He stopped in the doorway and peered inward, his heart beating uncomfortably. How often he had raced in and out of this door, a surprisingly carefree boy. He could see only a foot or two inside the door. But the dirt floor still seemed hard-packed and covered with no more than the expected rubble of soil and leaves. He could not see farther in, but the darkness would work to his advantage. He led Marged carefully inside, over to the far wall, against the outside of which he had stood the day before. He spread the blanket.
“Lie down,” he said to her. “You are not frightened?”
“No,” she said. “Not with you.”
He pulled off his wig and his mask and was grateful for the cool air he felt against his face and head. He knew that even if the sky cleared and the moon beamed down, the light of it would not penetrate to this corner. He hesitated a moment and stripped away Rebecca’s gown and the clothes he wore beneath except his trousers. If anyone came, then he would be the Earl of Wyvern keeping a romantic tryst with one of his tenants.
Not that that would lead to a comfortable situation with Marged, of course.
Her hands came against his bare chest when he joined her on the blanket. Her fingers spread and then moved upward and over his face and hair.
“Ah,” she said, and her voice was husky, “you are beautiful. I think you must be beautiful.”
He held her palm against his cheek and turned his head to kiss it.
“Strange,” she said softly.
“Strange?”
“Do you ever have things blink in your mind, but you cannot grasp them in time to see what they are?” she said. “It happened then. Have I ever met you before?”
“On Wednesday night,” he said, trying not to tense. “I made love to you. Remember?” He should not have kissed her hand.
“Yes.” She laughed softly. “I remember. I thought you were telling me afterward that this would not happen again. It would not be a good situation, you said. I thought you did not care.”
“Marged,” he said against her mouth.
“And then you sent Aled with the money so that I could hire Waldo Parry to help on the farm,” she said. There was a catch in her voice, suggesting that she was close to tears. “And I knew that you did care.”
“Marged.” He set his arms about her and drew her close against him. “How could you ever have doubted it?”
“I gave myself willingly,” she said. “There was no compulsion on you to care. There is no compulsion.”
“But I care.” He licked at her lips. “I care very much.”
“Oh,” she said.
“I believe I said it would not be a good situation for you,” he said. “I said it would not make you happy. You know me only as Rebecca, Marged. Perhaps you would not like the man behind the mask.”
“I love you,” she whispered.
Ah. Honest, reckless Marged.
I love you. She loved Rebecca. Strangely, the man behind the mask felt almost bereft. She had given comfort to Geraint Penderyn yesterday, had held his hand and listened to him and seemed almost tender in her sympathy for him—for a while. But it was Rebecca she loved, that mythical hero of the people. That man who did not even exist.
“And I love you too,” he said, setting his mouth against hers and abandoning himself to the self-indulgence of telling a truth that would horrify her if he told it in his own person.
“Oh.” It was as much sob as exclamation. “Make love to me. Let’s make love.”
It was not a cold night. And the fire of passion lent extra heat. She helped him free her of her jacket and shirt and of her breeches and underclothes. And she helped him unbutton his own trousers and wriggle out of them.
She was beautiful. She was Marged, he told himself in some wonder—warm and shapely and soft and yet firmly muscled too. The calluses on her hands, pressing over his chest and back and buttocks, were surprisingly arousing. Not that he needed much arousing. He was hard and throbbing for her.
“You are beautiful,” she said before he could say the words first to her. She moved her hands around to hold him and stroke him. He drew breath sharply. “Why am I so bold with you? I have never been so bold.”
He had been given the impression that first time that she was in many ways innocent. She jerked when he moved his hand down to touch her as intimately as she touched him. But she relaxed and sighed as his fingers stroked and parted and probed. He could not wait much longer. And he could feel that she was slick with wetness and ready for him.
“The ground is hard,” he said when she turned onto her back to receive him. “Come on top of me tonight.”
She had clearly never done it this way before. He had to guide her to kneel over him, her knees and thighs hugging his sides, her hands gripping his shoulders. She drew an audible breath when he positioned himself at her entry, and cried out when he spread his hands on her hips and brought her firmly down.
He moved in her with slow, deep strokes, giving her a chance to accustom herself to a new posture for love. He could feel her hair on either side of his face as her head came down close to his, and the tips of her breasts touching his chest occasionally. And then he lost himself as she caught his rhythm and matched it and rode to it. Faster and faster until they came together to a shared and frenzied climax.
She was hot and damp with exhaustion when he brought her down to lie on him and straightened her legs on either side of his own without uncoupling them—and came back to reality.
“I love you, Marged Evans,” he said, wrapping his arms and the edges of the blankets over her. When Rebecca dropped permanently out of her life—as he must if he did not first get her with child—he wanted her to be able to look back and believe that he really had loved her. And if she ever discovered the truth, he wanted her to know that Geraint Penderyn had not only betrayed her, but had loved her too.
“Mmm,” she said.
He allowed himself the luxury of imagining what it would be like to have Marged in his bed each night, falling asleep after his lovemaking. What further compliment could a man be given for his prowess as a lover?
And he remembered where he was. It was in this corner that his mother had placed his bed, or what had passed for a bed, since it was the warmest and the least drafty. His mother had loved him, he thought. For those twelve years, life had been indescribably hard and lonely for her. But he knew—she had told him often enough—that he had been the light of her life, her reason for living. He would be willing to bet that during the six years before her death she would have exchanged the comfort of her cottage and the security of warm clothes and furniture and regular meals and the friendship of people like Mrs. Williams—she would have exchanged them at any time for this hovel and his return.
No, she would not have. Knowing his mother, he could guess that she was happy for him, that she was glad that at last he would be brought up and treated as his father’s son. And she would have understood about the absence of letters. She would have understood that they would not allow him to write to her—just as they must have forbidden her to write to him. She would have known that he loved her, that he never forgot her.
Yes, of course she would have known. How foolish of him ever to have doubted it. How foolish to have dreaded this place, as if he would find here the ghost of an unhappy, disillusioned woman. Her one consolation in her final years would have been the fact that he was being well cared for and that one day he would be the Earl of Wyvern and the owner of Tegfan.