“Admirable,” he said. “Good day to you, Gwyneth.”
“Lady Rhys is going to the church because Sir Ifor is practicing the organ there,” Stephanie said. “She just told me it could be a long wait.”
“Ifor loses track of time when he is playing,” Lady Rhys explained, turning from the counter for a moment. “Though I do not suppose that is news to anyone.”
“I could listen to him forever,” Miss Jane said with a sigh. “And even that would not be quite long enough.”
“You said you would take me to the inn for lemonade in the coffee room before we go home, Dev,” Stephanie reminded him. “May Gwyneth come too?Willyou come, Gwyneth?Mayshe, Lady Rhys?”
“Perhaps,” Devlin said, “Lady Rhys would like to come too for some coffee.”
“No, no,” she said. “I am very ready to sit down in the quiet for a while and listen to the organ. But you go, Gwyn, by all means. We will know where to find each other.”
“Then thank you,” Gwyneth said, smiling at Stephanie. “That will be pleasant.”
“Iwouldshow you the ribbons I chose,” Stephanie said as they left the shop together. “But Miss Jane wrapped them up so nicely and tied them so neatly with string that I would make a mess if I tried to open the package.”
“I will see them when they are hanging from the maypole,” Gwyneth said. “Then I will let you know what I think.”
She was looking pretty in a blue and white vertically striped dress with a blue spencer and matching bonnet. Her dark hair was confined in a tight knot on her neck. She always did look smart when in public, Devlin conceded as he stowed the package of ribbons behind the seat of his curricle and followed her and Stephanie, who were walking arm in arm toward the village inn on an adjacent side of the green. She very often looked quite different at home or on her father’s land. He had once thought of her as a wild child. She had often gone barefoot outdoors during three seasons of the year, her long hair loose and disheveled down her back. She had often worn old, loose-fitting dresses, perhaps because she so frequently got her clothes dirty or even tore them. Devlin doubted there was a tree on her father’s land she had not climbed or a fence she had not scrambled over even if there was a perfectly serviceable gate close by. Gates for Gwyneth had been made to swing on.
Devlin remembered one day in particular when a cat had been stuck at the top of a tall tree, mewing piteously. Lady Rhys had been anxiously muttering about gardeners and tall ladders and Idris had been callously predicting that the silly animal would find its way down eventually, as cats always did, and Devlin had wondered if he ought to volunteer to rescue it. Meanwhile, Gwyneth had simply climbed up and fetched it herself.Andhad her bare arms and knees badly scratched for her pains.
Ah, how he had loved her in those days. Thoughlovewas not the right word, he supposed, for he had been only a boy himself and there had been no sexual component to his feelings for her. He had envied Nick, who had run off to Cartref whenever he could and frolicked and laughed with her and encouraged all her excesses. Or perhaps she encouraged his. If he had been her friend, Devlin thought, he probably would have advised caution on a number of occasions for fear she would get hurt. And she surely would havelaughed at him and done what she wanted anyway. Indeed, he would probably have goaded her unwittingly into additional wildness.
He could not have been Gwyneth’s friend even if he had tried. Not as Nick was. He had justwishedhe could be.
His father was standing outside the inn, a tankard of ale in one hand, talking with three other men, one of whom was the vicar, and with one woman. She was Mrs. Shaw, the new resident of the village. She was apparently taking her tiny dog for a walk on a leash.
Stephanie was hugging their father while he held his tankard out at arm’s length and patted her back with his free hand and beamed from her to Gwyneth to Devlin.
“I came with Dev to choose new ribbons for the maypole,” Stephanie told him. “I got to pick the colors. Just wait till you see them. And now Dev is taking me for lemonade in the coffee room and Gwyneth has come with us because her papa is playing the organ in the church and Lady Rhys is going to sit and listen, but he is likely to play for a long time because he forgets about the time until he is reminded. But Lady Rhys will not remind him for a while yet. Do you want to come in with us, Papa?”
“Go on in and have a sit down,” their father said, smiling genially. “I’ll finish my ale and my conversation out here and see you at home later. I am delighted you are helping your mother with the fete. It will be the best one ever and a fitting testament to all her hard work. Am I the most fortunate husband in the world, or what? Though maybe your father would have something to say about that, Gwyneth.”
The coffee room was empty and quiet and cool. After Stephanie had chosen a table by the window Devlin ordered drinks for them all: lemonade for his sister and Gwyneth, coffee for himself.
“If I were grown-up and really, really pretty,” Stephanie said as the landlord withdrew to fetch their drinks, “and if my husband had just been killed in some war in India, I do not believe I would go to live somewhere in the depths of the country where I did not know a soul and no one knew me. Wouldyou, Gwyneth? Would you, Dev?”
He had wondered about that himself. Mrs. Shaw was quite young, twenty-five or -six at the most. She was also extremely lovely. She dressed fashionably, and was very... He did not know quite what word his mind was searching for.Provocative, perhaps? But that was a bit harsh. She lived with an older woman, who was not, apparently, her mother or any relative. Devlin had never seen her, but he had heard her described as sharp-nosed and sour-looking and always dressed in black. Mrs. Shaw did not wear black—or even the gray or lavender of half mourning.
“I suppose she has her reasons,” he said. “And they are her business, not ours.”
“But I would like toknow,” his sister said with a sigh. “No one tells you anything when you are nine.”
“Perhaps,” Gwyneth said, “she is so distraught over her husband’s death that she does not carewhereshe lives, provided it is somewhere quiet.”
“But then she would not care how she looks either, would she?” Stephanie said with irrefutable logic. “She clearlydoescare. I would not wear clothes like the ones she is wearing today just to take my dog for a walk. In the country. It would be silly. Did you notice her parasol, Gwyneth? It was all lace and show. It would not shield a person from a single ray of sunshine. I bet those are the sort of clothes ladies wear when they go walking in Hyde Park in London. Or on Bond Street. Or in the Pump Room in Bath. When they want to attract attention from men.”
“I hate to dampen your need to know, Steph,” Devlin said as their drinks were set before them. “But really, Mrs. Shaw’s motivations are none of our business, are they?”
“I think Hyde Park is one place in London I would like to see,” Gwyneth said. “And Vauxhall Gardens. By night, of course. It is said to be a magical place in the moonlight and lamplight. What wouldyoulike to see, Stephanie?”
Mrs. Shaw made Devlin feel a bit uneasy. And she did indeed remind him of London, which had not left a favorable impression upon him last year, when he had expected to enjoy himself but did not really do so.Because he was a dull dog,of course.
“St. Paul’s Cathedral,” Stephanie said. “And Carlton House. And all the galleries and museums. I wonder if Mrs. Shaw went to India with her husband. If she did, she surely would have needed more substantial parasols than that silly one she is carrying this morning. I think it would be awfully exciting and wondrously romantic to follow the drum with the man you loved. Don’t you, Gwyneth?”
Gwyneth flushed a little and Devlin waited for her answer. He often wondered about her and Nick, though he had never talked to his brother about her.Werethey sweethearts now that they had grown up? Surely they must be. Did they have an understanding? Was there likely to be a formal betrothal before Nick left in September to join his regiment? Was there any question at all of her following him? But he was only nineteen.
