by Mary Balogh
“I am the Marquess of Craille,” he said, looking down at Siân with steely eyes and thin lips, “owner of the land and works at Cwmbran. And come in pursuit of my truant workers.” There was something coldly malicious about his tone.
“Begging your pardon, my lord,” one of the soldiers said, clearly embarrassed. “We did not look closely enough.”
Siân sat up slowly. The one gun was still pointed at her. Her mouth felt dry despite all the wetness about her.
“We will take the woman and see to the body,” the soldier said. “The mayor would doubtless be pleased to receive you inside the inn, my lord. You probably need a good stiff drink.”
Alex laughed unpleasantly. “She comes with me,” he said. “I came all this way at considerable discomfort to myself, Lieutenant, as you can see, to round up as many of them as I can and take them home. I cannot allow you to have all the joy of dealing with them. I really cannot. The pleasure of seeing them suitably punished will more than make up for a sleepless night and one ruined suit of clothes. On your feet, Siân Jones.”
Siân stared at him in disbelief. He was every inch the cold, sneering, cruel aristocrat. Alexander had totally disappeared; the Marquess of Craille had taken his place.
“I can see your point, my lord,” the lieutenant said. “But it is a long way back to Cwmbran, I believe. Would you not prefer to have me jail her here and you can come back for the trial?”
Alex sneered. “I shall enjoy every mile of the journey,” he said, so deliberately undressing her with his eyes that the other soldiers snickered. His voice became low and menacing. “Perhaps you did not hear me, woman. Perhaps you need some help.” And he bent over her and jerked her to her feet with one hand clasped about her upper arm. With the other hand he whacked her painfully on the bottom.
The lieutenant chuckled. “Well, we have a manhunt to conduct, my lord,” he said. “The inn is already full of prisoners. I doubt the jails hereabouts will all hold the number we will catch today. This will be the last we hear of the Charter at any rate.” He touched his shako and beckoned his soldiers away.
“Let me go.” Siân’s voice was shaking. She felt dizzy. She would not look up into his face. “Let me go.”
But his grip on her arm tightened more painfully. “Siân,” he said with quiet urgency, “you must be my abject prisoner. Or if you choose to fight me, you must expect that I will strike you. You are in terrible danger.”
She looked up at him, understanding suddenly.
“It was the idea that I will rape you every mile of the journey home and then punish you at the end of it that appealed to them and made them agree to let me have custody of you,” he said. “Come, we must get out of this town as quickly as we can. This is going to develop into a witch hunt.” He pulled firmly on her arm.
“No!” she said sharply. “No. Please.” When he stopped, she looked down. Owen was on his back. His face looked peaceful though his eyes were open.
“He is dead, Siân,” Alex said gently. But when she pulled again on her arm, he let her go.
She went down on her knees beside Owen’s body and smoothed the wet hair back from his forehead. With shaking, shrinking hands she closed his eyes. “Owen,” she whispered. “Owen.” She bent over him and kissed his lips. They were cold, though whether from the wintry chill or from death she did not know. She got back to her feet.
“Come,” Alex said, one arm about her shoulders.
“We cannot just leave him.” She looked at him in an agony.
“Yes, we must,” he said, and he was again the Marquess of Craille, though neither cold nor cruel. “I will have him brought home for burial, Siân. But now we must leave him.”
“I can’t leave,” she said. “I don’t know what has happened to Iestyn. Or Emrys or Grandad. Or Huw. I can’t leave without them. I have to find them.”
He swore softly. “I suppose you have heard of needles and haystacks,” he said. “After this morning’s rout it will be every man for himself, Siân. We will have to hope that everyone returns safely home within the next few days.”
“Alexander.” He was quite right, of course. But she could not yet think either rationally or sensibly. She wanted miracles worked. She wanted him to work them. “Please?”
He closed his eyes for a moment and then opened them to watch as five dispirited men were marched briskly under armed escort toward the inn. He recognized none of the men.
“Come, then,” he said. “I should pay my respects to the mayor while I am here, I suppose.” But he did not immediately move. He fumbled beneath his cloak and came out with his cravat, wet and limp and bedraggled. He took Siân’s right wrist and bound the cravat tightly about it while she watched in incomprehension, before securing the ends to the belt at his waist.
“I was brought here with both wrists confined,” she said dully.
“For goodness’ sake,” he said, “act the part of sullen prisoner, will you, Siân? If you appear defiant or abusive, I will have to give you the back of my hand across the face.”
“I’ll be sullen,” she said. “Do you think they have taken Iestyn?” Please God they had not taken him. Not Iestyn. What was going to happen to the prisoners? A firing squad? Hanging? Transportation? A long incarceration? Please God they had not taken Iestyn.
“We will hope not,” Alex said, moving toward the Westgate Inn with arrogant, purposeful strides, so that Siân had to run to keep up with him.
* * *
It was late afternoon by the time they left Newport to begin the long walk home. Despite the fact that at first his relief at finding Siân alive and relatively uninjured had given him only the one purpose of getting her away from all danger as fast as he possibly could, Alex found after a while that his need to ensure the safety of his people kept him in the town. Siân looked about her fearfully and eagerly for her relatives. He looked for any of his people.
There was no particular danger, he realized early. There was no more shooting. It had all ended before he even arrived at the Westgate. And fortunately his appearance was so different from that of the workers, and his voice and accent, that no one questioned his claim to be who and what he was—and no one questioned his right to take his own prisoners. Of course, there had not been many women among the demonstrators.
The mayor and everyone else in authority he spoke to in the course of the day appeared amused more than anything else to see Siân with her wrist confined to his belt and to see her abject demeanor—slumped shoulders, downcast eyes. And to imagine the rapes that he hinted she would have to endure between Newport and Cwmbran. Men seemed generally to consider a rape a suitable and amusing punishment for female wrongdoing, Alex thought with inner anger.
There were more dead bodies inside the inn. None of them looked familiar, and Siân, pale and listless, shook her head when he looked down at her inquiringly. He was not sure that he knew every man of Cwmbran by sight. There were many prisoners. By some miracle none of them were from Cwmbran either.
They wandered the streets endlessly after finally leaving the inn—Siân had been forced to stand by Alex’s side while he sat eating a cold dinner with the mayor and drinking a bottle of wine. He had not dared suggest that a chair be brought for her and he risked offering her only a few mouthfuls of food from his plate, sneering at her each time he did so and forcing her to say thank you before giving each to her. The mayor thought it great sport.
Alex wondered what the mayor would say if he knew that Siân was Alex’s love—and that Alex was not a magistrate.
The streets were almost totally deserted except for small bands of soldiers and constables and occasionally some prisoners, rooted out from their hiding places within the town. Even the lawful citizens would not risk being seen out on the streets that day and perhaps being mistaken for demonstrators.
“I think all the men of Cwmbran must have made their escape, Siân,”
Alex said finally, relieved in one way but anxious in another. It seemed too good to be true. And dammit, he thought, they did not deserve their good fortune. They had been warned. “We are not going to find any of them in the streets and we can hardly knock on every door and ask if by any chance there is a man from Cwmbran hiding in a cupboard.”
Her shoulders were slumped. It was not all act, he thought, looking into her face.
“He will be safe, Siân,” he said, resisting the urge to set an arm about her shoulders. “He is probably halfway home to Cwmbran by now.”
“They forced him to come too,” she said, “though he had been brave enough to say no and to stand for his principles. Owen could never understand such convictions. He believed that all people should think the same way—his way.” She shuddered suddenly. “Owen is dead.”
“He knew the risks, Siân,” he said. “He believed in his cause so strongly that he was willing to die for it. I felt no love for the man, but I have to admit to a grudging respect for him.”
She did not reply. She hung her head.
“Did you love him?” He was almost whispering.
“Yes,” she said, and his heart plummeted to somewhere around the level of his boots. “There are many kinds of love. I did not love him quite as a woman loves a man. And I did not like his approach to life. I did not like his intolerance or the way he condoned violence and was even willing to use it himself. I hated him for what he did to Iestyn yesterday—was it only yesterday? But in some inexplicable way and despite all I loved him. Yes, I did. Even though he was among the Scotch Cattle who took me up the mountain. I loved him. Does it make sense?”
“Yes,” Alex said, relieved. Yes, it made sense. “Siân, we must leave. Perhaps we will find him on the way home. Probably we will find him at home, anxious for your safety.”
“Yes,” she said. “Yes, we must leave. I pray God that Owen is the only Cwmbran casualty of all this madness.”
“Amen,” he said. “Let’s go, then. Once we are clear of the town I will be able to release your wrist.”
“So much madness,” she said, following him as he made his way to the outskirts of the town. “And so much violence. And it is not at an end. I will not ask you what will happen to all these prisoners. I don’t think I want to know. Not now.” She shivered. “And all in the name of freedom, Alexander. Is there any such thing?”
“In the heart and mind,” he said. “In the individual life if one is fortunate and perhaps in the individual family and community. Perhaps the secret is to look inward and then to look outward just at what is within the radius of one’s personal influence. Even that is not possible for all people, of course. But for us it is, Siân. For Cwmbran it is.”
“Because you are our owner,” she said. “Ah, that word owner. It says volumes.”
“Small ways,” he said. “A little at a time. We live according to a certain social and political system, Siân. None of us can change the world in one sweep. We can only do our small part, starting with who we are and what we are. Don’t blame me because I am in a position of power. It is what I do with that power that counts, surely.”
She laughed suddenly though there was not much amusement in the sound. “This does not seem quite the time or place to be having this discussion,” she said. “You have used your power to keep me free today. By keeping me tethered to your belt and by treating me with contempt when we have been in company, you have ensured my freedom. A strange paradox. I must thank you.”
“At the same time as you resent the fact that I have that power,” he said. “We are outside the town, Siân. I think I may untie your wrist.” He stopped to do so and smiled at her. “I should be angry with you for doing anything as foolhardy as rushing after your brother-in-law when it must have been obvious to you that you were not going to persuade Parry to let him go. But as usual I honor you instead.” He chafed the wrist he had just freed and briefly lifted it to set his mouth against the inside of it.
But there was no safety in the countryside for anyone who had no good reason for being there. Soldiers and constables were out in force, all of them armed, hunting down fugitives. Some poor devils were being marched back into town, Alex saw, almost unconsciously putting on his aristocratic air and drawing Siân close against his side.
“Anyone with any sense,” he said, “would have taken to his heels early this morning and been miles along on his way home by now.”
“Perhaps some lingered to look for friends or brothers,” she said.
“Like someone I know.” He took her hand. “Siân, you are so cold that there is not a shred of warmth in you. And we are both still wet though the rain has stopped at last. We are going to stop at the first inn we come to and have a bath and a meal and a good sleep. I don’t suppose there are many men who have dared to stop at any today. I would not expect any difficulty in finding an empty room.”
He wanted to make love to her, he thought. He wanted to warm her with his own body and with a shared passion. He wanted to take away the drawn, unhappy look from her face even if only for a brief hour. They were both wet and cold and exhausted. But more than anything else in the world at this precise moment he wanted to make love to her.
“I can’t,” she said. “I must find Iestyn.”
“From what I have seen of that young man,” he said, “he has enough courage and enough stubbornness to make me wonder that he does not share blood with you. And he is no child. He will look after himself.”
“I sometimes forget,” she said, “that he is no longer twelve years old as he was when I married Gwyn.”
“We will be stopping at the next inn,” he said, “even if I have to use force. I want you in dry clothes before we go much farther.”
“It sounds like heaven,” she admitted. “But it seems so unfair when there must be so many hundreds of men on the run and just as wet and cold and miserable as we are.”
“Again,” he said, trying not to feel guilty, “it is the way of the world, Siân.”
It seemed that they must have walked halfway back to Cwmbran before they came across an inn, and even then it was so small and squat that it looked little different from a farmhouse. In reality, Alex realized, they had probably walked only a mile or two. Exhaustion was beginning to take its toll.
There was a real farmhouse not far from the inn, and a large stone barn beside it. Alex, steering Siân toward the inn, felt his heart sink as two redcoats and a few other armed men in civilian clothes appeared at the door of the barn prodding a group of men out ahead of them. All of the men had their hands raised above their heads, except one who had only one arm raised. Poor devils, Alex thought, and tried to rush Siân inside before she saw.
But he jerked to a halt suddenly. “The devil!” he muttered.
“What?” Siân said, and she turned her head to look across the meadow to the barn. She said nothing for a few moments, but he felt her tense though she was not touching him. “Oh, dear God in heaven. Oh, dear God.”
They were all men from Cwmbran. They included all the relatives she had searched for all day in Newport.
Alex clenched his teeth. “This is going to be tricky,” he said. “Stay here, Siân. Go inside and find a fire to warm yourself by.”
He did not look to see if she obeyed him. He strode off in the direction of the barn, putting on arrogance and hauteur and coldness as he went. He swore fluently as soon as he was within earshot of the men. He saw recognition in the eyes of his men, though all of them wore admirably passive expressions.
“So here you are, you lily-livered, good-for-nothing sons of bitches!” Alex said, cold fury tightening his jaw and his lips and flashing from his eyes. “Hiding where it is safe and warm and dry. Thank you, Sergeant.” He nodded curtly at the senior of the two redcoats. “Had you not flushed them out they might have cowered here for a week until all danger had passed. It seems I did not put enough
fear or enough backbone into them during their training.” He let his eyes sweep the line of his men with contempt and loathing. Iestyn Jones had a broken arm, he noticed. It was resting awkwardly against his stomach. It must be unbearably painful without the other arm to support it.
The sergeant coughed. “Would you identify yourself, please, sir?” he asked.
Alex regarded him coldly and raised his eyebrows haughtily. “Craille,” he said. “The Marquess of Craille. Owner at Cwmbran. And losing money every hour that my workers are away on this scandalous escapade. I brought a supposedly trained group of constables to help me round them up and herd them home again. But it seems they heard a few shots in Newport, saw the rioters flee in panic, and decided to make themselves scarce.”
He clasped his hands behind his back and stepped in front of the first prisoner in line. “Jones,” he barked out at Huw Jones, “where is your gun?”
With some relief Alex saw dawning comprehension in the man’s eyes. “I don’t know—sir,” he said.
“And yours, Rhys?” Alex moved to the next man in the line.
“I lost it, sir,” Emrys Rhys said. There was full comprehension in his eyes.
“And yours?” he asked the next man, whose name he did not know.
“The soldiers took it, sir.”
“We confiscated three guns, my lord,” the sergeant said. “We had no idea these men were constables. We took them for fugitives. Your pardon, my lord.”
“Three guns,” Alex said, contempt in his voice. “Three guns for the seven of you. Perhaps I should let you take them away to jail after all, Sergeant. It appears they are useless to me.”
The sergeant coughed. “I would not want to interfere between you and your employees, my lord,” he said, clearly uncomfortable. “Provided you can vouch for them all, my men and I will be taking our leave.”