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“I know.”

He shifted in place. She tucked a curl behind her ear, and together they shared a brief glance that ended in an oddly self-conscious smile.

“I knew it when you married me,” he said. “I told myself that you not hating me would be enough if I could have you. That I could live with it, because even that was more than I deserved.” He paused, looked away. “And it might have been enough, had I not already known what it felt like to be more than simply tolerated by you.” He could hear the click of his own swallow. “To be… wanted.”

The desire to flee from those too-honest, too-revealing words rose up inside him, but he forced his mouth into the shape of a smile and shrugged.

“Well, you made yourself indispensable from the start, from the moment you reached for my cup.”

Her smile, when it came, carried more than just the requisite shape.

CHAPTER 14

Gwen

“He’s been at it all day.”

Gwen jerked upright from where she’d been leaning against a stack of timber, so absorbed in watching Michael work that she’d failed to notice Harry’s approach. Michael’s shirtsleeves were rolled to the elbows, several buttons left undone at his throat despite the cold front that had swept in overnight.

At the swift rise of colour to her cheeks, Harry shot her a knowing smile.

“No sense in being shy about it,” Harry said, “He’s your husband, after all. And even if he weren’t, you’d have to be blind not to notice those shoulders.” He punctuated his statement with a low whistle.

“You’re mistaken; I was merely appreciating his talents with a hammer. Not a skill the average lord need acquire. I can’t help but wonder how he became so proficient.”

Harry hummed in agreement. “Well, if gawking at the man doesn’t give you the answers you need, you could always go with the regular way and just ask him.”

“I suppose I could.”

Harry raised his eyebrows. “Does that mean you’re done shutting the lad out?”

“Pehaps?” She made a frustrated sound, her eyes straying in Michael’s direction once more. “I don’t know.”

“Not that it should factor into your choice, but it would be a relief to the men if you did forgive him. Some of them are feeling right rotten about not hating him like they should.”

A trace of guilt roughened his words.

“O’course, they’ve tried to hold a grudge,” he continued. “Quite a few of them still wouldn’t spare him a drop of piss if his britches were on fire, but it gets hard to dislike a man who works himself to the bone when he doesn’t have to.”

Gwen knew, without pressing for specifics, that Harry would be first in line to extinguish those hypothetical blazing trousers. She’d seen the pair locked in friendly conversation on any number of occasions, and each time the sight left her more confused than ever about what she ought to feel toward her husband. Harry loved her, would always put her first, so what was she supposed to make of his good opinion of the man?

The truth was, it was a lot easier to hate Michael when she believed all his goodness to be a lie, but that assessment was neither accurate nor fair. Oh, there was no denying her husband could be unapologetically ruthless in pursuit of what he wanted. The trouble was, the man she’d come to know before, whom she’d grown desperately fond of, seemed every bit as much a part of him as the single-minded lord. And, try as she might, she could not reconcile these two, very real and utterly contradictory halves of the same man and come out with anyone she thought she could trust.

And yet, Harry could look at the very same unquestionably flawed man and find something there worth befriending. Was she wrong, or was it Harry who’d offered his trust too freely?

Forgiving Michael meant accepting the lord as well as the man. She wasn’t foolish enough to believe she could love his ambition away. Worse still, she couldn’t honestly deny she’d once found that ruthlessness attractive... until she’d felt the sting of its blade against her own throat.

In the beginning, the tireless intensity with which he laboured alongside her had made Gwen feel safe. Less alone. As though the world were somehow a simpler place merely because he was there. Not since her father had been alive had she felt so cared for, her needs so thoroughly understood. But that was before. Before she realised she'd only ever seen the polished side of the farthing. Now, when she measured the man Michael had revealed himself to be against her memories of her da, the contrast was stark.

“Why can’t more men be like Da? Husband number one was a self-important fool. Husband number two is… well, I’m not sure I could sum him up without extensive use of my dictionary, but he’s nothing at all like Da.”

“Ah, I see. So that’s the measure of a man, is it? You’re wanting someone like Aled.” He nodded thoughtfully, his chest rising and falling on a deep breath. Curling his boot around an empty crate, he dragged it close, then reached for another, putting it beside the first.

“Let’s sit a spell, hmm?”

Lowering herself onto the crate beside Harry, she watched him shift, spreading his knees wider before planting his forearms on his thighs.

“Aled was my dearest friend. I couldn’t have loved him more had he been my own flesh and blood. And—bach y byd— but he adored you. When you were a babe, he’d talk of nothing but you until the lot of us threatened to walk off the yard if he said your name one more time. He’d rave about how bright you were, like you were the only infant in the world to smile and coo. Then later, as you grew, he was so damned proud of your stubborn streak—the only father I ever knew to celebrate his daughter ignoring his every blasted command just to test her own limits. I think you were the only thing in the world he loved more than Llanelli.”