by Mary Balogh
It was a dangerous realization. If he had felt desire for her or the temptation to touch her and make love to her, he would have understood the feelings and fought them off. They were what he would expect to feel. But he felt neither, only a quiet pleasure to be sitting close to her in companionable silence.
Yes, it was dangerous, suggesting as it did that she was becoming to him more than a beautiful woman whom he desired to bed.
“Would you ever beat a woman who was your wife?” she asked suddenly without opening her eyes.
“Good Lord, no,” he said, jolted by the sheer unexpectedness of the question. “I have never even laid a hand on my daughter.”
“You don’t believe there is the need for discipline?” she asked.
“Yes, of course,” he said. “But there are other ways of disciplining apart from violence.”
“How would you discipline a wife, then?” she asked. Her eyes were open and she was looking at him, though she had not lifted her cheek from her knee.
“A wife?” He frowned. “I was talking about children. Unfortunately we need to discipline children because we have a responsibility to train them and they are never angels. I was not talking about a wife. A wife is a man’s equal.”
“But what if she does not toe the line?” she asked.
“What line?” he said. “Whose line? What if he does not toe it? Marriage is not an easy business. We have both experienced it. We both know that. It is something that has to be worked hard at every single day. If one partner refuses to make the effort, then they have a problem and an unhappy marriage. But violence would not solve anything.”
“Is the husband not always right?” she asked. She spoke so quietly that he could not tell if there was bitterness in her voice. “Is he not the one who must enforce the toeing of his line?”
“Just because he is probably the physically stronger of the two?” he said. “It would seem a little unfair, would it not?”
“Life is not always fair,” she said. “Especially to women.”
“Do you know someone who is beating his wife?” he asked. “Is that what this is all about? If so, perhaps you had better tell me who he is. Perhaps I can bring pressure to bear on him.”
“By threatening his job?” she said. “No, it was just a question. I was curious.” She sat up suddenly, setting her hands flat on the grass on either side of her. “It has been a happy day. You were right. A wonderful day. And especially happy for me. I have always dreamed of winning a first at the eisteddfod, though I always persuaded myself that participating was the important thing. It was wonderful to win—for myself and for Cwmbran.”
He acted purely from instinct. He set his own hand flat on top of hers. “But you are not quite happy,” he said.
She turned her head to look at him “Yes, I am,” she said quickly. “A little tired. Suffering from some reaction. But happy. I will be very happy when I wake up tomorrow and remember.”
He wondered where Owen Parry was. The two of them were to be married soon. And there was a mountaintop to lose themselves on and moonlight in which to kiss, and a triumph to be celebrated. Why was she alone—and not altogether happy?
“I am happy,” she said very softly. “Just being here, quiet like this, after all the excitement. This is the happiest time of the day.”
He guessed that she acted with as little thought as he had when he had set his hand on top of hers. She turned her hand beneath his, leaving it spread, so that their palms and their fingers touched.
She seemed to remain unconscious of what she had done. They stayed silent for a long while until she sighed—a sound of contentment.
“I wish it could go on forever,” she said. “Don’t you sometimes wish certain moments could be frozen in time?”
“Yes,” he said.
“But they can’t.” She sighed again. “I had better go and find Owen. He will be wondering where I am. It is time to go home, I think.”
“Yes.” He did not move. She looked down at their hands as if she was seeing them for the first time. He lifted his away from hers. “Good night, Siân.”
“Good night—” Her voice stumbled over the absence of a name.
“Alexander,” he said. “It is my name. Alex.”
She looked into his face for a while before getting to her feet and brushing at her skirt. “Good night,” she said softly as she turned away.
He stayed where he was for a while, though he knew that soon he was going to have to go looking for Verity. He would doubtless have to carry her down the mountain. She had never been up so late.
Yes, very dangerous, he thought. He too had wanted the moment to be frozen in time. Just sitting together like that, in near silence, their hands touching. Nothing more. He had not desired her tonight. This night and these surroundings were too magical for passion. It was a night for companionship and tenderness. He had wanted it to go on forever.
He could not put a name to his feelings for her, he thought. Or perhaps it was just that he would not put a name to them.
* * *
Angharad had not really enjoyed the day. She was not with anyone in particular, and though no one shunned her, she felt lonely nonetheless. She had let her friendships lapse lately, she realized. A miner from Penybont had tried to flirt with her, and one or two other men would have done so with a little encouragement, but she had not been interested.
Emrys had had another woman on his arm all afternoon and had done a great deal of laughing with her.
The climb up the mountain in the evening was tedious. She was tired, Angharad thought. She wanted her bed. She wondered what it would be like to have a carriage to take her home and a grand house all of her own to be taken to. And a man who loved her waiting for her there. Not that love really mattered, of course. Love never got a person anywhere in this life.
Angharad stumbled awkwardly on a large boulder in the darkness and turned over on her ankle. Mrs. Bevan and Mrs. Davies clucked over her in some concern as she stopped to rub it, but it was a strong masculine hand that took her elbow in a firm clasp to steady her.
“Oh,” she said, looking up at Emrys Rhys, “it’s all right. It’s not hurt bad.”
The other ladies moved tactfully onward.
“But it’s not easy to see where you are stepping in the darkness,” he said. “Hold to my arm, Angharad.”
“Are you missing the woman who was holding it this afternoon?” she asked him tartly. “She was very pretty, I am sure.”
“Very,” he said. “You are jealous.”
“Hm.” Angharad injected a world of scorn into the single syllable.
Her ankle was not very sore and it was not very dark. But they climbed slowly upward and fell far behind everyone else. They could hear Glenys’s harp, and the singing was starting when they drew level with a small, sheltered hollow, almost a cave, well below the summit.
Angharad did not resist when Emrys drew her into it and backed her against the rock face. They had not spoken a word in ten minutes. They did not speak now. She lifted her face to him as her arms came about his neck and he wrapped his about her waist.
He kissed her long and deep.
“Are you willing, then, Angharad Lewis?” he asked against her mouth.
Sometimes nothing mattered except the needs of one’s heart. “I am willing, Emrys Rhys,” she whispered.
She lay down on the sparse grass, his coat beneath her head and shoulders, and lifted her skirt while he unbuttoned his trousers. She spread her legs for him when he came down to her. But being Emrys, he did not immediately come inside for his pleasure. He kissed her and caressed her and murmured to her, and then came in when she too was ready for pleasure. He took his own and gave her hers without hurry.
She had forgotten, Angharad thought when it was over. She had forgotten what she had given up. And now at this precise moment sh
e could scarcely remember why.
They were singing in full harmony on top of the mountain.
Emrys spoke finally, after they had lain quietly side by side for several minutes. “We will make this honest, then, Angharad?” he said. “I will talk with the Reverend Llewellyn and I will step inside the chapel again at last—for a wedding.”
Angharad closed her eyes and stayed silent. She tried to remember why she had finished stepping out with Emrys. She tried to picture the lodge cottage inside Glanrhyd Park and the happiness she felt there, making it comfortable and dreaming that it was hers. She tried to remember Josiah Barnes starting to look at her and touch her. And then telling her one day, when she had not flinched from having her breasts fondled, to go upstairs and undress and lie down on the bed. And the sudden hope of a dream come true. But sometimes dreams did not seem so attractive when they started to come true.
“You are sleeping with him, then?” Emrys’s voice, flat in tone, cut through her indecision.
Angharad wanted to deny it. She wished she could. But she could not lie to Emrys. That was why she had had to stop seeing him even before she was sure of netting Josiah Barnes.
“Well.” He got to his feet and stood with his back to her, buttoning up his trousers. He reached into a pocket and she heard the jingling of coins. And then a small shower of them landed with a plop on her stomach. “Thanks for the treat, Angharad. It’s quite a while since I had a woman up on the mountain. I hope it’s enough. I can’t afford to pay as much as Barnes does.”
Angharad bit down hard on both lips while he strode away, leaving his coat behind. She would not let out a sound while he was within earshot. Then she felt about until she had three pennies in her hand and pressed them hard, with both hands, against her mouth. Hot tears ran diagonally across her cheeks.
* * *
Siân met Verity before she found Owen. The child was heavy-eyed and yawning and clutched at her skirt.
“Where is Dada?” she asked, and Siân took her by the hand and led her back to the rock behind which he was sitting.
Siân heard his voice as Verity went around to him and did not go herself. She turned back to find Owen and saw him almost immediately. He took her hand and smiled, and they started down the mountain among a group of Owen’s friends.
Siân wondered how the marquess would react to being called the Welsh Dada instead of the English Papa. Verity had even said it with a Welsh lilt.
She was in love with him. The realization came to her full-fledged and left her feeling quite calm. She held to Owen’s hand, less than a month before their wedding, and half listened to the conversation he was having with his friends, and knew that she was in love with the Marquess of Craille.
Alexander. Alex. She had not known his name before tonight.
She did not feel panic-stricken at the realization. Perhaps because it had come without passion. There had been no passion between them even though they had sat with their hands palm to palm. She had not even noticed that consciously until it was time to leave. There had been no real physical awareness at all. Just—oh, just an emotional one.
It had been wonderful. Truly the happiest part of the day. Comforting and soothing. She really had wished that it could last forever.
She should be feeling upset and alarmed, she knew. How could she be planning marriage with one man and yet be in love with another? But it was unreal, that other. He was an English marquess, a man of rank and fortune. He was the owner of Cwmbran. There was no possibility of a future with him. That very impossibility kept her calm.
She would be alarmed tomorrow, she thought. But tonight was magical. Tonight was for unreality.
A man and his wife are equals, he had said. A marriage had to be worked on day by day. It would be unfair for a husband to enforce his will on his wife merely because he was the stronger of the two. How wonderful it would be to be his wife, she thought. But thought had to stop there. She could not allow it to stray farther.
One thing was for sure. She did not believe any of the things Owen accused him of. He was a good and a gentle man and given time he would lift the oppression of years from the workers of Cwmbran. He had already stopped Blodwyn Williams from going underground and doing heavy work while she was with child. He had done it out of kindness, not guile.
She loved him.
Owen’s arm came about her waist. “We will go across the hill here and down to the houses,” he said, “instead of going down into the town.”
“Oh-ho,” one of his friends said. “Watch him, Siân. A devil on the mountain is Owen.”
She laughed as a chorus of teasing calls followed them across the hill. They were almost down. This was the route of their usual evening walk.
“You went away by yourself up on top?” Owen said. “You were upset, Siân? We quarreled, didn’t we?”
“It was nothing,” she said.
“It was,” he said, “and it was all my fault. Jealous I was. But I know I have no cause. I was the one to urge you to go there to teach his daughter and as soon as you did I grew jealous. I am eating humble pie, you see. Forgive me?”
Now at last she felt guilt. “Oh, of course, Owen,” she said. “Let’s forget it.”
“And I spoiled the day of your triumph,” he said. “I was proud, cariad. Proud to know that it was my future wife standing up there on the stage singing to put everyone else to shame.”
“Owen.” She dipped her head sideways to his shoulder. “You did not spoil the day.”
They walked on in silence.
“Tired?” he asked at last.
“Mm,” she said. But she could not accept the comfort of the truce. “Owen, you would not really ever beat me, would you?”
“Don’t be daft,” he said. “Of course I wouldn’t. You would never give me cause. You are a good woman.”
Leave it, she told herself. He felt comfortable and safe. He was of the real world. He was her reality. A reality she wanted and one that would be fully hers very soon. Leave it. “But if I did give you cause?” she said.
He stopped walking to turn her into his arms. He was chuckling. “Then over my knee it would be with you,” he said, “and a good hiding to make sure you never gave me cause again. Silly talk, this. Kiss me, woman.” He lowered his head to nuzzle her neck below one ear.
She put her arms about his neck and clung to him. He had been laughing, joking. Not serious. She should not even have asked. He was Owen. She had known him for years. She had never seen him being even discourteous to a woman. He had been courting her for many months. He had always been gentle with her. Even when she had unwittingly led him on and he had expected that she would let him make love to her, he had stopped when she had said no.
Yes, it was silly talk. Silly thoughts.
“Owen.” She kissed him back when his mouth came to hers. “Owen, time is moving so slowly. I wish our wedding day would come already. I wish we were going home together now.”
“One word from you,” he said, “and we will go higher up now, fach, and soothe ourselves for the wait. But it is not what you mean, is it?”
“No,” she said sadly.
“Well, home to your gran’s, then,” he said. “The days will pass, cariad, and then we will make up for lost time, is it?”
“Yes.”
She let him kiss her again and kissed him back before he took her home. This was reality and she wanted to cling to it. The unreality had been left behind, and also the calm acceptance she had given it. It must be left there—in the past, on top of the mountain. Something that never really was and never could be.
She would never give Owen cause, she thought, and so he would never be put to the test. She would never give him cause.
* * *
Six owners came to Glanrhyd Castle during an afternoon of the following week, and met there with Alex and Josiah Barnes.
Alex had called the meeting with the purpose of persuading his peers to raise wages back to their former level and of explaining to them the changes he wished them to join him in making so that the lives of their workers would improve. Everything had seemed so obvious and straightforward to him before the meeting began that he had not expected opposition beyond the natural reluctance most people feel to changing what has been common practice for years.
But opposition was stiff. Indeed, the other owners had misunderstood the invitation and had taken for granted that the Marquess of Craille wished them to come to a common agreement on what they were all separately beginning to realize—that wages must be cut another ten percent in the coming week. The market for iron had still not begun to recover and a loss of profit was soon going to put them all in serious danger of bankruptcy.
They were all agreed, even Josiah Barnes. Alex listened, aghast.
“These people cannot live on ten percent less,” he said. “Most of them are having a hard enough time making ends meet now. My purpose in inviting you all here was to suggest very strongly that we put wages up ten percent.”
They all stared at him rather as if he had two heads, Alex thought.
“Do you know anything at all about the running of a business, Craille?” Mr. Humphrey asked.
It was, of course, the best question with which to silence Alex. No, he did not know much at all. Almost nothing. Only what he had learned in his weeks at Cwmbran.
“Business,” he said, “is not an impersonal, inanimate thing. Business is run by people. I have spent the last several weeks finding out as much as I can about the people who work for me and the lives they lead. I have watched them at work, and I have visited them at home. I have called at the truck shop. They cannot live on less than they have now.”
“Most of them do not have the intelligence to manage their money properly,” Sir Henry Packenham said. “Is that our fault, Craille? It is not a charity we run. It is a business.”