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 never 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.
But he had ruined her morning. She had been unable—again—to concentrate on any part of the service though it had sounded as if her father had been fuller of hwyl even than usual if the chorus of responses from the congregation during the sermon was anything to judge by.
And what was worse, he had ruined last night for her. She had tried to ignore her awareness of him by concentrating her mind and her emotions on Rebecca and their ride home together and their shared kiss. But it had not worked. Not as well as it had the night before when she had gone to bed.
He had merely been a stranger being gallant. And taking advantage of the situation a little at the end by stealing a kiss. Though there had been no theft involved, of course. He must have known that she was pathetically willing. It had been nothing more than that for him. Perhaps he even had a wife at home, wherever home was.
Only she had felt the magic.
And damn Geraint Penderyn for making her see that sooner than need be. Yes, she would use the word again quite deliberately in her mind.
Damn him!
Ceris walked with Marged but did not participate at all in the conversation. She had always known her friend’s views and had always sympathized even if she could not agree. Marged after all had lost a husband cruelly. It was enough to make any woman bitter. If it had been Aled . . .
But Marged had gone beyond talk. She had joined Rebecca last night, as had Aled, and they had gone to smash a tollgate. A legally erected tollgate. She knew they had gone. Her father would have gone too if the distance had not been so great. But he was no longer a young man and found it difficult to walk great distances. Aled had advised him against going, he had explained last evening to Mam and her. But he would go another time, when it was a gate closer to home.
Ceris marveled at how well rested Marged looked. No one would know that she had been up for most of the night and marching through the hills and breaking down a tollgate.
She herself had not slept at all. Worse, she had been sick with worry all night. What if they hurt someone? Or killed someone? What if they were caught? What if some of them were hurt or killed? Or thrown in prison to await trial as Eurwyn had been? She had felt sick for every one of them, especially those she knew. She had visualized them one at a time in her mind, all those men she knew had gone. And Marged.
She had not thought of Aled. And she had thought of no one else. Her father had told them that Aled was playing the part of Charlotte, Rebecca’s favorite daughter. The one who would be closest to Rebecca. The one who would be in most danger.
She had still been sick with worry this morning. Had they really done it? Had they all returned safely? And then in chapel she had seen that no one was absent except Miss Jenkins’s elderly father, who sometimes stayed in bed on a Sunday morning although they lived right next door to the chapel.
Marged was there.
And Aled was there. Her legs had felt like jelly as she walked behind her mother to their pew. Thank God, oh, thank God, Aled was there. He had come back safely.
And then of course, just when relief should have helped her to relax so that she could concentrate on worship, the guilt hit her. She had worried all night and all morning over Aled—and had not spared a thought for Matthew. She had put Matthew off when he had wanted to walk with her last evening. She had been afraid he would see something.
She had thought she was growing fonder of him. She was. She enjoyed his company. He talked to her about his childhood in England and about life there. He opened up a different world to her imagination. She was trying to enjoy his kisses. She did enjoy them. And she was trying not to flinch from some rather more intimate touches. Aled, after all, had done more than just kiss her. There had to be more than just kisses between two people when they were courting.
And she had agreed to be courted.
He was showing interest in her, making her feel that she mattered to him as a person. He was asking her about her life and her people. He had even asked her about Aled and why they had broken up.
“Well,” he had said, not pressing the point when she had given him a vague answer, “all I can say, Ceris, is that I am glad you did and that I never thought him worthy of you.”
She was glad he had kissed her then. She could not have responded in words.
