Page 38 of The Ladies Least Likely
She wouldn’t be so foolish again, coming to his room alone and at night. He could tend his own damn scars. She couldn’t afford to be this upset by him, by what he wanted of her. By what she wanted of him.
For it was more than St. Sefin’s that he held over her. And she couldn’t meet his price.
CHAPTER NINE
Something had happened to Penrydd.
He’d been puzzling her for days, but Gwen put her finger on it the afternoon he burst into the kitchen with Ifor, both coming in for their dinner. They scraped the mud off their boots and Pen announced, sounding quite pleased with himself, “I learned a Welsh word today.”
Gwen, in the middle of steaming herbs for oil, simply stared. His face was turning tanned and healthy, no longer the complexion of the pasty lord who slept all day and caroused all night. His eyes were clear, perceptive, and often glowing with amusement. His hands didn’t shake in the mornings. His hair was growing long, curling over the collar of the borrowed coat.
He met Gwen’s eyes with a cocky smile. “Gafrmeans goat.”
She felt the broad tug of an answering smile cross her face. His delight called up the same warmth within her. “He,” Pen said, turning to gaze at Ifor, “named his goat, Goat.”
Ifor grinned. “He’s a fine goat.”
“Exemplary,” Pen agreed. He picked a burr off the boy’s collar, quite casually, and tossed it aside. “The Platonic ideal of a goat.”
“A plodding what?” Ifor asked.
“Plato,gwashi,” Gwen said without thinking. “An ancient Greek, one of the three fathers of philosophy.”
Pen stared at her as if taken aback that she knew this. Of course, they lived in Wales—how did the Welsh know anything of Western intellectual tradition? Gwen turned back to the stove and busied herself with her steaming apparatus but kept one ear cocked toward the scullery as Pen primed the handpump and washed their hands, explaining Plato’s theory of ideal forms to Ifor. She met Dovey’s expression of wonderment and shrugged, as surprised as she at Pen’s kindness toward the boy.
The day Barlow insulted him, something had switched in Penrydd. He’d gone from antagonistic and sullen to cooperative, almost cheerful, and terribly easy to like. His sarcasm didn’t abate, but his insults did. Instead of holding himself apart, sneering at the ways of St. Sefin’s and all Welsh, he pitched in to do his share. She was surprised at how easily he fell into the rhythms of the place. Into life with them.
What would that mean when he found out what she’d done to him?
“What’s dinner?” She jumped as he appeared at her elbow, clean and smelling like soap. He set off those butterflies in her belly, every time.
“We call them St. Sefin’s sausages. Chopped vegetables bound with egg and old breadcrumbs. We’ve no meat.”
“Time to hire myself out as stable mucker again.” He gathered two plates and carried them into the refectory, placing them on the table where Widow Jones and Mother Morris had set their knitting aside. “Mother, my shoulder says we’ll have rain soon. What say your knees?”
“Ah,bydd, bodes theglaw mistonight.” Mother Morris rubbed her right hip and picked up her knife. “First rain of May. Good for the eyes, and kills the lice on the cattle.”
“May already!” Pen said. “Widow, I would have brought you morels, but Ifor and I have a funny story about that. What do you say again when everything’s gotten cocked up?”
“Cachu hwch!” Mother Morris said gleefully, diving into her dinner.
“It’s all pig’s poo,” Ifor translated, bringing Tomos and their plates to the table to join them. Gwen stared as Pen slid along the bench so the boys could sit on either side of him.
“Cachu hwch!” Tomos chuckled.
“Aye, that describes my mushroom experience, but don’t say that before Mr. Stanley, lad, when we go to clean the bronze tomorrow. He won’t appreciate the sentiment.”
“I want to go.” Cerys, denied a spot next to Pen, claimed the place across from him, burrowing next to Widow Jones. “I want to look for the treasure.”
“Treasure at St. Woolos?” Pen said. “A hair of the saint’s head, or maybe the tip of his ear? I saw St. Alban’s shoulder blade once.” He lowered his knife, his voice changing with surprise. “Though I don’t know where, or how.”
“It’s a real treasure that?—”
“Cerys, little heart,” Dovey said, bringing in a plate piled high with sausages. “Don’t bore Mr. Pen with old legends.” She slapped the plate on the table next to Cerys and then waltzed off with her nose in the air, swishing past Evans and pretending not to see his nod of thanks.
Gwen tsked to herself as she fixed a plate for Mathry. What had Evans done now to offend? But she was more interested in watching Pen, the center of attention at the dinner table, and enjoying the banter with the children.
“St. Sefin’s was wealthy.” Cerys ignored her mother’s warning and assumed an air of self-importance as she explained. “The priory took in travelers and ran businesses, probably weaving and brewing, so say me mam and Miss Gwen. Therewas a poem on the riches of St. Sefin’s someSaeswrote down in his book. There was silver plate and jeweled caskets and a gold chalice they used for the Eucharist, said to be the same one Jesus used at the Last Supper. But when the knights of fat King Henry tromped in to take everything, where was the treasure?” Her green eyes grew wide. “Gone!”
