Truly

by Mary Balogh

  She chuckled. "Yes, I suppose so. I had to come. I have the same grievances as everyone else. I also have a personal grievance."

  "Ah," he said, and his arm tightened as his horse scrambled over uneven ground. She lost the battle with her neck muscles and her head came to rest on his shoulder among the blond ringlets of his wig. "Is it also a private grievance?"

  "No," she said, "not really." Who better to tell than Rebecca? "My husband died in the hulks while being transported to Van Diemen's Land. He had been sentenced to seven years for trying to destroy the salmon weir at Tegfan. The Earl of Wyvern never even lives there."

  "I have heard he is in residence now," he said.

  "Yes." She could hear the bitterness in her voice. "But I wish he had stayed away. His coming has brought it all back fresh again. I used to know him when we were children. We used to—play together. I thought to appeal to that old friendship after my husband was sentenced. I wrote to him—twice. But he did not help. He did not even answer my letters."

  For a moment she felt his cheek against the top of her head, but he did not keep it there. "I am sorry," he said softly. "It must have been a dreadfully painful time for you."

  She swallowed but did not answer. This was not good for her, this being cradled by a man's arm, her head on his shoulder, feeling his sympathy. It was not good at all.

  "Who are you?" she asked him.

  He chuckled. "I am Rebecca, Marged," he said.

  "But who is the man behind the mask?" He was someone she had never met. She knew that. But he was someone she would like to meet. She would like to see him in his everyday clothes. Was his physique as magnificent as it felt through the robes? Was his face handsome? What color was his hair? "Where are you from?"

  "There is nothing behind the mask," he said. "There is only what you see. And I come from the hills and the valleys and the rivers and the clouds of Carmarthenshire."

  She smiled rather ruefully. "You wish to keep your identity a secret," she said. "That is understandable. I should not have asked. But I would not betray you, you know. I admire what you did tonight and the way you did it more than I can say. I will follow you in the coming nights as often as you call us out."

  "That is high praise indeed," he said.

  They were moving downhill. It would have been easy for her to sit upright again. But his arm held her to him, and she did not struggle against it.

  They lapsed into silence. But she was not embarrassed by it. Her initial fear at his closeness and at her precarious position on the horse's back had passed. They were alone in the dark hills, but she was not afraid of him. Leaning against him, no longer looking at his disguise, she could feel that he was only a man. And he was a man she trusted. He was Rebecca.

  And yet other feelings came gradually to replace the fear.

  An awareness of him as a man. An awareness of the fact that she was cradled against the chest of a stranger, her head on his shoulder, his arm about her waist, his inner thigh pressed against her knees. And that they were alone together in the hills on a dark night.

  But still there was no fear and no embarrassment. Only a guilty enjoyment. It had been so long. Until recently she had felt guilty about thinking of other men, wanting other men. She had felt disloyal to Eurwyn. She had felt still married to him. But lately she had admitted to herself that he was dead, that her loyalty to him while he lived had been total, but that she still had a life to live. She had started to feel her emptiness, her need of a man. And yet she had been unable to feel interest in any of the men who had signaled that they might be interested in her.

  She had a mental image suddenly of a man standing in darkness before her, his back to the doorway of Ty-Gwyn. Of that man taking both her hands in his and raising them one at a time to kiss the palms. And of the shameful way she had wanted him. Shameful because she hated him. She shivered and pressed her head harder into Rebecca's shoulder.

  "You are cold?'" his voice asked against her ear.

  "No." She shook her head slightly. "Am I taking you very far out of your way?" But she knew she was. They had walked for miles earlier before they came up with him.

  "No," he said, but she knew he lied.

  They were silent again. And she closed her eyes and frankly enjoyed her closeness to him. And the feel of him. strong and broad-shouldered. And the smell of him. He smelled—clean. And the knowledge that he was someone worthy of her respect and loyalty. She enjoyed the pleasant desire he aroused in her. He made her feel that she was back in the land of the living. He made her aware again of her femininity. He made her know that one day she would really desire and really love again.

  It seemed a strange end to a night that had been devoted to violence and hatred.

  Guilt and pleasure warred within him. She really did not know who he was. She did not even suspect. He could tell from the way she snuggled against him, all her weight resting sideways against his chest, her head nestled on his shoulder, that she trusted him utterly. It was foolhardy. She was alone in the middle of the night with an apparent stranger and trusted him to do her no harm.

  And yet it was no man she trusted, he knew. It was Rebecca. She admired and respected and trusted him because he was Rebecca. He had told her there was nothing behind the mask. He had lied more than she realized.

  He remembered suddenly the way she had leaned away from him, revulsion in her face, when he had reached for her that night the horses had been let out and she had been telling him about the letters she had sent him pleading for her husband. Don't touch me! she had told him.

  He should have left her to walk home with the Glynderi contingent.

  But he had not done so and now he was committed to taking her all the way home. He would not do it again. Indeed, he would persuade her before letting her down not to join any of the Rebecca Riots in future. He would command her as Rebecca not to come. It was just this one time, then. And they must be more than halfway home already.

  And because it was just this one time and because they were more than halfway home, he allowed himself to enjoy her closeness. It had been so long. And no one would ever convince him that young love was ridiculous and of no account. He had bedded his share of women and considered others as a wife, but he had never loved any of them as he had loved Marged. He had never suffered the pain of loss with any of them as he had suffered it with her.

  He had loved her. And though he had not thought of her constantly or even often during the past ten years, he had thought of her occasionally and always with a pang of nostalgia and regret for the gaucheness that had killed his chances with her. It was partly Marged who had made him resolve never to return to Tegfan and never to know what was happening there.

  And now he held her in his arms again, and like a dream, she rested against him, relaxed and trusting. Although he was no longer a young boy with a young boy's foolishness, he knew that in the future he would continue to remember her occasionally and that when he did, it would be tonight he would remember.

  And then landmarks began to look familiar as they loomed out of the darkness. They were almost home. He felt both relief and regret. Relief because enjoyment was beginning to turn to active desire. Regret because he knew there would never again be a night like this one.

  He skirted past both the village and the park. He almost made the mistake of turning up into the hills toward Ty-Gwyn. He caught himself in time.

  "We have just passed Glynderi," he said. "You must direct me from here, Marged."

  She turned her head to look about her, and he realized that she must have had her eyes closed.

  "Oh," she said, "it seemed such a short distance coming back." Perhaps he only imagined that he heard regret in her voice.

  He chuckled. "Distances have a tendency to feel shorter when one is on horseback," he said.

  "You must ride often," she said. "You ride easily. Turn right here up into the hills."

  He turned right and did not comment on what she had said.

  "Your mo
ther-in-law will be worried about you?" he asked.

  "She does not know I am gone," she said. "At least, I hope she does not. She had enough worries with my husband. She deserves to live out the rest of her life in peace."

  "You should not even take the chance of worrying her, then, Marged," he said. "What if you were caught? Who would run the farm for her?"

  "Somehow the Lord provides,"' she said simply. She laughed softly. "I am a minister's daughter, you know. When my husband was taken, I wondered the same thing. But somehow we manage without him. We have to do what we believe in in this life, I am firmly convinced. We cannot always be wondering what will happen if things go wrong. That is the surest road to cowardice."

  It was not going to be easy.

  "I married Eurwyn because he was the sort of man who followed his convictions," she said. '"I loved him for it. I never whined and insisted he think of me first before going into danger. And I never blamed him for leaving me alone."

  He felt a stabbing of jealousy for the long-dead Eurwyn Evans, the man she had loved. And the wistful desire to be so loved himself. But such love had to be earned. He had done nothing to earn it.

  "A little farther on," she said, pointing. "At the top of the next rise."

  They rode the rest of the distance in silence. When they reached the gate and the shape of the longhouse could be made out through the darkness, she stayed where she was.

  "Here?" he asked her.

  "Yes." Her voice was low, almost a whisper against his ear.

  Chapter 14

  She was as reluctant to end the night as he was, he realized. She was no more ready to say good night than he.

  "Marged," he said, "I do not doubt your courage or your commitment to the public cause or your personal grievance. I honor you for what you have done tonight."

  "But," she said. "I hear a but in your voice. Don't say it. Please. I have admired and respected you so much tonight. Don't spoil it by talking about a woman's place. A woman's place is not always at home. Her place is where she must be. And I must be with my people during these protests, sharing the exertion and the danger—and the exhilaration with them. I must be with you. With Rebecca, that is. Don't forbid me to go."

  Damnation! All his resolve was melting away. "And if I did?" he asked her. "Would you obey?"

  She did not answer for a few moments. "No," she said at last.

  "Rebecca must demand total obedience of her children," he said. "It is necessary for the success of our cause and for the safety of all. I suppose, then, I must not issue a command that cannot be obeyed. Doing so would merely place us both in an impossible situation, wouldn't it?"

  "Yes," she said. And then more fiercely: "Thank you. Oh, thank you. I knew you were a man I would like almost more than any other."

  His heart turned over at the compliment, though he knew that it was a compliment for Rebecca rather than for the man behind the mask.

  "Come," he said. "It is time you were safe in your bed." He dismounted, holding her firmly in place with one hand as he did so. Then he reached up both arms and lifted her to the ground.

  She stood in front of him, staring up at him. His hands were still at her waist, he realized, though he did not remove them. She looked absurd and rather endearing with her cloth cap covering all her hair and with her blackened face.

  He lifted one arm and took off the cap. Any hairpins she had been wearing to hold her hair in place must have come away with it. Her hair cascaded over her shoulders and down her back in thick waves. He had not seen her with her hair down, he realized, since she was a child.

  "I must look a mess," she said.

  He was touched by the vanity of the words, so rare with Marged. She did look a mess. And strangely lovely.

  "It is the blackening that really does the trick," he said.

  "Oh." She brushed the knuckles of one hand ineffectually over one cheek. "I had forgotten that. So you have seen me with part of my mask removed. Let me see you. It is dark and I would never know you to identify."

  "Marged," he said, taking her hand in his and drawing it away from her face, "I am Rebecca. There is no one behind the mask." He was about to carry her hand to his lips, but realized that it might be too familiar a gesture. He squeezed it instead. "Good night," he said. "I will stand here until you are safely inside."

  "Good night," she said, returning the pressure of his hand. "Good night, Rebecca. And thank you for riding so far out of your way."

  He released her hand, but she did not turn away from him fast enough. She paused long enough to smile at him. Too long. He set his hands at her waist again, drew her against him, and kissed her.

  He could feel nothing but her lips, trembling against his own—the wool of his mask kept his face from touching hers. But it was enough. Too much. He deepened the kiss, parting his lips over hers, licking at them with his tongue. Marged! Love, he was discovering, could lie dormant for ten years but did not die. It could flower again with one kiss. Flower into a more intensely glorious bloom than before. Yes, it was like the flowers of springtime, blooming out of plants seemingly dead at the end of a long winter.

  "Oh," she said, her eyes and her voice dazed when he lifted his head. Her hands were stroking across his shoulders. "Who are you? Who are you?"

  "Go in now," he said. "Go now, Marged."

  She gazed into his eyes for a moment longer and for the first time he saw a frown between her brows and doubt in her eyes as if she were recognizing him. But she shook her head and turned away. Before he could assist her, she was through the gate and hurrying across the farmyard to the house. He could scarcely see her by the time she opened the door, but he thought she turned to wave to him. He lifted a hand in response and kept it there, motionless.

  If only he had not been so foolish as a boy, he thought. If only he had not cut himself off from Tegfan so ruthlessly that even a personal letter from the woman he had loved had not made it into his hands. She could love him again. He had seen it in her face and heard it in her voice and felt it in her kiss. If only he had not done things to make her hate him, he could woo her back. But those things were irreversible. He could not bring her husband back to her. And if he could, he would lose her anyway.

  He would do it gladly, he thought with a jolt of pained surprise, if only it were possible. He would bring back the husband she had admired and loved. And so cut himself off from her forever. It would be enough to know that she was happy.

  And that perhaps she would remember him with some kindness.

  He stood at the gate for a long time before turning back to his patient horse and swinging himself back into the saddle.

  She was in chapel at the usual time on Sunday morning. She sat very erect, looking straight ahead instead of giving in to curiosity and looking about to see how many of last night's Rebeccaites had managed to get themselves out of bed in time.

  She realized that she had had no more than four hours of sleep. What surprised her was the fact that she had had that much. She had not expected to sleep after scrubbing her face and undressing and climbing into the cupboard bed, exhausted as she had been. There had been too much teeming around inside her head.

  But she had found as soon as her head was on the pillow and the blankets up beneath her chin that there was only one image in her mind after all. There was Rebecca's face covered by the pale mask, surrounded by the blond ringlets. And Rebecca's light eyes, beautiful and compelling. Eyes that for a moment before she had come inside had had her reaching for something in the recesses of her memory that just would not come into her conscious mind.

  And Rebecca's mouth, warm and inviting and wonderful—and giving the startling lie to any lingering myth that there was no man behind the mask.

  She had relived his kiss and the memory of the feel of him, burrowing farther beneath the blankets and keeping her eyes firmly closed, unwilling to let go of the magic of it. She had been kissed again after so long. She had been desired again. And she had desired. A man she had nev
er seen without the disguise, a man she would not know if she passed him in the village. But there had been desire between them.

  And she would see him again. Perhaps never to talk again. Perhaps he would never look at her again. But she would see him. And follow him as Rebecca wherever he chose to lead her. Because she admired and trusted him.

  Because she had fallen a little in love with him. She had smiled at the thought. And fallen deeply asleep.

  She wondered now if it was wicked to be sitting in chapel after such a night. She had been part of a mob that had destroyed a tollgate and a tollhouse. She was a criminal in the eyes of the law. And she had kissed a stranger and desired a man who was not her husband. Oh, yes, she had desired him. She had wanted to lie with him, all the disguises stripped away. She had wanted him in her bed and in her body, man and woman together.

  But she would not feel ashamed.

  And then someone sat in the empty seat next to her, Eurwyn's place that no one had taken since his death. Except that one Sunday. And again today. Without turning her head, she knew. She could feel that it was he. And she could smell the distinctive musk of his cologne. She stiffened with resentment.

  "Good morning, Marged," he said very quietly.

  So he had decided to notice her this morning, had he? She considered ignoring him, but she was in chapel. Not that that should make any difference. If she acknowledged him only for that reason, she was being very hypocritical. She turned her head to find his blue eyes steady on her. They gave her a jolt of awareness.

  "Good morning, my lord," she said equally quietly.

  It was the limit of the communication between them, and he did not try to walk home with her after chapel as he had the time before. It would have been difficult, anyway. She drew Mrs. Williams and a reluctant Ceris away from the crowd far sooner than usual after service, linked her arms through one each of theirs, and marched them off homeward, talking determinedly about the spring flowers blooming wild along the banks of the river.