by Mary Balogh
Her steps had brought her in a different direction from the one she had taken a few Sundays before. She was close to where Geraint had used to live with his mother. The hovel was still there, she knew, though it was in very bad repair. She did not often come this way. She usually avoided the memories. And she should have done so today. She did not want to think about Geraint. She wanted to focus her thoughts entirely on Rebecca. She would at least see him soon—tomorrow night again. Her heart beat faster at the thought.
And then she was aware of something at the far side of the old hovel, something that did not belong there—the flutter of dark fabric from behind the far wall, the suggestion of something darker than the thatch on the far side of the low roof. She felt fear for a moment—it was a very bleak and lonely spot. But she had never been one to flee fear. She walked slowly closer, stepping as quietly as she could.
By the time she stepped cautiously past the old house, far enough that she could see what was behind the side wall, she was no more than eight or ten feet away from him. His cloak was thrown back over his shoulders. His arms were spread, elbows out, along the roof and his face was hidden in his hands. He was hatless.
Although his cloak was fluttering in the wind, he was standing quite still and silent. Obviously he had not heard her come.
Her first instinct was to leave—and fast. She felt the familiar welling of hatred and resentment. She had no wish to see him ever again. And the thought struck her that if he had his will, he would destroy her new love as he had destroyed the old. He was Rebecca's enemy. He had constables at his house sworn to catching Rebecca. He was not himself a magistrate, but she knew he would rejoice in the capture and would press for the stiffest penalty the law would allow.
She had heard that any Rebecca who was caught would be transported for life. If he did make it to Van Diemen's Land alive, he would never return. Never.
She actually turned to leave. But she looked back over her shoulder. He was so still. What was he doing? He was the same person, she thought unwillingly, as that little boy who had lived here with his mother. That little boy she had loved with a child's adoration.
She stepped closer to him, close enough to touch him. She lifted one hand, saw it trembling, and closed it on itself. But she opened the hand again and touched it lightly to his shoulder.
"Geraint?" she whispered.
He spun around so quickly that she took an involuntary step back, terrified. Her hand stayed suspended in the air. But then she gazed at him, horrified. His eyes were filled with tears and both they and his cheeks were blotched red. He had been crying!
"I am sorry," she said, still whispering. Her hand fell to her side. She had some idea of turning and fleeing.
But before she could make her escape, both his arms came out and grabbed her. He hauled her against him and held her there with arms like iron bands. For a few moments she was terrified. She could scarcely breathe, and her nostrils were assaulted by the expensive musk of his cologne. She thought he meant to do her some mischief.
But it did not take her longer than those few moments to realize that he was in deep distress. There had been the tears and the signs that he had been crying for some time. And she could feel now the wild beating of his heart and the irregular gasps of his breathing.
"Don't fight me. Don't fight me," he ordered her fiercely. And yet she knew that his words were a veiled plea for help.
She was horrified anew at the situation. And she should fight, she knew. If he was suffering for some reason and her fighting him would make his suffering more acute, then she would be having some small measure of revenge on him. He had not moved a single finger to lessen her suffering. She should pull away from him, say something cutting, laugh in his face, and walk away.
She wriggled against him until she could free her arms to wrap about his waist. And she turned her head to rest her cheek against his shoulder. She relaxed against him, giving him all the silent comfort of her warmth and her softness.
She closed her mind to what she ought to do.
He was Geraint.
She felt his cheek come to rest against the top of her head.
Chapter 19
It took him a few minutes to realize exactly what had happened. She had come upon him when he had least expected to see anyone, and she had caught him at his most vulnerable. He was almost never vulnerable. He had built a hard shell about himself long ago, probably from the very earliest years of his life.
He held her tightly and drew strength and comfort from her warm, relaxed body. She had her arms clasped about his waist and her head on his shoulder. She had not fought him—he could hear the distant echo of his voice commanding her not to. Neither had she turned limp and impassive in his arms. She was deliberately offering him the comfort of her presence.
It had seemed natural to him to turn to her, though it had been an unconscious, instinctive thing. She was, after all, Marged. And he was her lover. He had loved her just two nights ago with his body. But she did not know that. He was her enemy.
He lifted his cheek from her head and loosened his hold. He supposed there was no way of hiding the fact that he had been crying. He could not remember the last time he had cried. Not at his grandfather's funeral or even at his mother's. Perhaps when he was at Tegfan at the age of twelve and they would not allow him to see his mother.
Marged drew back her head and looked up at him, though she did not immediately drop her arms from about his waist.
"Can you imagine a greater cruelty," he asked, "than driving a poor pregnant woman out of a church and out of a community and forcing her to live her life as an outcast, so abjectly poor that she does not even know if she will be able to feed her child on any given day? And of doing such a thing in the name of Christianity?"
She gazed at him for a while before finally lowering her arms though she did not step away from him. "No," she said. "I don't believe I can."
"Even if she had been guilty," he said. "Don't the devout members of your church realize that love is what Christianity is all about? Just simply that? Nothing else. Only love." He was no expert on Christianity, but it seemed to him that that was the Gospel—the good news. Not the rigid, judgmental application of a code of rules and laws.
She did not answer him. Perhaps she thought he was not the person to be preaching love and Christianity.
He had to move. He had to get away from that house. But not alone. He shunned aloneness now as he had shunned company when he had left the churchyard earlier. He had always been alone, so very alone. He took her hand in his, willing her not to pull away, and drew her up the steep slope beside the house onto the top of the outcropping of rock. There was a view from up there, an unobstructed view of rolling hills and valleys that stretched for miles. And there was wind. It buffeted them, sending her dress and his cloak billowing out behind them.
She did not pull away. Neither did her hand lie quite limply in his. She curled her fingers lightly about it.
"She used to joke sometimes," he said. '"At least we have a back garden with a view,' she used to say. 'The best in the country.'"
They stood looking at the view. She said nothing. Their shoulders did not quite touch.
"She was my father's wife," he said quietly. "She gave birth to my father's son. She kept me alive and gave me all the love I have ever known and taught me all the important things I have learned in my life. She was my mother, my mam, and yet suddenly when I was twelve she became a contaminating force in my life. So much so that I must never see her. I must never even write to her or receive a letter from her. She was Welsh and a product of the lower classes—a lethal combination. They spoke of her—on the few occasions when she was mentioned at all—with contempt. I was encouraged to despise her."
"Did you?" Marged asked.
"No," he said. "Never for a moment."
It was perhaps the one comfort he could feel. But he had never been able to tell her that. When he finally saw her again, she was dead.
"Marged," he said
, "they gave her a cottage to live in. She must have lived there for six years before her death. Was she quite alone?"
"No," she said. "Not quite. Many people tried to make amends. My father and the deacons and their wives called on her. Admittedly they would not have done it if they had not discovered that she had been legally married, but it took some courage. A few people called more than once or twice. I believe Mrs. Williams became her friend. I—I called on her several times. She would never go back to chapel."
He realized suddenly that he was gripping her hand very tightly. He relaxed his hold.
"I was not allowed to return here or to write to anyone," he said. "My past was to be obliterated as if it had never been. I became Geraint Marsh, Viscount Handford—though my grandfather and everyone else called me Gerald—an English gentleman whose life began at the age of twelve."
He turned without conscious thought to lead her down from the rise and to stroll across the hills with her. It seemed natural to share his thoughts and his pain with her. After all, she was his lover and his love. But the thought was not a conscious one.
She felt rather as if she had stepped out of time. What was happening did not quite belong in this time or this place. With her mind she could tell herself that she did not need to hear this or anything else that would somehow make him appear human to her. She could tell herself that he was her enemy, the man she hated more than anyone else in this world. If he suffered, he could never suffer enough for her liking. She could remind herself that she loved another man now—and that they had been lovers, however briefly. She loved a man who was this man's sworn enemy. She could remember that she had walked across the hills rather than go home because she had wanted to think and to dream about Rebecca.
But sometimes the mind has only a little influence over one's whole being. She walked with him and held his hand and listened, not only to his words but to his pain, and she could not think or feel any of the things she should think or feel.
He was Geraint and he needed her.
"I always assumed somehow that I would come back," he said. "Back home to my mother. When my education was finished. I thought they would be satisfied then. I thought I would be my own man. I thought I would come back to her and love and care for her during her declining years as she had loved and cared for me during my growing years. Even when I knew she was dead, I thought I was coming home. I thought I would assert myself and stay here." He drew a deep breath and exhaled audibly.
She found herself wanting to take a step closer to him so that she could lean her head on his shoulder. She resisted the urge. He was the Earl of Wyvern, she reminded herself.
"It was not home," he said. "There was no home. Anywhere. Nowhere where I belonged. No one I belonged to."
"Your grandfather—" she began.
"No," he said.
She remembered the handsome, arrogant, self-assured, very English young man who had returned from England for his mother's funeral.
"Marged," he said, "for what it is worth after so long, I am sorry for what happened. Deeply sorry. I selfishly grabbed for comfort where I thought—without any good reason—it was being offered. But I did care. You were still my wonderful friend—that was how I described you to my mother the day you befriended me and plied me with blackberries. Do you remember?"
She swallowed but still heard a gurgle in her throat. She fought tears. "Yes," she said.
He stopped walking and turned to her. "And I am sorry for this too," he said, lifting her hand in his own, though he did not release it. "I have kidnapped you and forced you to listen to an outpouring of self-pity. I am not given to such outpourings, Marged. You were in the wrong place at the wrong time. You will wish me to the devil—where I belong." He smiled rather wanly.
Yes, she must wish it. She bit her lower lip. He was not Geraint. Not any longer. He was the Earl of Wyvern. Why did you ignore my pleas for Eurwyn? she wanted to ask him. Why did you forget then about our wonderful friendship? But she did not want to hear his answer. Not now. She was feeling too confused and upset.
"Come," he said, and he brought her hand through his arm and finally released his hold on it. "I will walk you home."
It was on the tip of her tongue to tell him that she had walked far enough with him already. Too far. She could see herself home. But she could not say that either. Hatred, she was discovering, was too powerful an emotion. Too like love. Sometimes the two were indistinguishable. Perhaps if she had not loved him, she would never have hated him. She would merely have disliked and despised him.
Her heart ached with hatred and with the memory of love. It was only after they had walked for a few minutes in silence, back toward the path that would lead downward to Ty-Gwyn, that she felt resentment. She was twenty-six years old. She was no longer a girl to feel such confusion of emotions. She loved Rebecca now—or the man behind Rebecca's mask. There was even the chance, however remote, that she carried his child inside her. When one loved one man, one ought not to be able to feel any tenderness at all for any other. Especially when that other man was not even worthy of one's liking or respect.
And yet there had always been Geraint. And still was, it seemed. Always, all the time she had been married to Eurwyn, all the time she had loved him, there had been Geraint. And now that there was Rebecca—though there was no present or future tense in that relationship, only the past—even though it was a passionate relationship for her and an all-consuming one—even now there was Geraint.
'There will be the seeding to do soon," he said at last. He sounded like the Earl of Wyvern again, remote, haughty, rather cold. "And lime to haul for fertilizing. Do you need help, Marged? Can I send a man or two from the home farm?"
She felt a welcome surging of anger—and of smug satisfaction. But mostly anger. She had had help. She had had a man of her own. But that man was gone, thanks to the Earl of Wyvern.
"No, thank you," she said coolly. "I have all the help I need. I have hired Waldo Parry to work for me."
"Have you?" he said. "I am glad, Marged. I was under the impression when I saw you picking stones off the field that you could not afford to hire anyone."
How dared he!
"I have afforded my rent each year," she said, "and my tithes. What other money I have and how I spend it are my concern, my lord."
"Quite," he said, and they walked on in silence for a while. But he was not finished with her. "Marged," he said when they were a short distance from Ty-Gwyn, "I would hate to see you lose your help almost before you have him. If Waldo Parry—or any other man of your acquaintance—is a follower of Rebecca, it might be as well for you to warn them that I am hot on their trail. It is a mere matter of time before the whole foolish trouble is at an end."
"And there will be no mercy on any of them," she said. "I know that. But you cannot make me tremble with fear, Geraint Penderyn. If I knew any of Rebecca's followers, I would encourage them to continue what they are doing. Perhaps I would even become one of them myself. And perhaps I would see Rebecca as a hero, as someone to be admired and respected. Someone to be followed."
She did not care about the recklessness of her words. She had promised herself on a previous occasion that she would not allow him to play cat and mouse with her.
"He is a criminal, Marged," he said. They had stopped outside the gate and he was looking at her with his hard blue eyes—eyes that had been tear-filled and beautiful up on the moors just a short while before. "He has no way of winning."
"Sometimes"—she leaned a little toward him and looked directly into his eyes—"people, both men and women, would prefer to fight a hopeless cause than not to fight at all. Sometimes the worst that can happen to a person is that he lose his self-respect or his soul. Or hers. Don't threaten me, my lord, or try to make me run in a craven panic to warn off anyone I may know who marches with Rebecca. You are wasting your breath."
He nodded slowly, his eyes never leaving hers. "Yes," he said, "I can see that. Be careful, then. Far more careful th
an you were the night you put wet ashes in my bed. I caught you then, remember?"
She had just told him that he could not make her tremble with fear. But she felt cold with it as he took her right hand in his, raised it to his lips, and kissed the palm as he had done with both hands on a previous occasion. He knew. Not just about the ashes—of course he knew about those. He knew that she followed Rebecca. He was warning her that he could easily catch her, as he had that night. And that he would not help her when he did.
Was he warning her in the hope that he would not have to catch her and see her punished? Was it his way of acknowledging that he had once cared?
He turned without another word and continued on his way down the hill. She watched him go, the man who was so much a part of her that not even hatred, not even her love for another man could quite dislodge him.
She could not love him, she thought, frowning slightly for a moment. She had loved him once, then Eurwyn, now Rebecca. That at least made sense—one man at a time. She could not have loved him while she loved Eurwyn. But she knew she had. She certainly could not love him now while her passionate love for Rebecca was so new and so wonderful—and so painful. But she knew that she did in some strange, strange way.
In some way she would always love Geraint Penderyn. Unwillingly and with denial on her lips and in her mind at every turn. But in this moment of painful truth she knew that he would always be there—in the depths of her heart.
Where she did not want him to be.
But where he was and always would be.
Matthew Harley was taking a Friday afternoon off. It was something he rarely did, though he was entitled to it and to far more spare time than he ever took. Usually he did not look for time off. He was happiest when at work. But work was no longer satisfying. He had even wondered if he should start looking for a post elsewhere.
Except that he did not want to go elsewhere. He had begun to think of Tegfan almost as his. He had made it as prosperous and efficient as it was. He had made a reputation for himself. He had won the respect of every landowner in Carmarthenshire. He did not want to have to begin again somewhere else.