“Thank you,” he said. “I should like that.” He touched his hat to her and continued on his way.
She was left feeling breathless and almost panic-stricken. What had she just started? She was not at all sure she even liked him. She felt almost repelled when she imagined him touching her—or kissing her. But that was only because for years she had thought of no man that way but Aled. It felt like being unfaithful to invite another man to tea, to suggest walking out with another man. And that was ridiculous.
Besides, he was only coming for tea and a little walk. There was nothing in that.
For two days after his arrival at Tegfan, his large Welsh Carmarthenshire estate, Geraint Penderyn, Earl of Wyvern, did not venture beyond the house and park. It felt strange to be back.
He had other estates in England and other grander houses, including the one in London. And yet this one felt strangely large and empty despite the presence of servants. He should perhaps have brought some friends down with him. He had not thought of it at the time.
Of course, the house really was unfamiliar to him. He had lived in it for only a few weeks at the age of twelve before being packed off to England and the waking nightmare that had faced him there. Tegfan had been bewildering and intimidating. His grandfather had been terrifying. His mother had been absent. He had not been allowed to see her. Despite his twelve years and despite the fact that he had been a bold urchin from infancy, he had begged and pleaded for her. And cried for her.
They had been as hard as nails, his grandfather and the servants appointed to look after him for those few weeks.
And he had lived in this house for three weeks at the time of his mother’s funeral. Three weeks before fleeing back to London and vowing never to return, a bewildered boy caught between two worlds. And in love for the first time—and the only time—and gauche and foolish. And very unhappy.
During those two days of rain and heavy clouds, he stood a great deal at the window of his bedchamber, gazing broodingly out over the rolling land of the park and across the distant river, or wandered about the house, or paced through the stables, or strode over soggy grass and among dripping trees. Wishing he had not come. Wondering why that snippet of a conversation between strangers had impelled him to such uncharacteristically impulsive behavior. Wanting to go beyond the park. Wanting to return to London and the familiarity of his life there without further ado.
On the third day he rode over to Pantnewydd, the neighboring estate, smaller than his own, its lands less prosperous, its house less grand. Sir Hector Webb lived there with his wife, Geraint’s aunt, his father’s sister. They had not met many times. There was no closeness between them. Understandably, he supposed. Tegfan was unentailed. For twelve years after the death of her brother, Lady Stella had fully expected that the estate would be willed to her and her husband.
And then Geraint had stepped suddenly and unwillingly between them and their expectations.
He was given a correct, if somewhat frosty welcome. He was regaled over tea with an account of the shameful goings-on at a neighbor’s estate a few nights before, when a mob had burned down Mitchell’s hayricks merely because his bailiff had been seizing goods in lieu of unpaid tithes among the farmers there.
“As if it were the right of every man, woman, and child to refuse to pay lawful taxes on the grounds that they cannot afford them,” Lady Stella said. “I have always said this is a barbaric country in which to live.”
“Before we know it, we will be back to the Rebecca Riots of thirty-nine,” Sir Hector said. “The leaders of that should not have been left with the impression that they had won. They should have been hunted down and hanged, or transported for life at the very least.”
“They won?” Geraint asked politely.
“Three new tollgates there were,” Sir Hector explained. “All erected to catch the farmers hauling lime from the kilns and evading other gates. The mob pulled down all three, the one at Efailwen several times when the trust kept replacing it. Eventually the trust took all three gates away and no more was said. It was a fatal show of weakness, as I said at the time.”
“At least with Jones and Tegid you do not have to worry about trouble on your land, Wyvern,” Lady Stella said grudgingly. “They have never stood for any nonsense and all your people know it.”
Bryn Jones was his bailiff, Geraint knew. He had met the man just that morning and not much liked him. Huw Tegid had used to work with his grandfather’s gamekeeper and was quite possibly the gamekeeper himself now. Geraint knew precious little about his Welsh estate. He had always deliberately avoided knowing anything about it, although he had been at pains to learn everything there was to be learned about his other estates.
“I appointed Harley as my steward at Tegfan because he was the best man available,” Geraint said. “I have never had cause to question his running of the estate.” Almost the only thing Geraint knew about Tegfan was that it was prosperous.
“You would do well to leave everything in his hands even if you plan a lengthy stay,” Sir Hector said. “He is a good man.”
“And after all,” Lady Stella added, an edge of malice to her voice, “you were not educated to run an estate, Wyvern.”
It was not strictly true. His education from the age of twelve on had been devoted to little else. What his aunt meant, of course, was that he had not been raised from birth to run an estate. Geraint inclined his head, rose to take his leave, and did not dignify her remark with an answer.
It was the fourth day before he ventured beyond the park to the village and the farms. He felt strangely reluctant to meet people he might or might not know. Almost shy. He wondered how many he would remember. He wondered how many would remember him. Though he could not expect that they would have forgotten him, he supposed ruefully. His was the sort of story on which local mythology could be expected to thrive for a century or more.
He went first to call on the Reverend Llwyd—the Anglican vicar had already waited on him at Tegfan. It seemed the courteous thing to do, to call first on the nonconformist minister, whose chapel most of the villagers had used to attend and probably still did. And it seemed not quite the thing under the circumstances to hold a grudge.
The Reverend Llwyd looked older and thinner and not as tall or as formidable as he had used to appear. He still dressed severely in clerical black. He wore wire spectacles now. Geraint had to admit to himself that he rather enjoyed looking down at the man and receiving his bow and his formal speech of welcome—delivered in English. He rather enjoyed making a stiff acknowledgment of the minister’s greeting and taking the offered seat in the manse parlor. He could remember the time when he had been afraid of the man. The Reverend Llwyd had driven his mother out of the chapel when she had appeared there large with child—with himself. She had already been turned away from Tegfan. It was the Reverend Llwyd and his deacons who had made it impossible for her to live in the village or to get work at any of the farms. It was they who had driven her onto the upland moors.
“It is an honor to have you back in our midst,” the Reverend Llwyd was saying now. He was squeezing his hands together and nodding his head. “Praise the Lord that he brought you safely here. The road offers many perils to the unwary traveler.”