What was she prepared to do? She realized suddenly what she had insinuated, what she had only half consciously been offering. She thought briefly and with a deep stabbing of pain of Rebecca and the glorious night of love they had shared a mere few hours ago. And she thought too of how she had visualized Geraint during the second and third lovings because she had no mental picture of Rebecca. She thought of Geraint, the boy she had loved for so long and the man who had become a part of her being, however unwilling she was that it be so.
She took the remaining two steps that brought her toe to toe with him. She saw that her hand was trembling as she lifted it to set her palm over his heart. “Let her go.” She set the other hand against his chest and let both slide up to his shoulders as she swayed her body against him. She set her forehead just beneath his chin. “I will do whatever you ask of me. Geraint, remember what it is like to be poor and in need and frightened.”
He had not moved. His hands were still behind his back. His body was hard and unyielding. He was about the same height and build as Rebecca, she thought unwillingly. She did not want to think about Rebecca. She had to do what must be done to save Ceris, and then she must face whatever must be faced after her rash confession. She must not think of the man she loved.
“It is quite an offer,” he said, his voice curiously flat. “Your body in exchange for your friend’s freedom, Marged? Your body to be used however I will and as many times as I will?”
Geraint. He was Geraint. He was that vibrant, charming boy she had loved. This cold, hard man.
“Yes,” she said.
“Your friend is already free,” he said. “It seems there was a mistake. Her fiancé, Matthew Harley, explained that they were out courting, or otherwise amusing themselves in the hills, when a slight, ah, quarrel sent her running down onto the road at quite the wrong place at quite the wrong time. But it was a good enough alibi to satisfy both me and Sir Hector Webb. No one can doubt the honesty or loyalty of my steward, after all. He escorted her home. I wonder that you did not pass them on the road.”
He had deliberately held back that information from her. He had allowed her to weave her own rope, fashion her own noose, and tighten it about her own neck. She withdrew her head and her hands and her body from his and stood a couple of inches in front of him, her hands clenched loosely at her sides, her head bowed, her eyes closed.
“Marged,” he said, “who is Rebecca?”
“I do not know,” she said, her voice low and toneless. “And if I did, I would not tell you. Ever.”
“There are ways of extracting information from unwilling witnesses,” he said.
“Yes.” She kept her eyes closed. “I think I am brave. But I do not know for sure. Perhaps I would break. I am glad he has refused to tell me who he is.”
“You have spoken with him, then?” he asked.
“Yes.” She felt a sudden surging of anger and of spite. A sudden need to hurt, though she did not know if he would be in any way hurt by the information. “I have loved him too. I have made love with him. I love him. I believe his secret would be safe with me even if he had trusted me with it. But he did not.”
It seemed to her that the silence lasted a very long time. And stupidly, inexplicably, insanely she felt suddenly bereft. She wanted to reach out a hand to touch him again, to tell him that she had not quite meant it that way, that she still cared for him. Geraint. That part of her still loved him and always would. And she wondered how she could love Rebecca as deeply and passionately as she did and yet still love Geraint too.
“Marged,” he said, “what you have told me in this room must never be told outside it. Do you understand me? You have been typically rash and outspoken and untypically dishonest. You have lied to save a friend who did not need saving. Your motive was admirable. Your method was foolhardy. If you tell this story to someone else, he might believe you.”
She lifted her head at last and looked into his eyes. They were so close to her own that she almost took a step backward. But she held her ground.
“I do not have to tell you what jail is like, do I?” he said. “Or what is involved in a sentence of transportation. Your lies would lead you to be transported.”
She knew that he knew she had not lied.
“Geraint—” she began.
“Go back home now,” he said. “Your mother-in-law and your grandmother-in-law need you.”
“Geraint—” She bowed her head again and set her hands loosely over her face. She found herself wanting to tell him that she had lied in what she had said about her feelings for Rebecca. And yet she had not. She did love him—with all her being. And she noticed at the same moment that he was not wearing his usual cologne this morning, that he was wearing no cologne but smelled merely—clean. One of those moments caught at her consciousness again but refused to be grasped.
“Go home, Marged.” His voice was suddenly and unexpectedly gentle. “It must be a wonderful thing to have you for a friend. In fact, I know it is. You were my friend once. I remember running home to tell my mother that I had a wonderful friend. My first friend. Go home now. Your lies will go no farther than me and I will remember our friendship.”
“Geraint.” Her voice was high-pitched and quavering, she heard in some alarm. “Why is life so far beyond our control even when we try to abide by all the rules? Sometimes life frightens me.”
She turned, bent on following his advice before she made a greater fool of herself than she had already done this morning. Fortunately he had made no move to reach out to her. If he had done so, she would have gone all to pieces and despised herself for the rest of her life. But the door was flung back before she could take a step toward it.
“What the devil is going on, Ger?” Aled Rhoslyn said, striding inside—the butler hovered helplessly behind him. He stopped dead in his tracks when he saw Marged.
“I take it,” Geraint said, “that you have come to bargain for the release of Ceris Williams as Marged has done, Aled?”
Aled was looking deathly pale, Marged noticed. But then the news would have been worse for him than it had been for her. Aled loved Ceris.
“Say nothing, Aled,” she said quickly. “Ceris has been released. It was all a mistake.”
His eyes met Geraint’s over the top of her head.
