by Mary Balogh
“Siân,” he said at last, “I am not proud of what I had to do. Neither am I ashamed. I want you to know both those things.”
She said nothing for a while. What could she say? She had expected either abject apologies or angry self-justification. He had given her neither.
“I was innocent,” she said quietly. “You knew I was innocent.”
“But others did not,” he said. “There was a very powerful rumor circulating. If I had defended you too vigorously, if I had forbidden the punishment, it would have been thought that I was putting my woman before the common good. I could not do that, Siân. I am the leader. I have to be seen to be impartial.”
Somehow she was reminded of the answer she had given Alexander when he had asked her if she loved her people more than she loved him.
“You were given warning enough,” Owen said, his tone more defensive. “It was madness to ignore it, Siân. You deserved what you got.”
“Your life is full of violence, Owen, isn’t it?” she said sadly. “It is the only solution to a problem that you seem able to see. I am glad I saw that fully before it was too late.”
“Sometimes,” he said, “violence is the only answer. When there is nothing else, one has to have the courage to take any means to achieve what should be. These are not times when quiet acceptance can achieve anything.”
“Perhaps it can,” she said. “Are you going to the meeting at chapel tomorrow night? Huw told me about it. There is a chance, perhaps, for something to be achieved peacefully and amicably.”
“He is clever, I grant him that,” Owen said. “He thinks to quieten us with trivialities and make us forget the greater injustices we have suffered for centuries.”
Siân sighed. “I am going back home, Owen,” she said. “There is nothing to say after all.”
“Siân.” He stopped on the hillside and faced her. “Siân, you don’t know how it hurt me, seeing you helpless on the ground like that, watching what happened to you.”
“On the other hand,” she said, “you do know how it hurt me, Owen. You learned how much the next day. Why did you take it so quietly?”
She was surprised and somewhat alarmed to see tears spring to his eyes.
“I would have lain there for twice as many lashes,” he said, “if they could have taken away the memory of yours, Siân. I felt I had deserved them, though I was not ashamed of what I had done. And I am not ashamed.”
She bit her upper lip.
“I betrayed my love for you,” he said. “For that I will never forgive myself. But sometimes something has to be put before love. I would ask you to forgive my betrayal, but it somehow does not seem appropriate. I would do it again, you see, if it seemed necessary. You took it bravely, fach. I was proud of you—if I have a right to be proud.”
Even now—oh, even now, she thought, looking up at him, she wished she loved him. Owen! And she was no better than he. No better at all.
It had to be said. “I betrayed you too, Owen,” she said.
His eyes widened. “It was you who told him after all, then?” he asked.
She shook her head. “In a personal way,” she said. “I betrayed you in a personal way.”
She saw comprehension dawn in his eyes before he nodded and turned away. “Well, I never did that at least, Siân,” he said, beginning to walk back toward the town, his hands shoved into his pockets. “I loved you. Past tense and present tense. I won’t ask for details. I have no right to know now and don’t want to know. Perhaps we can forgive each other and learn to live together in the same town without hatred.”
“Yes,” she said.
He stopped outside the gate into the back garden. “I won’t come any farther,” he said. “I have no stomach for a brawl with Emrys.”
“Owen,” she said, “you are not going to go ahead with plans for the march, are you? You are not secretly making weapons?”
He laughed rather bleakly. “You don’t think I am going to answer those questions, do you, Siân?” he asked. “When you are his woman?”
“I suppose,” she said, “that like you, I have no right to know now and do not really want to know. Be careful, Owen. I don’t want to see you hurt. I cared for you. I care for you.”
He ran one knuckle along her jawline to her chin. “Good-bye, cariad,” he said. He hesitated before leaning forward and kissing her softly on the forehead.
“Good-bye, Owen.”
She stood at the gate for a few minutes watching him walk away toward his own house. He did not look back. She swallowed against a lump in her throat. And then she continued to gaze along the empty street as if she was looking along the avenue of her own future. Sometimes it was hard not to give in to self-pity. Sometimes it seemed as if there was nothing and no one left to live for.
* * *
Siân was rolling out dough on the table when someone knocked on the door the following afternoon. She let her grandmother answer the summons. But she straightened up quickly, startled, when she heard the voice.
Her grandmother looked back at her, tight-lipped. “It is for you, Siân,” she said. Although it was a chilly day outside, she left the door open and did not invite Sir John Fowler inside.
“Siân?” he said. He looked uncomfortable and embarrassed.
She had thought many times about the strange dream she had had at Glanrhyd Castle. Perhaps she had known all the time that it had not really been a dream. She knew it now, and her cheeks grew hot at the memories. She pushed at a stray lock of hair with the back of one wrist.
“May I speak with you?” he asked.
Her grandmother was poking furiously at the fire, which did not need poking, Siân could see.
Siân looked down at her floury hands and at the half-rolled dough on the table. “I’ll wash my hands and get my cloak,” she said.
Her grandmother looked speakingly up at her, but Siân ignored the look. He had come, she thought. He had come. It seemed she had waited all her life for him to come to her. But she hated him. She despised him. She wanted nothing to do with him. She had never been able to think of him as her father. She could not do so now. Her heart beat painfully as she washed her hands in silence, took the pins from her hair and shook it loose, and took her cloak from behind the door. Sir John had nodded at her words and closed the door. He was waiting outside.
“Gran,” Siân said.
“I will finish rolling the dough,” Gwynneth said without looking at her. “Go, you.”
Sir John Fowler had ruined Gran’s daughter, Siân thought, and caused her to be driven from chapel and from Cwmbran. It was no wonder that Gran had no love for him. As Siân herself did not. She hesitated, but there was nothing to be said. She left the house without another word.
“Shall we walk?” he suggested. “Along the river?” He did not offer his arm or smile. Of course he did neither. He was as cold and as impersonal as he had ever been.
“How is your back?” he asked as they walked.
“Still quite sore,” she said. “Iestyn still has the marks on his back. I suppose I will too for a long time. Perhaps always.”
“You have no job?” he asked. “Craille told me that you resigned as his daughter’s governess.”
“Yes,” she said. “It seemed the right thing to do.”
“Siân,” he said as they were walking past the ugliest section of the river, next to the coal mine, “you must let me support you. I’ll buy you a house somewhere and give you an allowance. Or I’ll find you employment somewhere if you would prefer. If you want a good husband, I’ll see what I can do. Whatever you wish. I’ll do whatever you wish.”
“I don’t want anything from you,” she said quietly, “thank you.” And yet her heart cried out to her that she lied.
He did not pursue the matter. He was quiet for a while. “Why did you not come to me for help?” he asked. “I h
ave heard that they gave you the customary three days’ warning, Siân. You must know Scotch Cattle well enough to realize that they are not to be defied. Why did you not come to me?”
She looked at him in some amazement. “You are the last person I would have thought of turning to,” she said quite truthfully.
His mouth and his jawline tightened. “I don’t know where you came from, Siân,” he said. “Apart from the fact that you look like your mother, I can see nothing of her in you. You are cold to the very heart and always have been. Even as a very young child.”
“Well, then,” she said, shivering inside her cloak, “I must resemble my other parent, I suppose.”
They had passed the mine and were in pleasant countryside if they did not look back. Siân was reminded of the Sunday afternoon walk she had taken there with Alexander and Verity weeks before.
“You resented me,” he said, “because I was not married to your mother.”
“I did not even realize for many years,” she said, “that there was something odd about that. I think I always hoped that you would look at me as you looked at her. I think that as a child I used to watch for you for hours and days on end. And then when you came you had eyes only for her. You used to disappear upstairs with her and I had to amuse myself downstairs. In time, I suppose, I stopped watching for you.”
“You used to hide from me,” he said, “and glower at me. You used to throw down the toys I brought you and deliberately play with some old thing your mother had made for you. You were cold.”
“They were bribes,” she said, “to keep me quiet while you spent your hour or so with Mam.”
“They were gifts, Siân,” he said. “You were my little girl.”
She sighed. “Why did you come now?” she asked. “And why did you come to Glanrhyd Castle? I didn’t dream it, did I?”
“Craille sent to tell me what had happened,” he said.
“Did he?” She turned her head sharply to look at him. “And you came.”
“I came,” he said, “as I did not come when your husband died, Siân, or when my grandson was stillborn. I stayed away from you then because you had rejected me and put me from your life. But I saw you that day at the castle when my wife and daughter were with me. It had been so long. This time I could not stay away.”
Siân closed her eyes briefly and drew in a breath of chilly air. “What did you call me?” she asked. “What was dream and what was reality?”
“Your mother used to use the Welsh word,” he said. “I could never bring myself to use it or even the English equivalent out loud. You hated me. But in my heart you were always my little one, Siân.”
She felt absurdly close to tears. “Then why did you never say so?” she asked. She was surprised to hear her voice shaky and accusing. “Did you not understand that when a child is cold and sullen, she is crying out for love?”
“I didn’t know much about children, Siân,” he said. “I was afraid of you. I used to dream of holding you on my lap, your head against my shoulder while I told you stories. But you would have nothing to do with me.”
“Oh,” she said, “Mam always used to say we were two peas in a pod, you and I. I used to think the idea was absurd.”
“Do you remember what you called me at the castle?” he asked her softly.
“Yes,” she said. “Absurd coming from a twenty-five-year-old woman, wasn’t it?”
“You made me cry,” he said.
“Sir John Fowler crying,” she said. “It seems a contradiction in terms. Except that I remember you cried when Mam died. Alexand— The marquess had given me a double dose of laudanum. I was very heavily drugged. I called you Dada, didn’t I?”
“Yes, my little one,” he said.
“Oh, don’t.” She looked sharply away from him. “You cannot know how much I need love and tenderness at the moment. I get them from Gran and Grandad and Emrys and from Gwyn’s family too. But I am weak at present. I crave more. I crave—”
“A father’s love?” he said. “You have it, Siân.”
“Oh.” She stopped walking and spread her hands over her face. “Did you know why I was whipped? Did you know that Owen was one of the Scotch Cattle who took me away? Did you know that Alex—, that Alexander fought him up on the mountain in front of all the men of Cwmbran over it? Did you know that I love Alexander and left my employment at the castle because I cannot be his mistress as Mam was yours? Did you know that my heart is breaking? Did you know how much I needed you?”
She could not remember his ever holding her in his arms. The touch of him was unfamiliar and the smell of him. She had never before really noticed that they were almost the same height. She fit comfortably against him. Her head fit comfortably on his shoulder. On Sir John Fowler’s shoulder. She closed her eyes very tightly.
“Dada,” she whispered.
“Siân.” He rocked her. “My little one.”
He held her hand when they walked on. A broad, square hand. An older man’s hand. A father’s hand.
“Tell me what I may do for you, then,” he said. “A cottage somewhere quiet in the country, Siân? Where I can visit you sometimes and be the father I have always failed at being? Or a job? Or a husband?”
She did not want to leave Cwmbran. Cwmbran had always been her dream of home. It had haunted her during her school years in England. It had been the obvious place of refuge after her mother’s death even though she had never lived there and did not know her grandparents. But the dream had turned sour. Owen lived in Cwmbran. People who had suspected her of being an informer and perhaps still did lived in Cwmbran. And Alexander lived there and had said that he would continue to do so.
“A teaching job?” she said. “I like teaching. I think I do well at it. Somewhere away from this valley. But not outside Wales. My spirit would die if I had to leave my country. Perhaps down Cardiff way? Or even Swansea? Can you find me something?”
He squeezed her hand. “I’ll find you something,” he said. “You’ll be happy, Siân. I’ll see to it that you are happy, my little one.”
She laughed suddenly with genuine amusement. “I am almost as tall as you,” she said.
He laughed—she could not remember his laughing before. “But I see you with a father’s eye,” he said. “If you were a foot taller than me, Siân, you would still be my little one.”
They walked on quietly. She felt rather as if someone had applied cooling cloths and ointments to her raw and battered emotions, Siân thought, looking across at the man who had fathered her and now held her hand.
Alexander had sent for him. He had known that she would need him. And he had come, her father.
He had come.
23
HE was going to have to do something about Verity. She had become sullen and bad-tempered. She was not willing to do any of her usual indoor activities. Nor was she willing to go outside. Even when he suggested walks, she would not go with him. “No” had become her favorite word—spoken sharply and petulantly more often than not. When he had suggested sending to London for another governess, she had had a screaming tantrum. When he had offered to send her to her grandmother for a few weeks, she had locked herself in her bedroom and refused for longer than eight hours to come out.
There was so much else to occupy his time and his energies. The meeting at the chapel was more poorly attended than he had hoped, though both men and women came. He knew the reason. A meeting had been called on the mountain for the same night. Barnes had found out about it and told him. But Alex had told them they were free to meet and make their own decisions. He made no attempt either to stop or to spy on the meeting.
It was a Chartist meeting. They had not given up, then. They must still be planning their march. He had just hoped that it would be peaceable, that there would be no weapons involved. But he did not know for sure. Weapons had been seized in other places, he read i
n his letters from London, and there were many caves in the hills that would be suitable for both making and storing weapons.
One fact at least relieved him. All the men of Cwmbran did not attend the Chartist meeting, and yet the following nights were blessedly free of Scotch Cattle howls. Perhaps at least he had been able to persuade the men that each one should be left to make up his own mind. Unanimity was not always necessary for the success of an enterprise.
In the meantime he was busy having the records of both the works and the mine for ten years back gone over carefully to identify those men and women who had been forced permanently from work by injuries sustained on the job or by the coughing sickness that seemed to attack miners more than other workers. Those people were to be put on pensions for life. Pensions were to be given to widows of men who had died on the job, unless or until the widow remarried.
There was so much to do. If it were not for Verity, Alex thought, he would be able to bury himself in work and perhaps forget his personal unhappiness. But there was Verity, and when all was said and done, she was the most important person in his world. If he must hire a manager—someone different from Barnes—and take her back to England, then so be it. Perhaps it would be better for him to go back there, to treat Cwmbran only as a business enterprise—to keep control of it, but from a distance.
“You don’t want to take a walk in the hills?” he asked Verity early one evening. “With Papa?”
“No,” she said, reaching for her doll but setting it down again almost immediately. “It is cold outside.”
“We can wrap up warm,” he said, “and see who has the brightest cherry nose when we come home.”
“No,” she said. “I don’t want to go.”
Pouting and sullenness always made him impatient. He resisted the urge to stalk from the room and leave her to her misery. But they were out of character with Verity. He sat down on one of the nursery chairs and looked at her. Feeling his eyes on her, she snatched up her doll again and began to rock it without even watching it.