus his thoughts on something other than his arousal.
"Thank you, Matthew," she said.
"What do you know about the Rebecca Riots?" he asked her.
"Nothing," she said very much too quickly, her voice breathless.
Ah. "It seems very possible," he said, "that there are rioters here in and around Glynderi as there are everywhere else."
"No," she said. "I think not, Matthew. I would know. There has been no mention. Everyone is law-abiding about here. No one has reason to be so foolish."
It pained him to know that she would lie to him when she had just agreed to be his wife. Though he had known that she would. He ought not to have introduced the subject. He had not meant to. He should drop it. He should take her back home. If he kept her out much longer, her parents would imagine that he was doing to her what he had just asked her to let him do.
"I suppose you are right," he said. "I have told Wyvern as much. It is a waste to keep constables here, I have told him, when they could be used to better effect elsewhere."
"Yes," she said. "It is foolish."
"Those men from other places," he said, "and their Rebecca—it was thought by some that they might be out again last night. There are those of us who know that almost certainly it will be tonight. A trap is being set for them if they but knew it. The Earl of Wyvern has one or two reliable informers, and we know exactly where they will attack next. There will be a reception committee awaiting them there. I believe we can hope to catch the leaders at the very least—Rebecca, Charlotte, some of the other so-called daughters. We will nip this thing in the bud tonight. It is a good thing that no one from around Tegfan is involved."
No, he did not imagine it. He was holding her hand. It turned cold and clammy in his grasp. And he was furious with her and furious with himself for ruining the afternoon. It was tonight, then. He had guessed correctly. Whom would she try to warn? The blacksmith? And what sort of a hell of a night would she have, imagining all the various traps her people might be walking into?
He hated himself for teasing her. When she was his wife it would be as well if he did move away from here so that her loyalties would not be divided. When she was his wife, she was going to be his. All his. He was going to have all her loyalty and all her love for himself.
But a thought came to him suddenly. What if he took it a little further than teasing? If he was right, and if he had scared her sufficiently that she would try to warn someone, he could discover the identity of at least one follower of Rebecca. It would be difficult to prove, though, that she had called on that person for that particular reason. He frowned. He would have to prevent her from giving her warning too early. If there really was to be an attack tonight and she arrived too late to warn her friends, would she follow them, hoping to prevent disaster? Was Ceris brave enough to do that? And did she care enough? He thought so. With any luck she would lead him and a few constables, and perhaps even Wyvern, to a gate smashing and to Rebecca himself. And he would be the one everyone would have to thank for it.
But he would be using Ceris to trap her own people. And he was in love with Ceris. He wished fervently that he had not touched on this subject at all.
He scrambled to his feet and stood looking down the slope to the house for a few moments. Then he turned and reached down a hand for hers.
"It is time I took you home, Ceris," he said.
"Yes." She allowed him to pull her up and busied herself brushing grass from her skirt and picking up the empty picnic basket. Her face was like parchment. Even her lips looked bloodless.
"We will call at Tegfan first," he said. "There is something I must do there. It will take only a few minutes. And then home." He smiled. "I will come inside with you and we will tell your parents our news, shall we?"
"Yes, Matthew." She made a pitiful attempt at a smile.
Once inside her father's house, he would be invited to stay. He would do so, even staying past his welcome if necessary. Past the time when Rebecca and all her followers could be warned to abandon tonight's outing.