No longer than five minutes later—she paused only long enough to run into the house to remove her apron and grab her shawl—she was striding from the farmyard and through the gate and down the hill. She did not even listen as she passed Idris trying to persuade his father that it would be all right, that the Earl of Wyvern would not do anything dreadful to Miss Williams.
Ceris had been recognized. Foolish woman. She had gone running out onto the open road without any attempt at disguise. Those two men who had shot at her and Aled must have seen and recognized her. That particular gatekeeper—if he was one of those two men—had used to live in Glynderi. She had been recognized and it had been assumed that she was part of the crowd that had destroyed the gate. And now she had been arrested.
But what had she been doing down on that road? Marged had had no chance to run down to the Williams farm during the morning. She had half expected that Ceris would come up to Ty-Gwyn.
Marged quickened her pace so that she was half running by the time she neared the bottom of the hill and turned in the direction of Glynderi and the gates into Tegfan park beyond it. Ceris was the one who had been caught and dragged off to Tegfan with her hands bound. How ironic. Ceris, who was so adamant in her disapproval of the Rebecca Riots that she had broken off her relationship with Aled and almost destroyed her friendship with Marged.
Ceris had been caught.
Marged felt sick over the fact that she had been so very happy this morning. He loved her. Rebecca loved her. They had made love three times in the hovel on the moors before he had brought her home. She had been disappointed that he had donned his whole disguise before doing so, but she had understood. For her own safety as well as his, it was important to him to guard his identity. She refused to be hurt by it. She was too happy. He loved her.
But now this. While she had been wandering about the farm this morning, dreamy-eyed and absentminded, and while she had been talking with Waldo Parry, only half her attention on what they were both saying, disaster had been coming to Ceris.
What would they do to her? What would he do to her? Marged had unwilling memories of the nightmare of two years before when Eurwyn had been captured—the trial and conviction, the sentencing, the knowledge that he had been taken away, that he was in the hulks, that . . . She shook her head and hurried on.
She had to stand aside when she was halfway up the driveway to Tegfan for a carriage to pass. She caught a glimpse of Sir Hector Webb of Pantnewydd inside. There were other people with him, but there was no chance to see who they were or even what gender. What if one of them was Ceris being taken off to jail? Marged was already breathless and her legs already felt like jelly, but somehow she stumbled into a run.
She banged the knocker on the front door, not even thinking about going around to the servants’ entrance. And she faced the footman who answered the door and the butler who was in the hall with such fierce determination despite the fact that the latter looked at her as if she were a worm, that she was allowed to step into the hall. The butler went to see if his lordship was at home.
It seemed that his lordship was in the library and that he would see Mrs. Evans there immediately. The butler managed to look expressionless and contemptuous all at the same time. Marged hardly noticed. One sweeping glance about the library when she stepped inside revealed to her two walls lined with books, a high coved ceiling, a large desk strewn with papers, a thick carpet underfoot. But they were details her mind did not dwell upon. Geraint was setting down a quill pen and rising from his chair at the far side of the desk.
“Marged?” he said, his eyebrows raised.
He was immaculate and handsome and she hated him. “Where is she?” she demanded. “What have you done with her?”
Geraint, eyebrows still raised, looked pointedly beyond her shoulder until she heard the door close behind her. “She?” he said, bringing his eyes to hers.
“Where is Ceris Williams?” she demanded.
He came around the desk, though he did not come close to her. He stood with feet apart and hands clasped behind his back. The cool, inflexible aristocrat. “News travels fast in a small community,” he said. “Doubtless you have heard that she was arrested for involvement in the destruction of a tollgate last night.”
Hearing it from his lips suddenly made it all horribly real. Marged feared for a moment that she was going to succumb to panic. She threw back her head and glared at him.
“Ceris?” she said. “A gentler, more timid woman would be impossible to find. Or one more firmly opposed to lawlessness and violence. Someone has made a ghastly mistake.”
“Timid?” he said. “I would say it would be impossible to find a braver lady. She said nothing, Marged. Nothing at all. You do not have to fear that she betrayed all your friends and neighbors. She did not.”
But if Ceris had refused to say anything, they would be incensed. They would try to make her talk. What would they do to accomplish that? There were instant images of torture and rape. She drew a sharp inward breath.
“There was a mistake,” she said. “She was seen on that road, wasn’t she? When she went back down to find a lost h-handkerchief that might have been traced back to her. That was it, wasn’t it? But that was not Ceris. It was me. I was out with Rebecca last night, smashing gates, not Ceris. It was me.”
He looked at her long and hard and she found herself for some absurd reason wondering if Rebecca’s eyes were as blue as Geraint’s, or if they were gray. Perhaps she would never know. Probably she would never know. She was glad suddenly that she did not know Rebecca’s identity. She was not sure how well she would stand up against torture or—or that other.
“Marged,” he said. “She was positively identified. She was seen from close up. There is no physical resemblance at all between the two of you.”
“It was dark,” she said.
“She was seen in full moonlight,” he said.
It was not going to work. She was not going to be able to free Ceris, and now she had betrayed herself too. But she could not feel fear—yet. Only a deep hopelessness.
“Geraint,” she said, using his given name without thought. She took a few steps toward him. “She is innocent. She came to warn us. She must have heard what someone else had heard too, that there were constables coming, and she came to warn us. Because she loves us and cares for us even though she disapproves of what we are doing. She had no part in what happened. Let her go. Please?” She blinked her eyes furiously when her vision blurred.
“Marged—” he said.
“Take me instead,” she said, “and let her go. Please, Geraint. I have already confessed to having been there myself last night. I have been at each of the gate breakings. I have helped destroy them with my own hands. If I am being honest about my own guilt, why would I lie about Ceris’s innocence? Let her go. What can I do to persuade you to let her go?” She took another step toward him.
He stood very still, an arrested look on his face. “What are you prepared to do, Marged?” he asked her eventually.
