“It’s a Welsh singing competition. Before he passed, Da placed in it almost every year. Griff followed in his footsteps and he nearly won everything the year before he died.”
“So all of you can sing?”
“We can all carry a tune, but Griff was the one who inherited Da’s bardish talents.”
“Will you sing something for me?”
He began with a low hum, and then she felt the rumble of the words building beneath the ear pressed against his chest. His warm baritone surrounded her, like hot tea and a shawl.
“When thy father went a-hunting, a spear on his shoulder, a club in his hand. He would call the nimble hounds, ‘Giff, Gaff; catch, catch, fetch, fetch!’ He would kill a fish in his coracle as a lion kills its prey. When thy father went to the mountain, he would bring back a roe-buck, a wild boar, a stag, a speckled grouse from the mountain, a fish from Rhaeadr Derwennydd. Of all those that thy father reached with his lance, wild boar and lynx and fox, none escaped which was not winged.”
When his voice tapered off she remained where she was. His arms tightened around her instead of loosening - the only indication he was as loath to sever their connection as she was.
“Was that song about hunting?” She finally broke the silence to ask.
“Aye, Griffin used to sing it to all of us by the fire at night. After Da passed. It’s the oldest song in our language - but I’m not as fluent as my brother was. Hence my English translation. It’s a lullaby about the death of a boy’s father and his legacy.”
“You can hear the yearning in the melody. It’s beautiful.” She was too shy to tell him she thought the singing itself was beautiful, that she thought he was beautiful in ways she never expected him to be. He was a study in contrasts and the more time they spent together the more aware she became of how deep those contrasts went.
“The yearning is probably why we loved it so much. Our Da was troubled and we didn’t have many good memories. We probably wanted to gild them.”
“Is that why you’re so overwhelming sometimes? Because you are so accustomed to fighting for everything?”
He chuckled darkly and rested his chin atop the crown of her head. “Caris says I’ve always been a scrapper. She said evenwhen I was a drammer, I wrapped a cache of rocks in a rag so I’d have something to defend myself against the whip.”
Jess was shocked. “They whipped you? I knew the treatment of children in the mines was deplorable, but I hadn’t realized it was so bad.”
“I have the scars on my back and my mangled fingers and a bum knee to prove it. But suffice to say it wasn’t just the pit boss I had to watch out for. It was competitive, and there were explosions and the dust and damp all the time. I was heartily relieved twenty years ago when women and children were prohibited from going underground.”
Jess nodded. “The Mines Act of 1842. I was only eight, but when Arie read about it to us I remember thinking I’d never again take the clean air of the countryside for granted.”
She couldn’t resist nuzzling into the space beneath his chin and pressing a kiss to his scruffy jawline. “Do you miss any of it now that you’re standing on the outside looking in?”
She felt him swallow. “Just Griffin and Mam. I wonder if they’d be proud of what I’ve accomplished.”
“How could they not be?” She asked as she laid her hand against his heart, and felt it thud beneath her palm and the soft lawn of his shirt. “You’re an exceptional man, Cadoc Morgan.”
Jess placed a chaste kiss on his bared collarbone.
“I’m not, dragonfly. I just do as I need to.”
“So you still plan on surrendering the lens I won earlier today?”
“Aye, I’ll give you a moment to tidy up while I fetch it.”
He rose to his feet and raised her to her own. His eyes darkened when their most intimate parts slid together, and he clenched his jaw immediately afterward.
In the beginning, Jess thought the power dynamic of their bargain was skewed in his favor. But now she was coming to know the truth. The truth was that Cadoc Morgan was morebluster and braggadocio than anything, and his defenses were the furthest thing from an impenetrable fortress imaginable. The truth was that he had made this bargain for reasons he kept to himself and sometimes the way he looked at her made Jess feel like a Greek statue on a pedestal. As if he thought she was rare and he’d be her supplicant if she asked.
He was making her question everything she thought she knew and wanted and she desperately needed to shore up her defenses against him.
Chapter Eighteen
Cadochadn’twantedtoset her away from him. He would’ve gladly stayed there with her curled up in his lap until they were old and gray. Her soft sighs as she’d nestled against him, the sweet, precious recline of her body curled into his. Holding her felt like the sunlight he’d basked in as a boy after the cramped darkness of the mines. But he owed her the lens.
He didn’t know what he was expected to do if she won the wager and he was compelled to return her microscope in its entirety. The reality of her, with all her thorns that disguised her softness, was almost too much to bear. Perhaps letting her dismantle his armor was penitence for the duress he’d placed her under.
He thought the wager would be a way to cleanse her from his thoughts - like an exorcism. Instead, it had been a confirmation.
