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Michael assessed his empty cup, thoughtful for a time, then he stood. “Come. It’s late and you need a proper meal. Don’t think I didn’t notice when you gave your lunch to that new tar boy Harry hired yesterday. Not that I can blame you, the lad’s skin and bones.”

“Davie… his father passed last year. I’d hoped he might stay on at school for another year before coming to the yard, but without Adam, his family is struggling, and… needs must. I assure you, he needed that pasty more than I.”

Michael retrieved his overcoat, then Gwen’s from the peg. “I imagine Mrs Phillips could be persuaded to pack an extra few pasties next time, so no one goes hungry.”

CHAPTER 8

Gwen

“Oh, for pity’s sake, Charles, I did not make the man cry,” Gwen said between spoonfuls of custard. “Stop exaggerating and finish your food before Georgie eats it.”

She shouldn’t begrudge the men their enthusiasm. She’d walked away with the charter in place. This dinner was meant to be a celebration. After all, the vast majority of those in attendance today had supported her plan to form a guild. It was the opposing minority who’d soured her mood. That number had been larger, their voices louder, than she’d anticipated.

Michael, of course, had expected resistance. He’d been warning her of it for days, during the long evenings they’d spent at opposite ends of the settee, strategizing until well past a reasonable hour. Again and again, he’d raised some objection a man might make, and again and again, Gwen had dismissed the worst of his predictions as unnecessarily pessimistic.

Damn it, he’d been right.

The possibility of industrialising the yard, and the prosperity it might bring the town, was enough to make more than a handful of men pause. In the three days since that conversation with Michael, she’d tried to push his concerns from her mind, but each time some fragment remained behind, a lingering residue of doubt that maybe… just maybe… refusing to sell the yard was more self-serving than she’d been willing to admit.

“Don’t be modest, cariad, you were fearless, giving those men what for. That milksop Darrington will think twice before going toe to toe with you again.”

The front door creaked, and a moment later Michael slid silently past the archway. She heard his steady footsteps as he navigated the stairs.

“I bet Darrington’s gone to bed a good two inches shorter than he woke up this morning,” Charles continued around a mouthful of custard.

Gwen rose from the table, glancing towards Michael’s retreating steps. “If you gentlemen will excuse me, I think I’ve had enough revelry for one night.”

Charles followed her gaze. “Go on then, Gwen. He looks as if he could use a little feminine coddling. Must be dog tired with the hours he’s been keeping.”

Francis’s snort of agreement drew an eye roll from Gwen as she turned away.

There was a pause after Gwen’s knock where she could hear Michael shuffling about inside. Quiet domestic sounds that made her uncomfortably aware that, in Michael’s world, a woman knocking on a gentleman’s door was decidedly not the done thing. She would tell Michael about the meeting, then go to bed. He would want to know. Charles was simply being Charles.

Gwen didn’t have long to ponder it before Michael was there, looking all the more virile for his unselfconscious disarray. His hair was more mussed than usual, shirt untucked and sleeves rolled up, slightly unevenly at the elbows.

“Gwen.” The single syllable rasped from somewhere low in his chest, his brow furrowing in a confused but not unfriendly way as he stepped back to make room for her.

She hesitated only a moment before accepting the silent invitation. Once inside, she found herself belatedly concluding that she ought not to have come. There was nothing she could say tonight that would not have kept until morning, when he was properly dressed and she had had time to shake off this odd mood. But evening’s events at the town meeting had unsettled her, left her adrift, and some part of her had reached for Michael without thought, trusting that he would guide her back to calmer waters.

Good God, what a horrid thought. She might be less flustered if she had come here to kiss the man. And now she’d been standing there entirely too long, her current line of thought bringing an extra degree of heat to her face.

Michael’s lips curved into a teasing smile, as if he knew precisely where her thoughts had traveled.

“Guild meeting… not precisely urgent,” she stammered, apparently forgetting the importance of verbs, but before she could amend her sentence and make a hasty retreat, the curl of his teasing lips… uncurled.

“True. But you’re here now. I’d like to hear about it.”

Blasted man and his blasted verbs.

Her fingers knotted into her skirts as she took in the tidy space. She was not at all surprised to find it so. This was not a man to leave his clothing strewn about on the floor. Her gaze caught on a shaving kit, and she hastily returned her attention back to its owner, who’d shifted closer and was watching her patiently… attentively.

“They signed, of course,” Michael led when she still had not managed to assemble a proper sentence.

This was pushing the boundaries of ridiculousness. Was it so very terrible that she’d sought him out for reassurance? It was true, she’d scarcely known him for a month, but given her trying circumstances, she’d had little choice but to grant him a measure of trust from the start, and Michael had given her no cause for regret. Could she not, just this once, let herself lean on him just a little and trust he would not think less of her for it?

She tightened the grip on her skirts, pressed on.

“Have I made a mistake, Michael? Am I being selfish?” Her worries tumbled out, growing faster and louder, buoyed by the steadiness of his gaze. “You asked me what I want, and this is what I want. Llanelli. It’s all I want. And it has nothing to do with my father or Walter or anyone else—but why should what I want matter if it isn’t what’s best for everyone else? Is selling the yard what’s best for everyone else?”