Specifically Devlin Ware, Viscount Mountford. Eldest son of the Earl of Stratton. Eldest legitimate son, anyway. Nicholas’s brother. With whom she had been deeply, hopelessly, passionately in love all her life, or since she was eleven or twelve, anyway.
Unfortunately, he did not even know she existed.
He was four years older than she. That had seemed a very wide gap of time when she was a child. He had come to Cartref almost as often as Nicholas had, but he had come to spend time with Idris, his best friend and close to him in age. She had been about as visible to him in those days as a spider on the wall. Perhaps less so. But she had loved his visits anyway, except when he and Idris had gone off alone somewhere together. More often, though, she had been able to sit quietly in a corner, her head bent over some busy work, while they talked—about books and school and music and religion. Devlin had been a serious, earnest boy, quite unlike his younger brother, but she had loved to listen to him. He had had firm opinions and the knowledge to back them up. He had also, though, listened attentively to opposing ideas and sometimes acknowledged their merit. Not many people were like that. Most people, when they were apparently listening to an opposing argument, were really just waiting for the moment when they could jump back in to reasserttheiropinion. Very few peoplelistened.
The age gap had seemed to narrow as she grew older, though she was still invisible to Devlin Ware. Not that she had done much to make herself seen, for she had started to feel uncharacteristically awkward and shy when he came. He was so serious-minded and intelligent and mature, and he had the title and would own the whole of Ravenswood one day. And in her eyes he was gorgeous, though in a quieter way than Nicholas or his father. Indeed, whenever other people talked about the Ware men, it was of those two they spoke with most admiration. Most people seemed not to have noticed Devlin’s good looks, perhaps because he did not have the outgoing personality to go with them.
Gwyneth’s stomach had started to tie itself into uncomfortable knots whenever he came to Cartref, and she had continued to hide in a dark corner or behind her mother lest he notice her and not like what he saw. Not that he would look. He never had. If anyone had asked him, he might well have said that there were just three members of the Rhys family—her father and her mother and Idris. Though that was surely an exaggeration.
As she grew up, she had wanted desperately for Devlin Ware to notice her, yet she did all in her power to see that it did not happen. Sometimes the hardest person in this world to understand is oneself, she had thought in exasperation. For it was most unlike her to hide, to cower, to be unsure of herself, to behave like a chastened mouse.Mostunlike.
Finally, though, hehadnoticed her. It had happened last year when she had been behaving most like herself. Their paths had almost crossed while they were both out riding—separately. She had been about to turn up onto the line of hills that divided her father’s land from his, and he had been on his way down. She had been riding alone—Nicholas had still been away at school. She had also been riding astride, as she had been allowed to do after shepromised her mother and father one day when she was thirteen that she would never venture beyond their own property while so clad or so scandalously unaccompanied by a responsible male.
“The English are far more straitlaced than the Welsh, Gwyn,” her father had said. “In some ways anyway. But since we are living here, you must try not to offend anyone unnecessarily and find yourself being called a hoyden.”
“I despise that word, Ifor,” his wife had said. “It is applied exclusively to girls. Have you noticed? I know a few wild boys, and people generally think none the worse of them—boys will be boys. I have never heard any of them called hoydens. But listen to your dad anyway, Gwyn. He gives good advice. Most of the time.”
Gwyneth had been wearing breeches that day—also allowed on their own land, though her mother was beginning to make rumbling sounds of disapproval—and she had been hatless. Her hair had been streaming loose behind her in a tangled mass. She had not bothered to braid it or even tie it back before she left home. The whole episode had been unfortunate. She had told herself it was quite safe and unexceptionable to ride up over the hills, which were sort of her father’s even if they were sort of the Earl of Stratton’s too. She was not sure anyone had ever actually surveyed the hills to discover where the boundary line lay. Right down the center of the track? It seemed unlikely.
He had drawn rein when he was still some distance from her—Devlin, Viscount Mountford, that was—while she had felt every inch of herself blush, a reaction she had disguised by throwing back her head and staring defiantly at him since there had been nowhere she could literally hide. His eyes had swept over her from tousled head to booted feet in the stirrups, and he had nodded curtly and unsmilingly.
“Gwyneth,” he had said by way of greeting—he had not evenpaid her the courtesy of addressing her asMiss Rhys, even though she had been seventeen at the time. “I believe I will pretend this has not happened.”
And he had turned his horse’s head and ridden away back toward Ravenswood, leaving her to her own thoughts.Well, at least he saw me today, no matter what he pretends to the contrary. And at least he does know I exist. He even knows my name.
They had not been particularly consoling thoughts. He had not looked disgusted or angry or startled or...anything. He had not questioned or scolded or said or done something to give her an excuse to flare up at him. She flared anyway. What business of Devlin Ware, Viscount Mountford’s, was it what she did or how she looked on her father’s own land?
I believe I will pretend this has not happened.
How dared he! And what a verystuffything to say.
He was not in any way like his father or his brother. He was lean and dark haired and dour of countenance. Thoughdourwas an unfair word to use. He did not glower or frown or display open ill humor. He wasseriousof countenance, then. And good-looking, even if no one else had noticed. He had very regular, finely chiseled features and blue, blue eyes. He did not make anything much of those eyes, it was true. He was not a man who smiled often, though he wasnotdour. His eyes were gorgeous.Hewas gorgeous.
He was a conscientious worker. He had apparently excelled at school—Idris had attended the same one, though he had been a class ahead of Devlin. He had studied hard at Oxford too, while Idris had apparently played hard, with predictable results academically. Her brother had scraped through his final exams, while Viscount Mountford had flown through his. Now he worked on the estate, alongside his elder half brother, who was their father’s steward. Most young men of his social rank—or so she had overheardher father remark to her mother—were busy sowing wild oats at this stage of their lives. Though Idris was not. He was as devoted to their farm as Devlin was to his father’s land. It was no wonder they were friends.
Gwyneth was not sure why she loved Devlin so passionately. Some people might call him dull, though admittedly she had not heard anyone go that far. But he was indeed very different from Nicholas and his father and even young Owen. Those three had a lively charm and appeal that appeared to be quite lacking in him.
It did not matter to Gwyneth. She loved Nicholas. But she wasin love withDevlin Ware.
She had been for a long time. It was an infatuation she really must shake off now that she was grown-up, however, for it was time to experience attraction and flirtation and courtship and marriage with someone who was also attracted to her. She knew a few men who were—or would be if they knew she and Nicholas were not a couple.
What better place to turn her attention toward her future life than the Ravenswood fete, which everyone from miles around would attend, including every young, single male? She would even have a new dress for the occasion. Her mother had been urging her to have Mrs. Proctor, the village dressmaker, make one for her, and she had finally agreed. Something...pink, she had decided, though it was a color she usually avoided as being too daintily feminine for her vivid dark coloring. There was no chance of attracting Devlin’s notice when she had not done so all her life. And her friendship with Nicholas was leading nowhere except to more of the same—which was very pleasant, but a woman needed more than friendship from a man after her eighteenth birthday. She needed romance and love and a husband and a home of her own and happily-ever-after.
She would look around with serious intent at the fete. Perhaps,if the opportunity presented itself, she would do a bit of flirting and see if she could feel a spark of romantic interest in someone who was not Devlin Ware.
Who, after all, wouldwantto be in love with someone like him? Or married to him? Where would be the sunshine and the laughter? Thepassion? Such thoughts were pointless, of course, forshewould want to be married to him. But it was time to be realistic. Time to step out into the world and cast old dreams aside.
Gwyneth sighed and went in search of her mother.
—
Ben Ellis had gone off to the island in the lake with one of the gardeners to put a fresh coat of paint on the pavilion. He had taken Owen with him but had left him on the bank of the lake with another of the gardeners, who had been mending a slow leak in one of the boats, a task that had caught the boy’s interest. Now Owen was helping paint the boat after having been given a workman’s smock to wear, much to his disgust, and strict instructions at least to try to get more paint on the boat than on his person.
Philippa was in the schoolroom with Miss Field, her governess and Stephanie’s, making ribbon rosettes to be presented to the winners and runners-up of the various contests at the fete.
Nicholas was looking over the equipment that would be needed for the archery contest, to make sure nothing was missing and nothing had deteriorated since last year. A few of the contestants—Matthew Taylor, the carpenter, for example—would bring their own bows and arrows, but most would not.
The Countess of Stratton was occupied with her endless lists, convinced, as she usually was as the fete drew closer, that she had surely forgotten something crucial, yet knowing with the rational part of her mind that she had not. Her housekeeper would havereminded her if she had, or her cook. Or Ben or Devlin, her right-hand men.
