There was a horse with two riders outside the gate of Ty-Gwyn. One of the riders swung down from the saddle and lifted down the other. For a few moments their images merged, and then the smaller of the two, the one dressed in dark man’s clothes, opened the gate and disappeared from sight inside the farmyard. The other stayed where he was and watched and raised a hand in farewell a few moments later. Then he remounted his horse and turned it across the hill, in the direction of Tegfan.
The rider, Harley saw with mounting excitement, was all white. He wore a flowing white robe, a blond wig, and what looked to be a white mask. He was Rebecca, the same figure Harley had seen last watching the roadway from which the blacksmith was rescuing Ceris.
He must be Wyvern. Unless his path changed, he was riding toward the northern, uphill entrance to Tegfan. Harley wished he could follow him, but he was on foot. There was nowhere he could conveniently have hidden a horse. Besides, he could not have followed on horseback without being seen.
The man on the horse stopped and looked back when he had put some distance between himself and the farm. He must have ridden out of sight of the gate already. Harley watched, wide-eyed, as he pulled off first his wig and then his mask, which appeared to be some sort of cap that he had pulled over his whole head. Then the gown came off and all were bundled up quickly and wrapped in the cloak or blanket or whatever it was bundled behind the saddle. The rider resumed his journey.
Dawn had not yet broken and there was some distance between the rider and Harley. But Harley was left in no doubt at all about the identity of Rebecca. He was the Earl of Wyvern.
He almost laughed aloud in his excitement. He had him. By God, he had him. If only he had a gun or had brought one of the constables with him! He could have taken Sir Hector Webb a far more significant prisoner than Ceris had been. But there was no point in making his presence known since there was no way of effecting a capture tonight. But tomorrow morning early he would ride to Pantnewydd with his news and his eyewitness account of the transformation of Rebecca into the Earl of Wyvern.
He watched from his position on the hill until Wyvern turned into the northern entrance to the park and disappeared from view among the trees. He was tired, Harley thought, but he doubted that he would get any sleep for what remained of the night.
If only he could put the finger on the blacksmith too. He would like to see Ceris Williams suffering through a trial and a conviction and the transportation for life of her lover.
A convicted daughter of Rebecca would surely get life. Yes, he would like to see her suffer through that after what she had done to him.
Harley got to his feet at last, shook out stiff limbs, and started on the walk back home.
Sir Hector Webb was in a bad mood. As he had told his wife numerous times and Maurice Mitchell during a visit the day before, he was being made to feel like a criminal, and he did not like it one little bit.
Here was this upstart reporter from London with his fashionable attire and his cultured English accent when he was very probably not even a gentleman, coming to question them about what was purely a criminal matter. He questioned them about rents and tithes and Poor Law taxes and road trusts and tolls. And all the time Sir Hector would swear that the man was siding with the damned rioters. Were the sharp rises in rents really necessary? What provision was made for a good tenant who could not pay his rent and had to forfeit his land? Why did tolls have to be collected from farmers who were about their business, hauling lime, for example?
The man in his ignorance did not realize that it was the carts with their loads of lime that were mainly responsible for breaking up the roads and necessitating more repairs. But Sir Hector had set him right on the matter fast enough.
It seemed that it was Rebecca who had brought the reporter to West Wales. He had had the gall to write and invite The Times to send someone to investigate. Crimes did not need investigation. They needed solving. The criminal needed to be caught and punished harshly enough to discourage anyone else from trying to follow in his footsteps. And yet this reporter would give no information at all about Rebecca. He would not even show the letter.
Sir Hector would wager that the man would arrange somehow to talk with Rebecca. Then he would be fed a parcel of lies and no doubt would believe them. Well, if Sir Hector got wind of it and if the reporter would still give no information, he would have the man arrested for something—for aiding and abetting a criminal, perhaps.
And if the reporter was to be believed, the government was seriously considering sending commissioners to West Wales to investigate the unrest and its causes. What was there to investigate? These were crimes that were being committed.
Sir Hector was in such a bad mood that he merely growled a greeting to Matthew Harley when the latter called quite early one morning and asked for a private word with him. He was shown into the study.
“Harley,” he said with a curt nod. “I suppose you have heard that the Penfro gate went again last night. Damned scoundrels with the gall to attack a gate they had already destroyed once. I’ll catch the pack of them if it is the last thing I do.”
“Sir.” Matthew Harley observed his usual respectful manner, yet even Sir Hector could see his eyes gleaming with suppressed emotion. “I know who Rebecca is.”
Sir Hector went very still.
“Rebecca and the Earl of Wyvern are one and the same person,” Harley said, triumph in his voice.
Sir Hector gaped for a moment, and then his jaws snapped shut. “Oh, nonsense, Harley,” he said. “Pure wishful thinking. You had me hopeful for a moment.”
“I saw it for myself, sir,” Harley said.
Sir Hector looked closely at him and then frowned. He stood before the fireplace, his hands clasped at his back, his feet braced apart. “Suppose you tell me exactly what you did see, Harley,” he said.
“I suspected it before,” the steward said. “When I looked for him one night to give me permission to take constables and pursue the rioters, he was not at home, yet none of the servants knew he had gone. And I saw him return alone on horseback very late the same night. But that was only suspicion and not even worth reporting. I waited for more definite evidence, sir.”
“And?” Sir Hector made impatient circling gestures with one hand. “Come, man, this is not a theatrical performance, though I can see you are relishing every word.”
“Last night,” Harley said, “I heard that Wyvern had left the house again and I lay in wait for his return up in the hills, from which direction he had come the other time. But this time I saw more. It was just before dawn, sir, and I had all but given up hope. And then I saw Rebecca.”
Sir Hector hissed in a breath.
“He was in full disguise,” Harley said. “He was escorting a woman home—that would account for the late hour. But after he had left her and ridden even closer to me, he peeled off the disguise, hid it away in a bundle behind his saddle, and continued on his way down to Tegfan.”
“Wyvern,” Sir Hector said in little more than a whisper. “I’ll be damned. He was Wyvern?”
