He remembered suddenly the way she had leaned away from him, revulsion in her face, when he had reached for her that night the horses had been let out and she had been telling him about the letters she had sent him pleading for her husband. Don’t touch me! she had told him.
He should have left her to walk home with the Glynderi contingent.
But he had not done so and now he was committed to taking her all the way home. He would not do it again. Indeed, he would persuade her before letting her down not to join any of the Rebecca Riots in future. He would command her as Rebecca not to come. It was just this one time, then. And they must be more than halfway home already.
And because it was just this one time and because they were more than halfway home, he allowed himself to enjoy her closeness. It had been so long. And no one would ever convince him that young love was ridiculous and of no account. He had bedded his share of women and considered others as a wife, but he had never loved any of them as he had loved Marged. He had never suffered the pain of loss with any of them as he had suffered it with her.
He had loved her. And though he had not thought of her constantly or even often during the past ten years, he had thought of her occasionally and always with a pang of nostalgia and regret for the gaucheness that had killed his chances with her. It was partly Marged who had made him resolve never to return to Tegfan and never to know what was happening there.
And now he held her in his arms again, and like a dream, she rested against him, relaxed and trusting. Although he was no longer a young boy with a young boy’s foolishness, he knew that in the future he would continue to remember her occasionally and that when he did, it would be tonight he would remember.
And then landmarks began to look familiar as they loomed out of the darkness. They were almost home. He felt both relief and regret. Relief because enjoyment was beginning to turn to active desire. Regret because he knew there would never again be a night like this one.
He skirted past both the village and the park. He almost made the mistake of turning up into the hills toward Ty-Gwyn. He caught himself in time.
“We have just passed Glynderi,” he said. “You must direct me from here, Marged.”
She turned her head to look about her, and he realized that she must have had her eyes closed.
“Oh,” she said, “it seemed such a short distance coming back.” Perhaps he only imagined that he heard regret in her voice.
He chuckled. “Distances have a tendency to feel shorter when one is on horseback,” he said.
“You must ride often,” she said. “You ride easily. Turn right here up into the hills.”
He turned right and did not comment on what she had said.
“Your mother-in-law will be worried about you?” he asked.
“She does not know I am gone,” she said. “At least, I hope she does not. She had enough worries with my husband. She deserves to live out the rest of her life in peace.”
“You should not even take the chance of worrying her, then, Marged,” he said. “What if you were caught? Who would run the farm for her?”
“Somehow the Lord provides,” she said simply. She laughed softly. “I am a minister’s daughter, you know. When my husband was taken, I wondered the same thing. But somehow we manage without him. We have to do what we believe in in this life, I am firmly convinced. We cannot always be wondering what will happen if things go wrong. That is the surest road to cowardice.”
It was not going to be easy.
“I married Eurwyn because he was the sort of man who followed his convictions,” she said. “I loved him for it. I never whined and insisted he think of me first before going into danger. And I never blamed him for leaving me alone.”
He felt a stabbing of jealousy for the long-dead Eurwyn Evans, the man she had loved. And the wistful desire to be so loved himself. But such love had to be earned. He had done nothing to earn it.
“A little farther on,” she said, pointing. “At the top of the next rise.”
They rode the rest of the distance in silence. When they reached the gate and the shape of the longhouse could be made out through the darkness, she stayed where she was.
“Here?” he asked her.
“Yes.” Her voice was low, almost a whisper against his ear.
Chapter 14
She was as reluctant to end the night as he was, he realized. She was no more ready to say good night than he.
“Marged,” he said, “I do not doubt your courage or your commitment to the public cause or your personal grievance. I honor you for what you have done tonight.”
“But,” she said. “I hear a but in your voice. Don’t say it. Please. I have admired and respected you so much tonight. Don’t spoil it by talking about a woman’s place. A woman’s place is not always at home. Her place is where she must be. And I must be with my people during these protests, sharing the exertion and the danger—and the exhilaration with them. I must be with you. With Rebecca, that is. Don’t forbid me to go.”
Damnation! All his resolve was melting away. “And if I did?” he asked her. “Would you obey?”
She did not answer for a few moments. “No,” she said at last.
“Rebecca must demand total obedience of her children,” he said. “It is necessary for the success of our cause and for the safety of all. I suppose, then, I must not issue a command that cannot be obeyed. Doing so would merely place us both in an impossible situation, wouldn’t it?”
“Yes,” she said. And then more fiercely: “Thank you. Oh, thank you. I knew you were a man I would like almost more than any other.”
His heart turned over at the compliment, though he knew that it was a compliment for Rebecca rather than for the man behind the mask.
“Come,” he said. “It is time you were safe in your bed.” He dismounted, holding her firmly in place with one hand as he did so. Then he reached up both arms and lifted her to the ground.
She stood in front of him, staring up at him. His hands were still at her waist, he realized, though he did not remove them. She looked absurd and rather endearing with her cloth cap covering all her hair and with her blackened face.
He lifted one arm and took off the cap. Any hairpins she had been wearing to hold her hair in place must have come away with it. Her hair cascaded over her shoulders and down her back in thick waves. He had not seen her with her hair down, he realized, since she was a child.
“I must look a mess,” she said.
He was touched by the vanity of the words, so rare with Marged. She did look a mess. And strangely lovely.
“It is the blackening that really does the trick,” he said.
“Oh.” She brushed the knuckles of one hand ineffectually over one cheek. “I had forgotten that. So you have seen me with part of my mask removed. Let me see you. It is dark and I would never know you to identify.”
“Marged,” he said, taking her hand in his and drawing it away from her face, “I am Rebecca. There is no one behind the mask.” He was about to carry her hand to his lips, but realized that it might be too familiar a gesture. He squeezed it instead. “Good night,” he said. “I will stand here until you are safely inside.”