“Listen carefully, my lord,” she said. “There is nothing between us. Perhaps you think you have some power over me because of what I told you at Tegfan a few mornings ago. But I will not allow you such power. If it is blackmail you think to attempt, then I shall go to Sir Hector Webb with my confession. And if you think I bluff, try me. I will not be your mistress. I believe that is what you were leading up to?”
“If you say so,” he said. “I did not say so, Marged.” Her foot skidded a little on wet grass and he clamped her arm more firmly to his side.
“Let me repeat what I told you on that occasion,” she said. “I have a lover. I love him. I am probably going to marry him.” Sometimes she wished her tongue would not run away with her, but she was not sorry she had said it. Let him know the truth. Let him know that there was no point at all in continuing to harass her.
“Ah,” he said quietly. “Has he asked you, then, Marged?”
“No,” she was forced to admit, though she was tempted for a moment to lie. “But he will. He loves me and he is an honorable man.”
“And will you accept?” he asked.
“That is between him and me,” she said.
He stopped walking and turned her toward him, his free arm coming about her waist. He held the umbrella over them both, tilted slightly her way. She could hear the rain drumming more heavily on its surface. She had nowhere to put her own hands except against his chest. Awareness suffocated her and—and the horrifying similarity.
“Rebecca,” he said quietly. “His mission must be almost at an end, Marged. It seems that he has accomplished his goal and that it is now the government’s move. Are you sure he will not abandon you when this is all over?”
How dare he! What did he know of Rebecca or the love they shared?
“He will not abandon me,” she said. “He promised not to abandon me.” If she was with child. He had promised that he would stand by her if that happened. He had told her she could always get a message to him through Aled. But even apart from that, she knew he would not abandon her. That promise had been made after the first time they lay together. Their love had deepened since then. He had told her that he loved her.
She seemed to have silenced him. He did not speak for a while but searched her eyes with his own. It was difficult not to look away. And it was difficult not to want to move closer.
“I wish,” he said, “I had been a little wiser at the age of eighteen or that you had at sixteen. That was where we went wrong, Marged. Had I been wiser I would have courted you more slowly and far more chastely. I would have taken two or three years over it. We would have been married for several years now. We would have had little ones together.”
She did not understand for a moment why she could no longer see him clearly or why there was a sharp ache in her throat or why she had to bite down hard on her lower lip. She did not understand the deep welling of grief she felt.
“Don’t cry,” he whispered. “It’s not too late, love.”
“But it is,” she wailed. “It is too late.”
And then she realized what she had said and the tone in which she had said it. As if she regretted that it was too late.
“It is not too late for us to marry,” he said. “Or to have babies. Or to love. Marry me, Marged. Please?”
She hated herself. Hated herself. For she found herself wanting desperately to say yes. She found herself convinced that she loved him and that she wanted what he was offering—marriage with him, children with him.
She must be mad! Or she must be living in some horrible nightmare.
She could not marry Geraint. She was Rebecca’s lover and she loved him. She was going to marry him if he asked. And she could not have babies with Geraint. She was already having one with Rebecca.
“I think you must be insane,” she said. “Do you seriously think I would marry Eurwyn’s murderer?”
“That is a little unfair,” he said. “Through ignorance and irresponsibility I was unavailable to help him when I might have done so. But I am not solely or even mainly to blame, Marged. Even he must bear part of the blame. He knew the law and he knew the risks he took. He knew the consequences of being caught.”
“Ah, yes.” The old familiar hatred and contempt were coming to her rescue. She embraced them eagerly. “Of course it was all his fault for being greedy enough to want the salmon for the people when the owner of Tegfan—the single, absentee owner—needed them all for himself.”
“You did not listen to me, Marged,” he said. “But no matter. If you are determined to see me as the blackhearted villain of your life, I suppose there is nothing I can say. Except that I love you and always have. Except that I will continue to want to marry you and will ask you again. Come, take my arm. We had better get you home out of the rain. It is getting heavier.”
“Don’t ask me again,” she said as they resumed the uphill climb. “If you keep on doing so and I keep on saying no, I may put a dent in your insufferable arrogance. That would be dreadful.”
“Yes.” She looked up to find that his whole face was lit up with laughter. He looked so startlingly handsome and attractive that all her insides seemed to be performing somersaults and cartwheels. “I cannot think of a worse fate, Marged.”
They walked the rest of the way in silence. He escorted her right to the door of Ty-Gwyn but would not come inside. She stepped into the passageway and closed the door before leaning back against it. He had asked her to marry him. The reality of it was only just beginning to hit her. Geraint Penderyn, Earl of Wyvern, had offered her marriage. She might have been a countess. She might have been Geraint’s wife.
Ah, Geraint. The sharp pain was back.
Idris had watched the Earl of Wyvern go inside the old hovel quite early in the evening and Rebecca came out several minutes later. The boy was well hidden and he had not moved a muscle since he had seen the earl riding up the hill. But even so, as Rebecca mounted the earl’s horse and turned its head to the slope on the opposite side from Tegfan, he spoke quietly and conversationally.
