by Mary Balogh
"You would be very welcome, sir," Ninian Williams said.
"And all your men too. There is plenty of food for everyone."
"Harley," Sir Hector called over his shoulder, "take the men and search every inch of this farm. And what did you do with Mrs. Phillips, Wyvern? Kill her and hide her body with all the rest of your things?"
"Mrs. Phillips?" Marged sounded startled. "From the Cilcoed tollgate down the road, do you mean? She is spending the evening and night with my gran at Ty-Gwyn. She is lonely out there at the gate and sometimes slips away for a night. She says that no one ever wants to pass through at night anyway. Is she in trouble?"
"No," Geraint said. "She is elderly. I will have a word with the lessee of the trust on her behalf." He turned back to Sir Hector suddenly. "It was not her gate that went down tonight, was it?"
"You know it was, Wyvern," Sir Hector said between his teeth. His face was deeply flushed. He was realizing, perhaps, that he had come too late, that he had lost the game, and that there would be no other chance.
"Well, then," Geraint said, "it is a blessing that she chose this night of all nights to absent herself from her post."
Sir Hector stood glaring about him, his eyes taking in the women gathered there with the men, the feast spread out on the table, the Bible tucked beneath the minister's arm, the newly betrothed couple, flushed and hand in hand in the middle of the room.
A cough drew his attention behind him. "Nothing, sir," Matthew Harley's subdued voice said. "Except that his lordship's horse is in with Ninian Williams's."
"Well?" Sir Hector impaled Geraint with a glance.
Geraint raised his eyebrows. "I beg your pardon?" he said haughtily. "Is my horse incriminating evidence, Hector? Is the Earl of Wyvern expected to walk to a tenant's party?"
It was evident from the slumping of Sir Hector's shoulders and the dying light in his eyes that he was giving in to defeat. But he rallied briefly. "We will leave you to your party, then," he said. "But just remember, the whole lot of you, that the next time you decide to go out smashing tollgates, we will be waiting for you."
"Gracious, Hector," Geraint said, "you have us all shaking in our boots. I shall have to give up being Rebecca. And Aled will have to give up being—Charlotte, was it? And all these men will have to give up being my children. Whatever are we expected to do for amusement now?" Scorn and sarcasm dripped from every word.
Sir Hector turned and strode out the door.
Matthew Harley stood there for a moment, looking at Ceris before transferring his gaze to Geraint.
"You will have my resignation tomorrow," he said.
"And you will have a letter of warm recommendation to take to your next employer," Geraint said quietly.
Harley turned to follow Sir Hector and the constables. A minute or so later horses could be heard leaving the farmyard and cantering along the lane to the main path back to Glynderi.
"My lord?" Eli Harris spoke hesitantly. "It has been you all the time, then?"
"It was me all the time," Geraint said. "Do none of you remember how I had to be in the thick of every piece of mischief when I was a child?"
They all gawked at him.
He grinned about at them. "I am merely that child grown to manhood," he said. "Did you think that wealth and a title and an English education would change me into a different person? I was getting nowhere fast as the Earl of Wyvern when I returned here. Come, you must all admit that. I met suspicion or coldness or open hostility wherever I turned. All my suggestions for change and reform were spurned— either by you or by my fellow landowners. And so I had to become Geraint Penderyn again. And once I was Geraint, then I had to become Rebecca. There was no one else to take the job, was there? And I was ever a leader, especially when it was mischief that I must lead others into."
"He convinced me and the rest of the members of the committee," Aled said, "that he was the man for the job. And I believe his actions have proved that we were right."
"Well, I for one," Ifor Davies said boldly, "will thank you, my lord, and will shake your hand too if you will shake mine." He walked toward Geraint, hand outstretched.
"Me too," Glyn Bevan said.
The ice was broken and the men formed a rough line to move forward for the privilege of shaking their Rebecca by the hand.
"I think it is not being too optimistic to say that our goal has been reached," Geraint said. "Mr. Foster of The Times has assured me that his editor and the paper's readers are avid for more details of the Rebecca Riots, and that they appear to be sympathetic to our cause. And a commission of inquiry is almost certain to be set up here—I have heard that one of the commissioners is to be Thomas Frankland Lewis, himself a Welshman and familiar with life on a Welsh farm. And I have heard too that the commissioners will allow everyone who cares to testify to have his say—or hers—rich and poor alike. We will all have a chance to give our side of the story."
"Duw be praised," Morfydd Richards said, and her words were greeted by a flurry of fervent amens.
"It is more than praise we must give to our God tonight, Morfydd Richards," the Reverend Llwyd said sternly. He waited until everyone's attention was on him before continuing. "We must pray for forgiveness for all the lies we have spoken here tonight and for our Lord's pardon so that our souls do not spend eternity writhing in hellfire."
Everyone gazed mutely at him as he raised his arms.
"Let us pray," he said.
All heads bent and all eyes closed.
Except Geraint's. He looked all about him as unobtrusively as possible. But he was not mistaken.
Marged was gone.
Chapter 29
She should have gone home. But her mother-in-law and probably Gran too would be sitting up with Mrs. Phillips, and they would all be bursting with curiosity to know what had happened at the Williamses'.
She could not have gone home.
She should have gone somewhere else, then. Anywhere else. But she had not been thinking. She had been acting purely from instinct. And she did not have the will or the energy to go somewhere else now. She leaned her arms along the roof, as he had done on another occasion, and rested her face on her hands as he had done then.
Except that then she had known him only as Geraint Penderyn, Earl of Wyvern. She had not known…
But her mind shied away from what she had not known.
She knew he would find her there. Perhaps that was why she had come, though she wished herself a thousand miles away. She had never been one to shirk reality or to avoid confrontations.
A confrontation was inevitable.
She did not hear him coming, but she was not surprised to hear his voice close behind her.
"Marged," he said.
"Go away," she said without raising her head. The confrontation might be inevitable, but there was no reason why she should not fight the inevitable.
"No," he said. "I am not going anywhere."
He was speaking Welsh, she realized. In Rebecca's voice. She shuddered. "Then I will go away," she said.
"No." His voice was soft, but she knew he meant it. He was behind her. A quite solid building was in front of her. He was not going to allow her past. Well, she had known it was inevitable. But she was not going to lift her head or turn to him.
"It was rape," she said.
"No, Marged," he said.
"I did not consent to lie with the Earl of Wyvern," she said.
"I was Rebecca," he said—and oh God, he was Rebecca. Why had she never realized it was the same voice, speaking a different language? "You consented to lie with Rebecca, Marged."
"Rebecca was a mask," she said. "There is no such person."
"You always knew there was a man behind the mask," he said.
"But I did not know it was you. I hate you. You know I hate you."
"No," he said. "When I asked you yesterday to marry me, Marged, you almost said yes. I saw the tears in your eyes and the agony behind the tears. You want to hate me, but you cann
ot."
"I hate you,'' she said.
"Why?" he asked. "Give me the reasons."
There were too many to number. "You killed Eurwyn," she said.
"No, Marged," he said. "There was a whole tragic set of circumstances there and they took the life of a courageous man who fought for his people. I was only one link in that chain. I accept responsibility for my ignorance and neglect, but I did not murder him. Does your hatred rest solely on that?"
It did. She did not want to think of the rest. It was too painful.
"Marged?"
"I thought you had come to apologize to me," she cried, surprising even herself by the passion in her voice. "I thought you had come to reassure me, to tell me that you loved me. But all you could do was talk with Dada and looked me up and down as if I had forgotten to put my clothes on."
He had nothing to say for a moment. "Ah, Marged," he said, "I was such an insecure, guilty, embarrassed young puppy. You looked so proud and so scornful and I was so terribly ashamed."
"And then you went away. All the pain of it was back again, as if she was still sixteen and wore all her emotions on the outside. "You just went away without a word. You never wrote. You stayed away for ten whole years. And when I wrote to you—twice!—about Eurwyn, you did not even reply. You will never know what it cost me to write those letters, to write to you when I had married Eurwyn. You did not even acknowledge receiving them."
"Because I did not, Marged." There was pain in his voice too now. "I went away with raw emotions. I did not know who I was. The only anchor of my existence—my mother— was dead and I had made a total disaster of my first love affair. I felt unwanted here and yet did not know where else I was to belong. I only knew it was not here, though my heart ached for this place and these people. And for you. I was too young to deal with the pain. I thought I could end it by cutting it off instead of suffering through it. So I put it all behind me. When I inherited, I appointed Harley to run the estate for me. He had strict instructions to keep everything concerning the estate from me, and my secretary in England had similar instructions to deal with any correspondence from Wales without showing it to me. I thought it had worked. I thought I had forgotten Wales. And you. I was wrong on both counts."
It was Geraint, she thought, her eyes closed against her hands, who had been her lover. It was his body that had loved her own, penetrated her own. It was Geraint. Her mind could not yet quite grasp the reality.
"Marry me, Marged," he said.
"No!"
"Why not?" he asked her.
"You deceived me."
"Yes," he said. "I did."
She hated him anew for not trying to justify himself, for simply admitting his guilt. He gave her nothing to fight against.
"Marry me," he said.
"No."
"Marged," he asked, "why did you tell me yesterday that Rebecca had promised not to abandon you?"
She froze. Oh God, oh dear God, yes, she had said that to him. Her wretched tongue!
And then he touched her for the first time. One of his hands slid around her and spread itself lightly over her abdomen.
"Do we have a child growing here, cariad?" he asked her softly.
She felt that somersaulting and cartwheeling again.
"I think so." She wished she found it easy to lie.
"You must marry me, then," he said.
"No." She considered trying to push his hand away, but she did not think he would remove it and she did not want to wrestle with him.
"Marged," he said, "I know what it is like for a woman shunned by her family and her community and living alone up here. And I know what it is like to be the child of such a woman. To love her to distraction because there is no one but her to love and to sense her unhappiness and her loneliness without fully understanding them or being able to do anything about them. Is that what you want for yourself? And our child?"
She heard herself moan before she clamped her teeth together.
"I will not allow it," he said.
He ought not to have said that. She bristled.
"I love you," he said. "Marged, I love you. I always have. I always will."
And he ought not to have said that either. She was not made of stone.
"Marged." His hand began stroking over her abdomen. "Remember how this child got here. On whichever occasion it happened, it was good. It has always been good. It was always done with love, from the first time to the last. Love on both sides. Our child was begotten and conceived in the right way and for the right reason. It is a child of our love."
Again the moan. This time she did not cut it short.
"Marry me," he said.
He knew she was close to saying yes. But she did not say it. And suddenly he did not want her to say it. Not like this. Not with her face hidden on her arms. Hidden from him. From the truth.
His hand rested, splayed, against her. Against the place where their child grew. Their child—his and Marged's. He leaned forward and rested his forehead against her neck.
"Marged," he said softly, "forgive me. Forgive me."
She turned then, after shrugging her shoulders sharply and batting away his hand. Her face was angry.
"As easily as that?" she cried. "I forgive you and shed a few tears over you? I marry you because I am with child by you? We live happily ever after?"
This was better, he thought, though he could think of nothing to say.
"I told the Earl of Wyvern that I followed Rebecca," she said. She was yelling at him, her hands balled into fists at her sides. "I told him that I loved Rebecca, that I was his lover. And I told Rebecca that I had offered myself to the Earl of Wyvern. I admitted that I had wanted him."
"Yes," he said.
"I abased myself," she said. "I was honest. I felt that a relationship with Rebecca could not possibly work if I was not honest."
"Yes," he said.
"Can you say nothing but yes?" She was almost screaming at him.
"You have been nothing but honest with me," he said. "I have been nothing but deceitful with you. Except in one thing, Marged. I have always loved you. I love you now. I can only beg for your forgiveness."
There were tears in her eyes suddenly and she was biting her lower lip. "It was you," she said. All the passion had gone from her voice. "It was all you. You who kissed me that first night. You in chapel the next morning when I was still tingling with the memory. You in the wood. You inside the hut. You who tricked me into offering my body in exchange for Ceris's freedom. You who tried to persuade me to inform against the followers of Rebecca. You who…" She threw up her hands in a gesture of frustration.
"Yes," he said. "Yes, Marged. And I who started the child inside you."
She moaned again as she had done earlier. "You are Rebecca," she said, looking at him with incredulity once more. "And you are Geraint. You are both."
"Yes," he said. "And the Earl of Wyvern, Marged. I am all three. None of them is a mask. I am all three. I cannot offer you one without the other two. I cannot offer you Rebecca, whom you admire, without Geraint, to whom you feel an unwilling attachment, or without the Earl of Wyvern, whom you hate and despise. I am all three. I offer you myself as I am, unforgiven if it must be so."
Somehow he possessed himself of her right hand. He drew a deep breath. It must be done. And something in him rather fancied doing it—he was the Earl of Wyvern, after all. He went down on one knee before her.
"Marry me," he said. "Not because you must, Marged. Not because there is to be a little one we have created together. But because you love me, cariad. Because I love you. Because we have found paradise together. Because there is the rest of a lifetime ahead and neither of us would wish to live it without the other. Because you are mad enough to accept me with all my flaws. Because you are brave enough to be my countess. I love you, Marged Evans. Marry me."
Her eyes had widened. But when she spoke, it was to utter an absurdity.
"I have Mam and Gran to look after," she said
.
He got back to his feet and took her other hand. He was sure of her suddenly. "They are as much my responsibility as yours," he said. "We will have to see if they wish to stay on at the farm with Waldo Parry to work for them, or whether they would like to move into a cottage with a pension while I rent the farm to the Parrys."
"It was you who sent Waldo to help me," she said. "The coffers of Rebecca are really the coffers of the Earl of Wyvern."
He said nothing.
"You were wonderful as Rebecca," she said. "You were kind and compassionate."
"I am also Wyvern," he said.
"You helped the Parrys," she said. "You destroyed the salmon weir." She smiled fleetingly. "You helped me pick stones."
"Marry me," he said.
She sighed then and leaned forward to set her forehead against his chest. After a few moments she set her arms about his waist.
"Yes," she said finally against his shirt. She sighed again. "Geraint, I thought I was promiscuous because I loved you both and wanted you both."
His arms closed about her and he lowered his cheek to the top of her head. "You will marry us both," he said, "and be doubly loved."
"Geraint." She raised her head and gazed into his eyes. "Do you know what I did once inside this house and felt ashamed of the whole time and afterward?"
"You made love to Rebecca," he said.
"I was never ashamed of that," she said. "But I could never put a face on Rebecca except the grotesque woolen one. I gave him your face in my imagination and your identity. I made love to Geraint Penderyn and then wondered how I could have done so when I loved Rebecca."