“My lord,” she said, “would you care to step into the kitchen and take a cup of tea with us?”
Why did she hate him so much? he wondered. Could a boy’s fumbled attempts at seduction have made her so angry even ten years later? Or was it merely the fact that he was now wealthy and she was not? The possibility that Marged of all people could be so mean-minded annoyed him. He inclined his head curtly.
“Thank you,” he said.
For a few moments longer she stared into his eyes, unconcealed resentment and hostility in her own. And for those same moments he stared back, angry himself, on the verge of asking her straight out what he had done to offend her. But he had learned years and years ago, perhaps from his birth, but certainly from his twelfth year, not to open himself deliberately to disappointment or hurt or rejection. He recognized danger with Marged and closed himself off against it.
And then she turned and strode off back down the passageway to the low doorway leading into the kitchen of the house. He followed her and found himself standing on the flagstones of the kitchen floor, turning toward the large open fireplace. Sitting in the inglenook beside the fire was an elderly woman, whom he could not remember seeing before. She was nodding her head, presumably in acknowledgment of his appearance. In front of the fire, the Mrs. Evans he remembered—Madoc Evans’s wife—was bobbing a curtsy and directing her flustered gaze at his feet.
He inclined his head to them both and bade them a good morning.
“His lordship is doing us the honor of taking a cup of tea with us, Mam, Gran,” Marged said, still speaking in English. “Do take a seat, my lord.” She motioned him toward a bare wooden settle close to the fire and turned toward the dresser to lift down cups and saucers.
Geraint sat.
Chapter 4
SHE was furious with herself. She had been proud of the way she had been able to mingle contempt and courtesy and of the impersonality of her manner. She had been delighted to sense that he understood but did not know quite what to do about it.
And then he had startled her by taking her hands in his and turning them palm up and looking down at the calluses. Her first reaction had been horror and shame. Until she married Eurwyn she had always taken pains to dress and behave as much like a lady as she knew how. She had read as widely as she was able and had learned several accomplishments. She had thought that perhaps she would try to persuade the old earl or his steward to open a school so that she could teach the children from the farms and village. But she had been flattered by Eurwyn’s attentions and offer of marriage and had accepted. He was a man she had admired. Most of the calluses had come after his death, though she had worked hard even before that.
She wore her calluses with pride. And yet her first reaction to the knowledge that he was looking down at them was shame and embarrassment. Shame that she had to work hard for a living. Embarrassment that she did not look like a lady.
Her second reaction had been one of acute physical awareness. An awareness of the warmth and strength of his hands against the back of hers. An awareness of his closeness. He really was taller than he had been ten years before. And broader. And he smelled—expensive. She had looked up into his face and he had raised his own eyes almost at the same moment. He had always had the bluest eyes she had ever seen.
When he had spoken, she had managed somehow to think of a fittingly cutting reply. But in reality she had been mesmerized by his eyes and then acutely aware of the fact that their gaze had dropped to her mouth. For a moment she had felt as if her heart would beat its way right through her bosom and be exposed to view. She had thought he was going to kiss her. But she had done nothing to try to prevent its happening.
And then he had released her hands. But not before he must have felt her tremble. She knew he must have felt it. His grip had tightened.
She was furious with herself. Furious that she had felt shame. Furious that she had felt and responded to the pull of his masculinity.
He was the reason there was no pig but Nellie on the farm. He was the reason there were only five cows left and their calves. And only a few chickens. And fewer sheep than there had ever been before. And no new clothes for almost two years now. He was the reason she could not hire a man to do the heavy work on the farm. She did not know if she would even be able to afford someone at harvesting time. He was the reason Eurwyn was not here to do the heavy work himself.
And yet she was one of the fortunate ones. Somehow they were still here at the farm and still functioning, she and Mam and Gran. Some people were not still on their farms. The Parrys, for example, driven out finally by the newest raise in the rents, living up on the moors, hoping somehow to pick up enough casual work that they could avoid the dreaded and final move to the workhouse. And there were plenty more living on the brink, in debt, unable to absorb even one more small raise in the rent or one more poor harvest or fall in market prices.
Geraint Penderyn was responsible for it all. And yet she had felt shame to have him see her ruined hands. And she had been attracted to his male splendor.
She spread a cloth on the kitchen table and set out cups and saucers while her mother-in-law poured boiling water into the teapot and set the cozy over it so that the tea would steep. Marged made no attempt to make conversation, though she could feel the tension while Geraint asked politely, in that very cultured English accent of his, after the health of the other two women and they answered in monosyllables. She enjoyed his discomfort, though he kept talking. Gentlemen, of course, were trained to converse even when there was nothing whatsoever to say.
She did not glance at him. And yet she was aware that he looked all about the kitchen—at the open fire with the bread oven in the chimneypiece beside it and the large pot and kettle suspended by chains over it; at the plain table with its simple wooden benches; at the dresser and the cupboard bed in which she had slept with Eurwyn and now slept alone; at the door into the combined parlor and bedroom, where the other two women slept; at the spinning wheel, which occupied her during the evenings when there was no other work to do; at the harp.
She knew that his eyes lingered on her harp. She had used to play it even as a child. She had sneaked Geraint into the manse one day when her father was out visiting and had played and sung for him. She could remember now her amazement at his rapt expression and at his insistence that she play and sing over and over to him. She had sneaked him in often after that, just as he had sneaked her onto the forbidden territory of Tegfan park, confident that he knew where all the gamekeeper’s traps were set and could take her on a safe path. She had taught him to sing with her. He had had a pure and sweet soprano voice.
“Do you still play, Marged?” he asked now, bringing her eyes to his at last.
She picked up the teapot, though her mother-in-law had been about to do so, and began to pour the tea. “When I have the time,” she said. “Not often.” She concentrated on keeping her hands steady and cursed herself because the effort was necessary.
“Oh, but she do play lovely, our Marged,” old Mrs. Evans said from her seat in the inglenook. “And she sings like an angel.”
Gran did not do much these days except rock in her chair and gaze into the fire. She did not even knit now, her fingers having become too bent and too stiff.
“Then I must hear her,” he said, meeting her eyes as she handed him his cup and saucer. His own were as cold as ever and yet there was something in them that hinted at a challenge. “Sometime.”