“None other,” Harley said, the triumph back in his voice. “We have him, sir. With your permission, I will return to Tegfan now and have the constables there arrest him and bring him before you.”
But Sir Hector did not immediately respond. He was looking at Matthew Harley, and yet his gaze passed right through him. “No,” he said. “Unless we could find the disguise—and it is doubtless well hidden—the only proof we would have is your evidence. It would be your word against his. The word of the Earl of Wyvern against that of his steward. It might well not stick.”
Matthew Harley flushed. “I do not believe my integrity has ever been called into question, sir,” he said.
“This would be different,” Sir Hector said. “We cannot risk it. No, we need to catch him red-handed.”
“It should not be difficult now that we know the truth,” Harley said. “It will be merely a matter of watching and following him, sir. Perhaps we can net some of the other leaders too. I have reason to believe that the main one besides Wyvern—Charlotte he is known as—is the blacksmith at Glynderi.”
But Sir Hector was not really listening. He was frowning even more deeply. “If only we could manipulate things in such a way that he is discredited even with the people,” he said. “You realize that he is very popular with them, Harley? He is damned polite to all the gatekeepers he displaces, as if he were asking them to dance at a court ball. He allows them to leave and to take their personal possessions with them. And as if that were not bad enough, he pays them compensation out of what he calls the coffers of Rebecca. I wondered where the money was coming from. Now I know. We have to discredit him.”
“But how, sir?” Harley ventured to ask. “Perhaps the people do not even realize who he is. He wore his disguise even with his woman last night. Perhaps just exposing his secret would be enough.”
“Perhaps.” Sir Hector wandered to his desk and sat down heavily in the oak chair behind it. “I need time to think this out. Give me a day or two. What we need is a gate that is smashed in a less gentlemanly manner than usual.”
“If there were constables—” Harley began.
“No, no, no, no.” Sir Hector drummed his fingers on the desktop. “We have to make him behave badly.”
“There is a gatekeeper at the Cilcoed gate quite close to Tegfan, a Mrs. Phillips,” Harley said. “She told me a while ago that she is not afraid of Rebecca because the Earl of Wyvern himself had promised her his personal protection. I don’t know how that fact will help us, sir. It just entered my head now.”
“Did he indeed?” Sir Hector’s fingers drummed harder. “A day or two at the longest, Harley. I will come to Tegfan and have a word with you. I will think of something. In the meantime you can be thinking too. And keeping your eyes and ears open.”
“Yes, sir.” Matthew Harley bowed respectfully and turned to leave.
“Harley,” Sir Hector said. “Well done. I will not forget this. Neither will Lady Stella.”
“It is a pleasure to be of service to you, sir,” Harley said.
Chapter 26
“WELL, Wyvern.” Sir Hector Webb spoke heartily and rubbed his hands together as he paced to the library window at Tegfan and gazed out at lawns and trees. “It seems we are close to the end of this madness of rioting and gate smashing.”
“You think so?” Geraint sat back in the chair behind the desk, his elbows on the wooden arms, his fingers steepled together. “One hopes you are right, Hector.”
“This reporter from The Times,” Sir Hector said. “I daresay he will print the truth and enough soldiers will be sent here at last. The rebellion will be crushed and the ruffian who calls himself Rebecca will be caught and suitably punished.”
“It is an outcome we must hope for,” Geraint said. “But I have heard that Foster has interviewed Rebecca and some of the people. Perhaps he believes what they have said.”
Sir Hector turned his head to look over his shoulder at Geraint. “But who are the people who read the newspapers, Wyvern?” he asked. “And who among their readers would advocate granting rebels what they demand? Pretty soon every commoner in the country would be demanding something and destroying property and harassing law-abiding citizens. There would be anarchy. No, the reporter’s articles will only help our cause, mark my words.”
“It seems likely,” Geraint said, “that a commission of inquiry is about to be sent down here, Hector. Thomas Foster says so, and letters I have received from London confirm it. They will talk to everyone, rich and poor. I suppose it will be for them to decide if the Rebecca Riots are justified or not and if anything should be done to redress the people’s grievances.”
“It sounds,” Sir Hector said, his eyes narrowing, “as if you may still be in sympathy with the rabble, Wyvern.”
Geraint looked directly back at him, eyebrows raised. “I am merely saying,” he said, “that if and when the commissioners arrive, the matter will be out of our hands, Hector. And out of Rebecca’s too. The issues will be judged by impartial observers—we must hope. We must hope too that some just settlement will be made. We do not, after all, wish to oppress the people who are to a certain extent in our care, do we? Just as we do not want to be terrorized by a mob. Though they have behaved with remarkable restraint so far.”
Sir Hector was watching him with pursed lips. “Well,” he said, “you have always spelled trouble for my wife’s family, Wyvern. I don’t know why I would expect anything to change now. I shall take myself off to have a talk with Harley. About sheep. I assume he is still in charge of the business of your farms?”
Geraint inclined his head and watched his uncle stride from the room. Perhaps he had been unwise. Perhaps until this whole matter was settled it would be better to pretend to think in harmony with the other landowners and not to breathe a word about fairness or justice.
But he was tired of pretending. And that was all he seemed to have done for several weeks. With Sir Hector and the other landowners and with his own people when he was not wearing disguise, he pretended to be the mindless aristocrat, guarding his wealth and his property and his consequence at all cost. With the followers of Rebecca he pretended to be the people’s champion, one of them but with the strength and the courage to lead them. With Marged . . .
Geraint sighed and locked his hands behind his head. He was tired of pretending. And pretense was not even a recent thing with him. For years he had pretended that Geraint Penderyn had not existed before the age of twelve. He had pretended that Tegfan did not exist or Glynderi or the rudely thatched hovel on the moors. Or Marged . . .
He was tired of pretending. Geraint Penderyn was a real person with a real lifelong history. His roots were in Tegfan and the vast estate surrounding the house and park. The Earl of Wyvern was also a real person and had grown through hardship and adversity and stubborn will into the man he now was. And even Rebecca was real. Rebecca was not the mask, but the man behind the mask. And the man behind the mask had been shaped by all the experiences of Geraint Penderyn and the Earl of Wyvern and had come to confront the peculiar set of circumstances that had met him on his return to Tegfan. Rebecca, one might say, was the culmination of everything that had shaped him throughout life.
Rebecca was his destiny.
