Page 2 of The Ladies Least Likely
The priory, once home to an order of Cistercian nuns, had fallen into quiet ruin when Gwen arrived at its door. She and Dovey made the place as habitable as they could, tacking oiled paper in the openings where the medieval church had held arched clerestory windows, filling in the occasional crumbling block with rough plaster. Mr. Barlow regarded the barred opening in the tower as if Gwen had been personally responsible for melting down the bell that had hung there.
“The property may have been, orshouldbe, empty, but I assure you Lord Penrydd holds the deed,” the solicitor said.
“I…ah.” Gwen flailed, her mind swallowed by one thought.Someone owned St. Sefin’s. Someone not her. That meant she was a trespasser. They all were.
Barlow’s gaze turned hawkish. “Have you gained his lordship’s permission to be here? For I have not handled any arrangements for tenancy.”
Lie, instinct shrieked. Gwen hated lying. She had lied once, as a child, and the consequences were devastating.
“You’ll be well, mam,” she’d whispered at the bedside of her mother as she lay, pinched and thrashing, in the grip of childbed fever. “You’ll pull through.”
But she hadn’t. A week later Gwen had stood at the graveside with her silent, stricken father and understood her mother had been taken, and the infant boy with her, because Gwen had lied, and God heard her.
But if a falsehood would keep a roof over the heads of the people she cared about, Gwen would lie till she choked on it. She pulled her lips into a brittle smile.
“Only a lark, Mr. Barlow. I fancy the place, so I give tours now and again for a bit of silver.” She forced out a laugh, a cackle. “No one actuallylivesin this old pile.”
“Mistress Gwenllian!” The vicar strolled toward them over the small green hill that led to the gulch dividing St. Sefin’s from the parish church. Ifor shuffled behind the vicar, his favorite goat, Gafr, on a rope beside him, both their heads hanging low in shame.
The vicar patted the boy’s shoulder. “I’m afraid there’s been an upset again today.”
Gwen swallowed a groan. “What did Gafr eat this time?”
“I’ve given Ifor leave to graze his friends in the churchyard, mind,” the vicar said. “But it seems that visitors to St. Woolos do not look kindly on our local goats munching grass grown on the bones of their dearly departed. Little as the departed may care.”
Barlow stared at the boy’s blind, unfocused eyes with an expression of revulsion. Then he turned a disapproving stare on Gwen.
“Perhaps you might show Gafr to his pen, Ifor,” Gwen suggested. “I fixed the roof.”
Ifor lifted his head. “Did you, Miss Gwen? And without my help even. Well, let’s have a look, Gafr.” He let his crooked staff and the goat guide him along the pebbled path.
“Your son,MissEwyas?” Mr. Barlow inquired.
“Heavens, no,” the vicar said with a friendly smile. “Ifor was left on the porch of St. Woolos years ago. Miss Gwen saved his life when she took him in. She’s saved many a life, if you must know. As much a saint as the good sisters who dwelled here before her, she is.”
Gwen held her breath, waiting for a heavenly pillar of fire to reduce the vicar to smoking ash for that heresy. Or scorch her. But the only heat came from Mr. Barlow’s tight-lipped glare.
“And all of this taking place, I presume, without the Viscount Penrydd’s knowledge or permission, though the property belongs to him.”
“Penrydd? Him with the empty estate near here? That’s grand for the neighborhood if the new lord’s taking up the reins. He’s never set foot in Wales.” The vicar winked at Gwen. “He’s a young one, I hear, and handsome, or least he was before…well, before.”
A salty breeze chilled her skin, and Gwen stripped her shawl from her waist to draw it about her shoulders. More proof to her lie wound its way up Church Street, passing the copse of trees that divided St. Sefin’s from the growing town of Newport. Tomos’s face lit with a placid grin when he spotted Gwen, and he trotted over to slip his hand in hers.
“It won’t do, Miss Gwenllian.” The tanner still wore his leather apron, reeking of chemicals. He wiped a sheen of sweat from his forehead. “I’ve tried, and the missus has tried, but our boy’s as good as a fart in a jam jar when it comes to the trade.”
Gwen tugged Tomos’s hand away as he reached, fascinated, for the solicitor’s beaver hat. “Perhaps we might apprentice him to the hatter?”
The tanner shook his head. “Fact is, he’s too simple for the work, and he wanders off when it takes his fancy. There’s the new lady running the pie shop?—”
“Where Tomos would eat all the pie.” Gwen released a long sigh. “We thank you for your efforts, Mr. Coffin. It’s not been easy, I know.”
She sent the vicar, Mr. Stanley, a hopeful look as Tomos sensed the tension among the group and began to hum and rock on his heels. Mr. Stanley could busy Tomos for hours, polishing brass at the church. But the vicar watched Barlow and his amazed outrage as the front door to St. Sefin’s opened and one body after another spilled outside.
“Saes!” Mother Morris shouted, spying the intruder. “Twll din pob Saes!”
Mr. Stanley, fortunately, did not understand enough Welsh to translate that particular condemnation. Barlow recoiled at her tone if not the insult.
“Now, Mother.” Widow Jones patted the older woman’s hand. “All right, here, our Tomos is back! Shall we go in and look out some biscuits for tea?”
