She was crying then and trying to pull away from him. But his arms closed about her like iron bands. And he kissed the top of her head, the wet cheek that was exposed to him, and finally the wet face she lifted to him. He kissed her mouth with hunger, parting her lips with his own.
“Tell me you love me,” he whispered against her lips. “It has been so long since I heard you say the words. Tell me I am your cariad.”
But she struggled then and freed herself and turned back to face the gate, his coat held about her shoulders with both her hands.
“No,” she said. “You are not my love, Aled. And I do not believe Marged is my friend any longer. I am sorry for it. Marged is causing mischief and you are talking of breaking down tollgates with perhaps hundreds of men to make a mob. Someone will get hurt. It may be you or it may be Marged. But worse, it may be someone else, hurt because of you or Marged. I cannot love you any longer. No, let me put it differently. I will not love you any longer. But you knew that. We have argued it out before. Let there be an end now. No more scenes like this. It is over.”
“And yet,” he said, “you still love me.”
“You were not listening.” She released her hold on his coat and let it slide to the ground.
“Ah, yes,” he said sadly, “I was, cariad.”
She said nothing more. And he could think of nothing more to say either. She would not give up her conviction that protest and violence were never justified, and he would not give up his conviction that they were and that if he wanted to see change and thought someone should do something about effecting it, then he must be willing to do his part. He could no longer stand back and let the Eurwyns of this world do his fighting for him. He must fight for himself.
Even if it meant giving up the one good thing in his life that had given it meaning and direction for the past six years. For four of those years he had worked long, hard hours in his forge, making himself worthy of her, making for her a secure future and preparing a comfortable home. And now for two he had taken the course best calculated to drive her away forever.
But there was nothing he could do to change that. For if he could not offer her his integrity, then he had nothing worth offering at all.
He stooped down to pick up his coat and set it over the top bar of the gate. And he turned to walk back to the house. He stopped, though, when he reached the door and looked back. She had not moved except that her head had gone down again. He could not see clearly in the dark. He could not see if her shoulders were shaking. But he had the impression that she was crying again. Or perhaps, like him, she was too deeply dejected to cry.
He changed his mind when his hand was already on the latch of the door. He strode away from it and instead took the downward road home. It was a chilly night, but he scarcely noticed the absence of his coat.
Ceris did not move for a long time. She was trying to conjure up another face, another body, other hands, another kiss. Anything to dull this raw pain. And to ease the guilt.
He had come calling twice in the past week and had talked politely with Mam and Dada before asking them if he might take her walking—as if she were a girl instead of a woman of twenty-five. But Mam and Dada had been pleased—as pleased as they could be when they wished she would settle her differences with Aled and marry him. And as pleased as they could be when he was English and when he worked for the Earl of Wyvern. But, as her father had said, it was an honest living. He could not be blamed for what he was required to do.
She had walked out with him twice, and on the second occasion—just two evenings ago—he had taken her home and stood outside with her and asked if he might court her. They were his exact words. She had said yes.
He had asked if he might kiss her and she had said yes again. And so he had, drawing her against his body, his hands at her waist, and setting his lips against hers. She had felt him grow instantly hot and had stepped back hastily.
But she had agreed to the kiss and to the courtship. He had behaved correctly and courteously. And she had acquiesced. In effect she had agreed to consider marriage with him.
And yet now, what had she done? Would there be no end to this—passion?
Or to the guilt? She had felt guilty saying yes to Mr. Harley—to Matthew. Guilty because for so long she had thought of herself as Aled’s. And now she felt guilty because she had allowed Aled to hold her and kiss her. Guilty because she had agreed to a courtship with Matthew.
You would have been my wife now. We would have had little ones together.
I love you, cariad.
And yet you still love me.
She could feel the power of his arms and the hunger of his mouth. She could hear his voice loud in her memory.
And she tried desperately to think of the man she had agreed to consider marrying.
The whole tone of the party had changed. For everyone, though soon enough everyone else adjusted to the unwanted presence in their midst and resumed their conversations and their joking. It was different, of course. There was more self-consciousness in the merriment, but even so the evening was not ruined—for everyone else.
Marged could not return to even a semblance of normality. She experienced all the expected feelings—shock that he had had the gall to come, indignation that he should try to spoil one of the few evenings of enjoyment they ever indulged in, a more personal fury, hatred. But there were other feelings too, more disturbing because they were apparently uncontrollable—a grudging admiration for his handsome face and figure and his immaculate dress, a very physical awareness of him, a feeling that every move she made, every word she spoke was open to his scrutiny and therefore must be perfect.
When Mrs. Howell asked her to play the harp and sing, she did so for him. Oh, not willingly. She kept her eyes away from him and tried to focus her mind on Mrs. Howell, but all the time while she sang she wondered if he liked her playing, as he had used to do, if he found her voice pleasing, if he remembered the songs she chose. She wondered if her hair was as smooth and as shiny as it had been when she left home. She wondered if she looked all of the ten years older than she had looked at sixteen. He looked older, but then age had only improved his appearance. But he had told her she was lovelier than she had been and that her voice had matured and was lovelier.
The more she tried to ignore him and focus on the singing about her and the occasion they had all gathered to celebrate, the more she felt as if only he was in the room with her.
She hated the feeling.
She had hoped he would have the decency to leave before or during the singing. And then she hoped he would leave when supper began: Surely he did not intend to eat with them. But he did so, held perhaps by the fact that her father and Ninian Williams made conversation with him. And then Ceris. She was offering him a plate of food and smiling shyly at him and talking with him. And he was bending his head to hers, to hear what she was saying above the din of the room, his hard blue eyes almost gentle on hers. Marged felt a pang of something unpleasant and recognized it for what it was.
