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“Sorry, ma’am. Didn’t realise you still had company.”

Gwen slipped on her well worn woolen coat. “No matter, come in. This is Mr Anson. He’s here to offer some advice on a matter that’s come up.”

“You mean to run off that English high and mighty who’s dead set on buying the yard.”

Gwen smiled. She ought to have known the news would have spread by now, especially with Lewis there when Anson arrived.

“More or less.” She shifted her attention back to Mr Anson. “Mr Anson, this is Mr Lewis Greer. He’s been employed with Llanelli for as long as I can recall, is one of our most talented shipwrights. He’s taught half the men in the yard their trade and knows the business inside and out.”

Lewis colored at the praise, then belatedly yanked off his cap.

“Yes, well,” he stammered, scratching the back of his neck, “I was hopin’ you might have a few minutes to talk.”

At his obvious discomfort, Mr Anson tactfully retreated to the far side of the room and sat at Harry’s empty desk, dutifully making himself invisible.

“Of course, sit down, Lewis. As it happens, I was hoping to have a word with you myself.”

“It’s only…” he began, hesitantly tucking into a chair, “I feel right awful about you having to climb down in the pit like that.” He waved a hand helplessly. “I know it’s not the first time you’ve done it, not even the hundredth, but… it should’ve been me to go down. Georgie and I should’ve talked it out and I should’ve been more willin’ to listen to him. He’s young, and o’ course he was wrong, but that don’t make what I done right. What I mean to say is, I’m real sorry, Wyn, for lettin’ you down like that.”

Gwen took the open chair beside him and drew in a slow breath. Her father had always chosen his words as if each one mattered. She’d been working rather hard over the previous months to do the same.

“You gotta give yourself time to think it all through, cariad,” her da had said. “Like lighting a candle in each room of the house, one by one, until the whole place glows. When you say the first thing that flits through your head, it’s like tossing a spark in tinder. You’ll get plenty of light to be sure, but who knows if your house’ll still be standing when you’re done.”

Gwen had heard it so often that the words played out in her sleep. And she tried. Truly, she did. When she had a clear head, his advice was easy enough to follow. But when she was tamping mad, all that good sense seemed to disappear.

Lewis, well accustomed to the practice from his years with her da, relaxed into her brief silence as she considered.

“You didn’t let me down, Lewis. You couldn’t.” She offered him a small smile. “Besides, I know how the younger lads can be when they’ve been around boats for a fraction of your years and still think they know better. As for climbing into the pit…” She hesitated. “I knew when Da died that I would miss him every day. What I hadn’t realised was how much I’d miss the person I was before.” She shook her head. “All those hours behind a desk now… it’s been hard.”

“But when I was down there, with the scratch of wood against my palms and my mind free to follow the rhythm of the yard, it felt like slipping off a pair of ill-fitting shoes. Like I could finally feel Llanelli beneath my feet again.”

She reached out and squeezed his hand, warm skin stretched across knobby bones. “I know you want to protect me, but sometimes protection creates its own distance. These last weeks, I’ve been thinking a great deal about how to strike a balance between honoring Da’s yard and making it my own.”

The creases in Lewis’s face etched into great caverns of concern, his gaze going velvety soft. “O’r annwyl,” he murmured. “I’m sorry, Gwen. I didn’t see it… didn’t understand what a time you’ve been having, stuck behind this desk as you’ve been. Of course you should be in the pit. There and anywhere else that lightens your heart.” One corner of his mouth lifted in a bemused smile. “Guess it worked out for the best then, me kicking up such a fuss this afternoon. Still, I’ll try to do better, hearing out the younger lads.” He shifted in his chair, suddenly finding the floor rather interesting. “And I’ve been thinking you’re probably right about my knee. Might as well get it looked at. Can’t have you and the missus worrying.”

“Indeed, you should. The physician is scheduled to come this Friday. He can see to it then.”

She stood, and Lewis followed suit.

“Thank you for understanding, Lewis. Truly, I don’t know what I’d do without you. And don’t think for a moment your worth is measured by whether you can still be the first man up a ladder. It’s in the lads you’ve trained and care you put into every ship that matters.”

Lifting onto her toes, she pressed a kiss to his cheek, then led him to the door.

When she glanced back, she found Mr Anson still watching her, his expression thoughtful. “I appologise for the delay. Shall we go?”

CHAPTER 4

Michael

Michael scraped the last morsels of his beef stew from the bottom of the bowl and took a bite, smiling faintly around his spoon when he caught Mrs Bevans watching him.

Of course, he was meant to be winning her over. Smiling was part and parcel of the plan, but he hadn’t anticipated how easily those smiles would come. His body, the traitorous thing, responded to the smallest hint of her attention as though her good opinion were the only thing that mattered. Absurd as it was, he couldn’t seem to help himself. She was just so unexpected, with that singular blend of open vulnerability and razor-sharp tenacity. Coming here, he’d expected to find either a battle-hardened adversary—not unlike his mother, in truth—or a woman on the verge of collapse. But Mrs Bevans was neither.

Lord knew she had not surrendered so much as an inch of ground in their correspondence. That sort of strain should have taken its toll, let alone all the work she’d put into reviving the yard. Yet she was nothing like the dowager duchess, and if she was anywhere near her breaking point, he certainly couldn’t see it.

No, she was a different sort of woman entirely, and to his surprise, he rather liked the fact that he could not quite make sense of her.

There’d been countless ways she might have handled the old shipwright without giving anything of herself or lowering her defenses. Yet she’d chosen to expose her weaknesses to ease the man’s conscience, and done so in front of Michael, a total stranger. His mother would sooner have slit her own throat than surrender such power to a man. Any man.