“Nine,” he said. “I want to get this boat-and-rowing torture over with as soon as possible.”
She laughed again.
Chapter Sixteen
Living in the same house with the man one was expecting to marry was somewhat different from seeing him for a few hours every couple of days or so, Gwyneth was discovering.
She had seen Aled frequently during the weeks she spent in Wales in the summer, and during those times he had focused most if not all of his attention upon her. He had talked almost exclusively with her. He had taken her for walks along beaches and drives through the countryside. He had courted her, and she had felt very close to him. She had felt that she would gladly spend the rest of her life with him.
Now he spent very little time exclusively with her. It was understandable, of course. He was a guest at the home of her mother and father, and, as courtesy perhaps dictated, he spent most of his time with them and with Idris. And with her too, of course. But they were rarely alone together.
On the morning following the tea at Ravenswood, he strolled outside with Gwyneth for half an hour before suggesting that theblustery wind and autumn chill were rather unpleasant and perhaps it would be more comfortable for her if they went back inside and joined the others for coffee. After luncheon he was going into Boscombe with her father for the young people’s choir practice. He was a little disappointed that Gwyneth would not be accompanying them on her harp—because it was too big and heavy to be carried back and forth to the church except for a very special occasion. But he brightened again when it occurred to him that her father would therefore be providing the accompaniment on the organ.
“I suppose you always manage perfectly well to play and conduct at the same time, Ifor,” he said. “One does when there is no alternative. But maybe I can twist your arm and persuade you to let me do some of the conducting today. I particularly love working with young voices, and I know from having heard them at the eisteddfod that you have a very good choir.”
They would be there for hours, Gwyneth thought. Perhaps until the children began to fidget and yawn and start pushing and shoving one another and tittering and giggling. And, she thought disloyally, she would surely feel as they did. She loved music, both as a performer and as a listener, but it did not consume her soul. It did not even consume her father’s as it did Aled’s. Her father knew that there needed to be a quite strict time limit upon choir practices. In the company of his guest, though, he was likely to forget that.
“But without your harp, Gwyneth,” Aled said, smiling at her, “you will be able to relax and simply enjoy the singing.”
“Oh, I am going to remain at home,” she told him. “I have some correspondence to catch up on, and this afternoon will be a good time to do it. You and Dad will enjoy the practice better without having to worry about me.” Not that they would worry. They would forget all about her, whether she was there or not.
“But your mother will not be here, Gwyn,” her father reminded her. “This is her regular afternoon with her lace-making group.”
“But Idris will be here in the event that fire-breathing dragons should decide to come calling,” she said. “Besides, I never mind being here alone for a while, Dad. Alone with the servants, that is.”
“Well, thisisa disappointment,” Aled said, sounding as though he meant it. And for a moment Gwyneth was tempted to change her mind. But he could just as easily changehismind, could he not, and spend the afternoon with her? It would be a good opportunity for some time alone together. The choir, after all, was her father’s, not his, and this afternoon’s practice was just a regular weekly event.
Those facts obviously did not occur to him.
She waved them all on their way after luncheon and turned to go back inside.Shouldshe write those letters she had been meaning for a few days to get to? Or should she go for a walk or even a ride? The gift of an unexpectedly free afternoon was not to be wasted. Idris met her at the door.
“Did you know Devlin is coming this afternoon?” he asked.
Oh.
“No, I did not,” she said.
“When I was leaving Ravenswood yesterday,” he explained, “I reminded him of what he had just said about calling on everyone who had attended the tea within the next few weeks. Why not come to me first? I suggested, since we were once friends and I would be home alone this afternoon. He said he would.”
“You wereoncefriends,” she said. “Was there a quarrel, then, Idris?”
“Not really,” he said. “Just some sharp words when he was leaving and then a long silence. I wrote a couple of times, specifically to Dev, but it was Ben who answered both times. That is not the wayyou treat your friends, but why bear grudges? He is back home and seems like a different man from the one I used to know. I am curious to discover if wearestill friends. But at the very least he is a neighbor and will be for the rest of both our lives, I daresay. We must be civil to each other.”
“I will not get in your way,” she told him. “I will go into the parlor and write my letters.”
“I thought perhaps you had stayed home deliberately,” he said. “I will not ask if you ever got over him, Gwyn. I am sure you did not. But it was a long time ago and I know you have been trying to fall for someone else. Is Aled the one?”
She shrugged. “I like him.”
He shook his head. “If I thought Eluned had ever done that and said that when asked about me, I would probably go out and shoot myself,” he said.
They both laughed. “Eluned has never hidden her feelings for you,” she said, “nor you your feelings for her.”
She decided to stay home and write her letters.Notbecause Devlin was coming—she was going to sequester herself in the parlor with the door shut—but because... Well, because the letters needed to be written and she had procrastinated long enough. And... because Devlin was coming. She hated admitting it, but not doing so would not make it any the less true, would it?
She sat at the escritoire in the parlor. There was a view through the window out over the terrace to the lawn and flower garden beyond, enclosed on three sides by bushes and a few taller trees. All of it attracted bees and butterflies. And birds, which came in large numbers to eat from the feeder and drink from the stone bowl beside it. Sometimes, indeed, it was difficult to concentrate upon one’s writing, so much of nature was there to see. And hear, with bees buzzing and birds chirping and insects whirring. Perhaps in frontof the window had not been the wisest place to put the desk. But today Gwyneth bent her head over her letter as soon as she had mended a pen and dipped it into the ink. Today she was going to concentrate and not look up, no matter what the distraction.
She was one paragraph into a letter to one of the friends she had made during her Season in London when she looked up. How could she not when she heard horses’ hooves and then men’s voices? Idris had stepped out of the house, and Devlin was telling him that he would take his horse to the stables and come right back. Gwyneth leaned sideways so she would not be seen. His arrival—to call upon Idris—should really be a matter of indifference to her, she told herself in some annoyance. It was just like old times, in fact. She had seen him twice—in the village, when she had strolled and talked with him for fifteen minutes or so, and yesterday at Ravenswood. They had shared a youthful flaring of romance and passion for one single day years ago—she had beeneighteen, still little more than a child, for goodness’ sake—and then it had ended. Abruptly and totally. As Idris himself had observed a short while ago, there had been a six-year silence.Notthat she had tried writing to him herself, as her brother had apparently done.
