She did not pull away. Neither did her hand lie quite limply in his. She curled her fingers lightly about it.
“She used to joke sometimes,” he said. “ ‘At least we have a back garden with a view,’ she used to say. ‘The best in the country.’ ”
They stood looking at the view. She said nothing. Their shoulders did not quite touch.
“She was my father’s wife,” he said quietly. “She gave birth to my father’s son. She kept me alive and gave me all the love I have ever known and taught me all the important things I have learned in my life. She was my mother, my mam, and yet suddenly when I was twelve she became a contaminating force in my life. So much so that I must never see her. I must never even write to her or receive a letter from her. She was Welsh and a product of the lower classes—a lethal combination. They spoke of her—on the few occasions when she was mentioned at all—with contempt. I was encouraged to despise her.”
“Did you?” Marged asked.
“No,” he said. “Never for a moment.”
It was perhaps the one comfort he could feel. But he had never been able to tell her that. When he finally saw her again, she was dead.
“Marged,” he said, “they gave her a cottage to live in. She must have lived there for six years before her death. Was she quite alone?”
“No,” she said. “Not quite. Many people tried to make amends. My father and the deacons and their wives called on her. Admittedly they would not have done it if they had not discovered that she had been legally married, but it took some courage. A few people called more than once or twice. I believe Mrs. Williams became her friend. I—I called on her several times. She would never go back to chapel.”
He realized suddenly that he was gripping her hand very tightly. He relaxed his hold.
“I was not allowed to return here or to write to anyone,” he said. “My past was to be obliterated as if it had never been. I became Geraint Marsh, Viscount Handford—though my grandfather and everyone else called me Gerald—an English gentleman whose life began at the age of twelve.”
He turned without conscious thought to lead her down from the rise and to stroll across the hills with her. It seemed natural to share his thoughts and his pain with her. After all, she was his lover and his love. But the thought was not a conscious one.
She felt rather as if she had stepped out of time. What was happening did not quite belong in this time or this place. With her mind she could tell herself that she did not need to hear this or anything else that would somehow make him appear human to her. She could tell herself that he was her enemy, the man she hated more than anyone else in this world. If he suffered, he could never suffer enough for her liking. She could remind herself that she loved another man now—and that they had been lovers, however briefly. She loved a man who was this man’s sworn enemy. She could remember that she had walked across the hills rather than go home because she had wanted to think and to dream about Rebecca.
But sometimes the mind has only a little influence over one’s whole being. She walked with him and held his hand and listened, not only to his words but to his pain, and she could not think or feel any of the things she should think or feel.
He was Geraint and he needed her.
“I always assumed somehow that I would come back,” he said. “Back home to my mother. When my education was finished. I thought they would be satisfied then. I thought I would be my own man. I thought I would come back to her and love and care for her during her declining years as she had loved and cared for me during my growing years. Even when I knew she was dead, I thought I was coming home. I thought I would assert myself and stay here.” He drew a deep breath and exhaled audibly.
She found herself wanting to take a step closer to him so that she could lean her head on his shoulder. She resisted the urge. He was the Earl of Wyvern, she reminded herself.
“It was not home,” he said. “There was no home. Anywhere. Nowhere where I belonged. No one I belonged to.”
“Your grandfather—” she began.
“No,” he said.
She remembered the handsome, arrogant, self-assured, very English young man who had returned from England for his mother’s funeral.
“Marged,” he said, “for what it is worth after so long, I am sorry for what happened. Deeply sorry. I selfishly grabbed for comfort where I thought—without any good reason—it was being offered. But I did care. You were still my wonderful friend—that was how I described you to my mother the day you befriended me and plied me with blackberries. Do you remember?”
She swallowed but still heard a gurgle in her throat. She fought tears. “Yes,” she said.
He stopped walking and turned to her. “And I am sorry for this too,” he said, lifting her hand in his own, though he did not release it. “I have kidnapped you and forced you to listen to an outpouring of self-pity. I am not given to such outpourings, Marged. You were in the wrong place at the wrong time. You will wish me to the devil—where I belong.” He smiled rather wanly.
Yes, she must wish it. She bit her lower lip. He was not Geraint. Not any longer. He was the Earl of Wyvern. Why did you ignore my pleas for Eurwyn? she wanted to ask him. Why did you forget then about our wonderful friendship? But she did not want to hear his answer. Not now. She was feeling too confused and upset.
“Come,” he said, and he brought her hand through his arm and finally released his hold on it. “I will walk you home.”
It was on the tip of her tongue to tell him that she had walked far enough with him already. Too far. She could see herself home. But she could not say that either. Hatred, she was discovering, was too powerful an emotion. Too like love. Sometimes the two were indistinguishable. Perhaps if she had not loved him, she would never have hated him. She would merely have disliked and despised him.
Her heart ached with hatred and with the memory of love. It was only after they had walked for a few minutes in silence, back toward the path that would lead downward to Ty-Gwyn, that she felt resentment. She was twenty-six years old. She was no longer a girl to feel such confusion of emotions. She loved Rebecca now—or the man behind Rebecca’s mask. There was even the chance, however remote, that she carried his child inside her. When one loved one man, one ought not to be able to feel any tenderness at all for any other. Especially when that other man was not even worthy of one’s liking or respect.
And yet there had always been Geraint. And still was, it seemed. Always, all the time she had been married to Eurwyn, all the time she had loved him, there had been Geraint. And now that there was Rebecca—though there was no present or future tense in that relationship, only the past—even though it was a passionate relationship for her and an all-consuming one—even now there was Geraint.
“There will be the seeding to do soon,” he said at last. He sounded like the Earl of Wyvern again, remote, haughty, rather cold. “And lime to haul for fertilizing. Do you need help, Marged? Can I send a man or two from the home farm?”
She felt a welcome surging of anger—and of smug satisfaction. But mostly anger. She had had help. She had had a man of her own. But that man was gone, thanks to the Earl of Wyvern.
“No, thank you,” she said coolly. “I have all the help I need. I have hired Waldo Parry to work for me.”