by Mary Balogh
“What was that song?” he asked her.
“‘Hiraeth’?” she said. “You mean the last one they sang?”
He nodded. “Heer—?”
“‘Hiraeth,’” she said. “It is an old Welsh song. It is one of my favorites. No, it is my favorite. It touches me here.” She pressed a hand to her left breast and flushed and removed the hand when she noticed his eyes following the gesture.
“What is it about?” he asked.
“‘Hiraeth’ means”—she sketched small circles with her hand for a moment—“it is difficult to translate. Longing. Yearning. It is the longing one feels for perfection, for the absolute. For God. That reaching beyond ourselves. The yearning that is never fully satisfied, except perhaps in heaven. I am not explaining it very well.”
“Oh, yes, I think you are,” he said. It was almost as if he had known. As if he had understood the Welsh words. Or perhaps some ideas conveyed themselves through music and emotion without the necessity of words.
She looked at him rather uncertainly. “It is part of the Welsh soul,” she said. “Hiraeth mawr—the great longing. Maybe it comes from the wildness of nature. From the hills and the valleys. From the sea. Maybe— I am sorry. I am sounding foolish.” She glanced at Verity again.
“My daughter Verity,” he said. “She is six years old. This is Mrs. Jones, Verity. I asked her to be your governess, but she was unable to accept the position.”
“My grandmama taught me how to read and do sums,” Verity said. “But I want to learn to sing. And I want to speak Welsh. I think you must speak it. You sing when you talk. That means you are Welsh.”
Siân Jones smiled at his daughter. God, but she was beautiful. Alex wondered if she would be as lovely dressed in all the finery of a fashionable lady at a London ball. He rather suspected that she would. But not lovelier. And she had been inside that chapel. She belonged. He felt a wave of loneliness again. This Welsh adventure was doing strange things to him. He did not normally think of himself as a lonely man.
“My mother spoke it to me almost all the time when I was growing up,” she said in answer to Verity’s comment. “Since she died, eight years ago, I have spoken almost nothing else.”
“But your English is very good,” Verity said politely.
“Thank you.” She smiled again, but she looked uncomfortable. She looked once more as if she was about to move on past them.
He spoke on impulse. He had not yet sent to London, and he had made no decision about going down to Newport himself. But he certainly had not intended to pursue this option any further. Indeed, he had concluded that she would not after all have been a suitable choice.
“Perhaps,” he said, “you have had a chance to think further about my offer during the course of the day. Perhaps you would like to change your answer?”
He was surprised to see that she hesitated before looking into his face. “No,” she said.
“Or perhaps you would like a few days before giving a final answer,” he said. “How does a week sound?”
“I don’t need—” she began. But she did not complete the sentence. She bit her lip and looked at Verity.
“Do you go to that chapel instead of going to church?” Verity asked.
She nodded. “It is where my family and friends go,” she said. “Most of the people of Cwmbran, in fact. Not many people go to the church. It is English and we are Welsh. The singing is dismal there.” She laughed, a low musical sound that did strange things to Alex’s insides. Her eyes danced and her face lit up with merriment when she laughed. Her teeth were white and perfect.
“If you were my governess,” Verity said. “I could go to the chapel with you. I could sing those songs if you taught me Welsh. Or is it only men who can sing?”
Siân Jones laughed again. “Oh, no,” she said. “We all sing. You cannot be Welsh and not sing. You would be exiled to somewhere horrid, far, far away.”
“The back of beyond,” Verity said.
“Well?” Alex asked, looking at Siân, compelling her through a knack he had learned in a lifetime of commanding servants to look back.
He saw her hesitate again. “A week,” she said. “But I don’t think it will be yes.”
“Fair enough,” he said. “I shall await your answer. You will come in person?”
She hesitated yet again and nodded. And then she smiled at Verity once more, tightened her shawl beneath her chin, and strode on past them. He turned his head to watch her walk down the street. She did not look back.
God, he thought, shaken, he wanted her. He wanted to bed her. To make love to her. To a Welsh laboring woman who harnessed herself to a coal cart in his coal mine by day. To a woman who could look him directly in the eye and address him without any bending of the knee or courtesy title. To a woman with the foolishness and courage to sneak from her home at night to spy on a men’s political meeting. To a woman who yearned for the absolute. To a woman who was part of the soul of Wales.
He could remember the feel of her body against his. Tall, shapely, generously breasted, firmly muscled. He could remember the warmth and softness of her lips within his own. He could remember the surge of desire that one brief kiss had aroused in him.
He hoped she would refuse the offer he had renewed. It would not be a good thing at all to have her living and working under his own roof. He was not sure he would be able to keep his hands off her, and it had never been his way to defile his servants or those dependent upon him.
He wondered if she would come to tell him if her answer was no. He should have specified that she must come anyway. But he supposed he could send for her at any time. She was his employee, after all. And a very lowly one at that.
“Papa,” Verity said, tripping along at his side, “I wish I could speak like Mrs. Jones. I could listen to her talking all day long.”
Yes, so could I, her father thought. Siân Jones’s soft Welsh accent was not by any means the least of her attractions.
And he was fooling himself if he thought he was hoping she would turn down his offer, he admitted ruefully to himself.
6
IT was perhaps even more spine-chilling now that he knew what it was. Alex had woken at the first howling and bellowing and was standing now at his open bedroom window, as he had a few nights before. They were out again tonight, then, the Scotch Cattle. What was it this time? he wondered. Chartism again? Or was it something to do with the lowering of wages? Sometimes, Barnes had said, there were attempts to form a union and to get everyone out on strike. Was that happening now?
More and more as the days passed he felt ignorant and helpless. Frustrated. He beat a tattoo against the windowsill with the side of one fist.
Perhaps they were merely having a meeting and had decided to chill everyone in the valley with that prolonged howl, he thought when some time passed and there was no repetition of it. But it came again just as he was about to turn back to bed, loud and long. Bone-chilling.
He was angry suddenly. Angry at the knowledge that this was his property and his industry and that these people were his workers and his dependents, and yet everyone seemed to know and understand more than he. He felt almost like a child again, expected to behave himself, to be seen but not heard. Goddammit, he thought, turning from the window and striding across the room and into his dressing room, he was going out there to see for himself what was going on.
Doubtless it was dangerous, he thought fewer than ten minutes later as he ran down the stairs, fully clothed and wrapped about with a dark cloak. But to hell with danger. He was spoiling for a fight if someone would just take him on. Scotch Cattle keeping him awake at night and putting terror into his people, for God’s sake! He would like nothing better than to get his hands on one or two of them.
There were long intervals of silence between the howls, and even when they came they were difficult to locate. Sound had a strang
e echoing quality in the hills. It took him almost half an hour to come upon the men making the noises, and then it was only to find that they were well below the height to which he had climbed. He flattened himself behind some projecting rocks and peered cautiously downward.
There were eleven of them by his count. Too many of them to be confronted, blast it, and they were all in a group together. They looked ominous too, with dark hoods covering their heads and shoulders, slits for their eyes. Some of them had horns attached to the hoods—cattle, of course. Only one of them was unhooded, but the reason was quickly obvious to Alex. He was their prisoner and had apparently just been brought up from the town below. Two of them had him by the arms. From what Alex could see by the imperfect moonlight he was slight in build. Apparently no more than a boy.
The devil, he thought, furious. Instinct would have had him on his feet and down the slope without a chance for thought. But he had had the weight of many responsibilities on his shoulders for too long to act purely from instinct. It would be madness. He had no weapon beyond his bare hands. His fists would be handy enough against one opponent or even two—perhaps even three. But against ten? There was nothing he could do at the moment to help their prisoner. He had to stay where he was and watch impotently—again.
The two men who held the boy tore off his shirt, his only upper garment, and then forced him down onto the ground, facedown and spread-eagled. Four of them worked to confine his hands and feet to stakes that Alex was unable to see from where he was. He clamped his teeth together, and felt the sweat cold on his back.
Were they going to kill the boy? Although going to his aid would be suicidal, Alex crouched into position, ready to hurl himself downward to try to create some sort of diversion. But they came out for punishment, Barnes had said. That was their function. Not execution.
One of the men was speaking—it was impossible to tell which one. His voice was muffled by the hood and gruff in tone. It was probably disguised. But Alex could hear clearly what he said. It was only later that he felt surprise at the fact that the man spoke in English.
“The last one,” the unidentified man said, “and just a boy. You signed the Charter, Iestyn Jones, but refused to go the extra mile with your friends and fellow workers. You were too afraid of the consequences. You must be shown that cowardice too has its consequences. Ten strokes will be your punishment. Only ten. You are fortunate.”
Alex closed his eyes and then opened them again to watch, sick to his stomach, while two men, one on each side of the boy, whipped him alternately, ten times in all. The boy did not make a sound.
The damned brutes! Alex thought, incensed. He would find them all, every last one of them, and grind their bones to powder.
Two of the others stooped down to cut the boy’s hands and feet free after the whipping was over, but he scarcely moved. The Scotch Cattle howled once more, looking downward to the quiet, darkened town, and then ran off together across the hill to disappear into the night. Alex wondered if anyone was sleeping down there.
He straightened up, looked down at the inert form of the boy, and then went running and leaping down the steep slope toward him. He was neither dead nor unconscious, Alex saw in some relief. His legs were moving.
“It is all right,” he said, kneeling beside the boy and touching one hand to the back of his head. “It is all over now.”
The boy’s breathing was labored. Even in the moonlight the marks across his back looked raw. He appeared to be no older than sixteen or seventeen.
Alex looked about him and picked up the boy’s shirt. He set it gently over his back, though even so the boy flinched and an inward breath hissed into him.
“Come,” Alex said, “I’ll help you up. Do you think you can stand?”
“Give me a minute.” They were the boy’s first words.
Alex took off his cloak and draped it as lightly as he could on top of the shirt. It was a decidedly chilly night. “You took it bravely,” he said. “What is your name?” He had not heard it clearly when it was mentioned.
For the first time he saw the boy’s eyes turn upward to him. “It was nothing,” he said. “Just a crowd of bullies. Nothing. I’ll be all right in a minute.” He grimaced and closed his eyes.
“It was Scotch Cattle,” Alex said. “I have been here long enough to know about them, lad, and to know why they are on the prowl at this particular time. But I understand why you want to say nothing.” He touched his hand reassuringly to the boy’s head again. “When you are ready. Take your time.”
But he was aware suddenly of two people scrambling up the hill toward them. A man and a woman. They stopped when they saw him—perhaps they thought he was a lingering member of the Cattle. But then the man came striding on again and the woman came running up after him.
“I think your parents are coming for you,” he said.
The man said something gruffly in Welsh when he was still some way off. Warning him away, Alex suspected. But he was too young a man to be the boy’s father. Alex stood up.
“He will be all right,” he said. “He just needs a few moments to catch his breath. They gave him ten lashes.”
“Iestyn?” Siân Jones’s voice was trembling as she hurried past the man she had come with and went down on her knees beside the boy. She smoothed the hair back from his face with one hand and leaned over him to kiss him on the cheek. She was murmuring to him in Welsh. She totally ignored Alex’s presence.
“I’ll be all right, Siân,” the boy said, speaking in English. “Only ten lashes it was. Just give me a minute here and I’ll be up and chasing you down the hill.”
“Oh, Iestyn,” she said, switching to English, “you silly brave boy. There is proud I am of you. And I could beat you black and blue myself.” She burst into tears.
“Black and blue?” the man said. “That would be just the color of your eyes if I had my way, Iestyn, before I started on the rest of you. You have Mam and Mari crying their eyes out down there and the children whimpering and Dada roaring and coughing and swearing to kill you if Scotch Cattle have left any of you alive. And all over an old penny.”
The boy laughed weakly. “There is good it is to know that you love me so much, Huw,” he said. “Are you going to leave me lying here all night, then?”
“To catch your death?” Huw said. “It would be no more than you deserve, you stubborn cub. Ten lashes was it? They should have given you at least twenty. Perhaps they would have whipped some sense into you.”
Siân was still crying and smoothing her hand over the boy’s head. “Frantic Huw was when I went over to see if you were one of the ones they had come for, Iestyn,” she said. “He does not mean a word of what he is saying now. He is only angry with himself because he could not stop them from dragging you away. Oh, Iestyn, my pet, did they hurt you bad?”
They seemed to have forgotten Alex except that they had switched to his language, perhaps out of unconscious deference to his presence. But the man called Huw turned to him suddenly.
“What are you doing out here, sir?” he asked stiffly. “I thank you for coming to the aid of my brother. That is your cloak? It will get dirty on the ground, and bloody too, I wouldn’t be surprised.”
Siân whimpered.
“I came out to see what manner of animal Scotch Cattle are,” Alex said. “We do not have that particular form of wildlife in England. I am sorry to say that there were too many of them for me to come to the boy’s assistance until it was all over. There were ten of them. I wonder if your brother recognized any of them.”
“No,” Huw said quickly, “he did not. None of them. And I did not when they came to the house to take him away. They are not from this valley. Up with you, then, Iestyn. Are you going to rest there all night, cozy beneath that cloak, while Siân and I are shivering up here?”
He bent and wrapped one of the boy’s arms about his shoulders. The boy groaned f
or the first time, but he pushed himself to his knees, rested there for a moment, and then got to his feet with his brother’s help. Alex’s cloak and his own shirt fell to the ground.
“Iestyn,” Siân whispered, her eyes fixed on his back, one hand over her mouth. “Oh, Iestyn, my boy.”
“Let’s get his shirt on,” Alex said, as the boy sagged against his brother. “Then I’ll help get him home.”
“Thank you,” the brother said gruffly, “but we can manage, sir. I suppose we will be in trouble with you too now, but I’ll not hide from you. I am Huw Jones. This is my brother Iestyn. Siân is our sister-in-law. She was married to our brother, who was killed in the mine three years ago. She has nothing to do with all this. She has no business even being out of her bed. If Gwyn was still alive, he could take her across his knee and give her what for. But you leave her out of it. I will answer for what has been going on here.”
While he spoke, Siân was easing Iestyn into his shirt.
“I think it is the Scotch Cattle who should answer for it,” Alex said quietly. “Good night, Mr. Jones. You are a brave boy, lad.”
“I’ll manage him,” Huw said as he started down the mountain, and Siân made to take Iestyn’s free arm about her own shoulders. “You go back home to bed where you belong, Siân. I may warm your bottom with my own hand if I catch you doing anything so foolish again as coming out when Scotch Cattle are about. You had better be sure to creep in without Emrys finding out you have been gone.”
His brother moaned again as they continued on their way down. Siân stayed where she was.
“He is right, you know,” Alex said. “I had to take my courage in both hands to leave the safety of my home. But at least I have a man’s fists with which to defend myself. Do you make a habit of doing this sort of thing?”
She whirled on him. He guessed that she had forgotten about him again for the moment. “He is just a boy,” she said fiercely. “An intelligent and sweet-natured boy with a conscience and a strong sense of what is right and what is wrong. He would not do what was against his conscience even though they warned him the other night and everyone knows what happens to those who ignore their warnings. I thought perhaps they would spare him because he is a boy and his offense against them was not so very great. I begged Owen to intercede on his behalf. I begged.”