She was in love with Rebecca—deeply in love. And she could not feel sorry that she had known everything with him. Even if, by some strange quirk of fortune, she was with child. She felt a moment’s stabbing of panic. But he would not leave her in disgrace, he had said. And how wonderful it would be—oh, Duw, how wonderful—to find that after all she could have a child of her own. His child.
She opened her eyes again and smiled. She did not know who he was. She had never even seen his face. And yet she was wishing for his child?
Her steps had brought her in a different direction from the one she had taken a few Sundays before. She was close to where Geraint had used to live with his mother. The hovel was still there, she knew, though it was in very bad repair. She did not often come this way. She usually avoided the memories. And she should have done so today. She did not want to think about Geraint. She wanted to focus her thoughts entirely on Rebecca. She would at least see him soon—tomorrow night again. Her heart beat faster at the thought.
And then she was aware of something at the far side of the old hovel, something that did not belong there—the flutter of dark fabric from behind the far wall, the suggestion of something darker than the thatch on the far side of the low roof. She felt fear for a moment—it was a very bleak and lonely spot. But she had never been one to flee fear. She walked slowly closer, stepping as quietly as she could.
By the time she stepped cautiously past the old house, far enough that she could see what was behind the side wall, she was no more than eight or ten feet away from him. His cloak was thrown back over his shoulders. His arms were spread, elbows out, along the roof and his face was hidden in his hands. He was hatless.
Although his cloak was fluttering in the wind, he was standing quite still and silent. Obviously he had not heard her come.
Her first instinct was to leave—and fast. She felt the familiar welling of hatred and resentment. She had no wish to see him ever again. And the thought struck her that if he had his will, he would destroy her new love as he had destroyed the old. He was Rebecca’s enemy. He had constables at his house sworn to catching Rebecca. He was not himself a magistrate, but she knew he would rejoice in the capture and would press for the stiffest penalty the law would allow.
She had heard that any Rebecca who was caught would be transported for life. If he did make it to Van Diemen’s Land alive, he would never return. Never.
She actually turned to leave. But she looked back over her shoulder. He was so still. What was he doing? He was the same person, she thought unwillingly, as that little boy who had lived here with his mother. That little boy she had loved with a child’s adoration.
She stepped closer to him, close enough to touch him. She lifted one hand, saw it trembling, and closed it on itself. But she opened the hand again and touched it lightly to his shoulder.
“Geraint?” she whispered.
He spun around so quickly that she took an involuntary step back, terrified. Her hand stayed suspended in the air. But then she gazed at him, horrified. His eyes were filled with tears and both they and his cheeks were blotched red. He had been crying!
“I am sorry,” she said, still whispering. Her hand fell to her side. She had some idea of turning and fleeing.
But before she could make her escape, both his arms came out and grabbed her. He hauled her against him and held her there with arms like iron bands. For a few moments she was terrified. She could scarcely breathe, and her nostrils were assaulted by the expensive musk of his cologne. She thought he meant to do her some mischief.
But it did not take her longer than those few moments to realize that he was in deep distress. There had been the tears and the signs that he had been crying for some time. And she could feel now the wild beating of his heart and the irregular gasps of his breathing.
“Don’t fight me. Don’t fight me,” he ordered her fiercely. And yet she knew that his words were a veiled plea for help.
She was horrified anew at the situation. And she should fight, she knew. If he was suffering for some reason and her fighting him would make his suffering more acute, then she would be having some small measure of revenge on him. He had not moved a single finger to lessen her suffering. She should pull away from him, say something cutting, laugh in his face, and walk away.
She wriggled against him until she could free her arms to wrap about his waist. And she turned her head to rest her cheek against his shoulder. She relaxed against him, giving him all the silent comfort of her warmth and her softness.
She closed her mind to what she ought to do.
He was Geraint.
She felt his cheek come to rest against the top of her head.
Chapter 19
IT took him a few minutes to realize exactly what had happened. She had come upon him when he had least expected to see anyone, and she had caught him at his most vulnerable. He was almost never vulnerable. He had built a hard shell about himself long ago, probably from the very earliest years of his life.
He held her tightly and drew strength and comfort from her warm, relaxed body. She had her arms clasped about his waist and her head on his shoulder. She had not fought him—he could hear the distant echo of his voice commanding her not to. Neither had she turned limp and impassive in his arms. She was deliberately offering him the comfort of her presence.
It had seemed natural to him to turn to her, though it had been an unconscious, instinctive thing. She was, after all, Marged. And he was her lover. He had loved her just two nights ago with his body. But she did not know that. He was her enemy.
He lifted his cheek from her head and loosened his hold. He supposed there was no way of hiding the fact that he had been crying. He could not remember the last time he had cried. Not at his grandfather’s funeral or even at his mother’s. Perhaps when he was at Tegfan at the age of twelve and they would not allow him to see his mother.
Marged drew back her head and looked up at him, though she did not immediately drop her arms from about his waist.
“Can you imagine a greater cruelty,” he asked, “than driving a poor pregnant woman out of a church and out of a community and forcing her to live her life as an outcast, so abjectly poor that she does not even know if she will be able to feed her child on any given day? And of doing such a thing in the name of Christianity?”
She gazed at him for a while before finally lowering her arms though she did not step away from him. “No,” she said. “I don’t believe I can.”
“Even if she had been guilty,” he said. “Don’t the devout members of your church realize that love is what Christianity is all about? Just simply that? Nothing else. Only love.” He was no expert on Christianity, but it seemed to him that that was the Gospel—the good news. Not the rigid, judgmental application of a code of rules and laws.
She did not answer him. Perhaps she thought he was not the person to be preaching love and Christianity.
He had to move. He had to get away from that house. But not alone. He shunned aloneness now as he had shunned company when he had left the churchyard earlier. He had always been alone, so very alone. He took her hand in his, willing her not to pull away, and drew her up the steep slope beside the house onto the top of the outcropping of rock. There was a view from up there, an unobstructed view of rolling hills and valleys that stretched for miles. And there was wind. It buffeted them, sending her dress and his cloak billowing out behind them.