“How do I saynotactfully?” Sir Ifor asked again.
“Enough now, Ifor,” his wife said. “Can’t you see that Gwyneth is off her food this morning?”
Which was ridiculous really, Gwyneth thought. Yesterdayshehad proposed marriage toDevlin.She had actuallylainwith him, and then had lain awake half the night reliving every moment. Today was just a formality. But that was the point, was it not? Yesterday had been just the two of them, while today their families would be involved, and tomorrow... Well, tomorrow they would be borne inexorably onward to their wedding and their married life together. The thought had a strangely calming effect. For she had no doubts, no regrets, no second or third thoughts. No illusions either.
“I am not, Mam,” she said, and took a bite of her toast. “I was just so fascinated by the conversation that I forgot to eat.”
Idris patted the back of her hand.
“You have not lived with me here for twenty-four years, Gwyn,” her father said, “without discovering that I like to tease. I will be ready for your young man when he comes here at ten o’clock, and I will treat him gently. It is more than thirty years since I went on a similar errand to beg your grandfather for your mother’s hand, but I have not forgotten how my legs were shaking in my boots and my heart was booming in my chest and I was afraid I might forget my own name.”
Gwyneth dipped her toast in the yolk of her egg and took another bite.
“But I do hope you know what you are doing, Gwyn,” her father said, all signs of joking and teasing gone. “I know you took us all by surprise years ago when it turned out it was Devlin you had fallen for, not Nicholas. And then you got all caught up in that nasty situation and ended up with a broken heart. I will not belittle what you went through, but youwerejust eighteen. There is a difference between eighteen and twenty-four. A difference in maturity. Now he is back and he is a different man. There is hardness in him, maybe worse. And he has problems galore to deal with. Ravenswood has not been a happy place since that night. All of them have suffered and are still suffering, from what I see. Poor things. I feel particularly for the young ones. Their world was rocked. That is what you will be going into, Gwyn, if you say yes. Your mam and I are feeling sick at heart.”
“We agreed not to say anything, though, Ifor,” Lady Rhys said. “About our feelings, I mean. This is not about us, Gwyneth. It is aboutyou.And when you love a man, you see him differently from the way other people do. It is not as though Dad and I dislike Devlin. We do not. We did hope with Aled, though... But no. No, no. Forget I mentioned his name. You see with the heart. We have beenlooking with the head for someone who will make you happy. The head has nothing to do with such decisions.”
“Nothing, Bronwyn?” Sir Ifor asked.
“Nothing,” she said. “My father warned me that if I married you, it would be forever music, music, music with you—andthisfrom a Welshman, I might add. I knew it, but I married you anyway because my heart would not listen to my head. And I have never for a single moment been sorry. Well, perhaps once or twice when the pew in church has got to feel very hard after I have been sitting on it for a couple of hours at a stretch.”
“Gwyn,” Idris said, setting his napkin beside his empty plate and pushing his chair back as he got to his feet. “The quality of this conversation is rapidly deteriorating. Are you finished?”
She was surprised to see when she looked down at her plate that indeed she was. Both egg and toast were gone. She got to her feet too.
“You must not let your hearts ache over me, Mam and Dad,” she said. “There is a great deal of goodness at the core of all the darkness you see in Devlin. And kindness. And love. And, if nothing else, he has a strong sense of duty and responsibility. And a deep commitment to doing what is truthful and right.”
“And you hope to bring all that out of him?” her mother asked. “Oh, Gwyn.”
“No,” she told her mother. “As Dad just said, I am twenty-four, not eighteen. I am not going to try drawing anything out of him. I am just going to love him. And be his countess.”
Idris walked upstairs with her and they stopped outside the door to her room. “All right, are you, Gwyn?” he asked.
Idris would never press questions or advice on her. He was not much of a talker at all, in fact. He never had been. He was neither a very sociable nor a greatly ambitious man. He had always wanted to work their father’s large farm, and that was what he was doing—with steady competence and hard work, out in the fields and in the barns and in the office at the back of the house. He was a kind and considerate man, and Eluned was one of the most fortunate women in the world to be marrying him. Or so believed Idris’s fond sister.
It had been his signature question throughout her life—all right, are you, Gwyn?Or some variant of those words. Letting her know that he understood whatever turmoil life had led her into, that he was there to listen or to help if she needed him, though she had rarely taken him up on his offer. But he was a rock of stability in her life, someone she knew without any doubt she could lean upon if there was the need.
“Oh, I say,” he said when she stepped forward into arms he opened reflexively, and hugged him tightly. He patted her back.
“I amveryall right,” she assured him. “Go and read your letter. I know you must be itching to do so.”
He was holding it now. It had sat beside his plate through breakfast. A fat-looking letter addressed to him in Eluned’s hand.
“Well,” he said, “if you are sure you areveryall right, Gwyn, I will.”
He turned away to his own room, and Gwyneth let herself into hers. It was time to get ready. A comical thought, perhaps, when she was already dressed perfectly decently. And it was not even nine o’clock yet.
—
Devlin was feeling a bit like a Bond Street beau as he drove himself to Cartref in his curricle. He had somehow slipped out of Ravenswood without being seen by any of the family, though why he should have done his best to contrive it that way he did not quite know. They were going to find out soon enough. He just hoped they would not expect him to behave like a besottedbridegroom. And that they would not expect any great fuss over wedding plans.
And, he thought as he descended from the curricle and tossed the ribbons to one of Sir Ifor’s grooms, who had been hovering in the vicinity and was clearly expecting him, he hoped the Rhyses would not expect it either. Or Gwyneth. Good God, he hoped not. But anything was possible with the volatile Welsh.
The front door was open, and the Rhys butler, behaving with far greater formality than he ever had when Devlin had used to come here as a boy, conducted him to the small parlor, announced him to Sir Ifor, the lone occupant of the room, and closed the door quietly behind him.
Sir Ifor Rhys did not prolong the interview. He did not deliver any speech, though Devlin had anticipated one. Nor did he allow Devlin to deliver the speech he had prepared with meticulous care.
“I doubt you can tell me anything about yourself that I do not already know,” Sir Ifor said. “And as for your record as an officer with the Ninety-Fifth Rifles, it would seem that since you recently sold out rather than being kicked out, you must have done your duty on the Peninsula just as you always did it here and doubtless intend to do again now you are back. I fully expect that you will do your duty to my daughter too if you marry her. There is only one thing I want to know, Devlin, before I give you my blessing as well as the permission you do not need. No, two things. Would you always, from the moment of your marriage until death takes one or other of you, remain faithful to Gwyneth? And look in my eyes as you answer, if you please.”
