Page 81 of The Ladies Least Likely
“We’ll deal with that in a minute.” Pen withdrew his pocket watch and regarded it. “It’s been two weeks, aye? Time enough to age that special batch of St. Sefin’s brew I made. And longenough to season our mixtures, wouldn’t you say, Evans?” At the other man’s nod, Pen snapped his watch shut and tucked it back in his pocket.
“Very well. Let’s have a fine dinner and I’ll tell you what I plan to do with the Black Hound. And then, Gwenllian ap Ewyas,” and he pulled her close against him, where he no longer felt the constant hollow ache, and with her beside him might never feel such again. “We will discuss posting the banns.”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
“Laverbread,” Pen said to Ross, breaking off a piece and handing it to him. “Gwen’s specialty.”
“Seaweed?” Ross poked at it doubtfully.
Pen caught Gwen’s eyes as they sat around the large refectory table. “Saes,” he said, shaking his head. His smile sent warmth channeling through her.
“I’m a Scotsman born and bred, and you ken that, sir,” Ross said with reproach in his tone. Down the table, with Mother Morris on one side of her and Widow Jones on the other, Mathry giggled.
Pen had persuaded Sir Robert to dismiss the charges against them. Pen meant to sell St. Sefin’s to Dovey. Not her. Dovey. Gwen’s heart pinched with a kind of hopeful agony she didn’t know how to decipher.
He didn’t want to marry that other girl. Despite the strenuous objections of his stepmother, he said he wanted to marry Gwen. Lydia and Prunella sat a bit apart at one of the long tables, and Lydia’s face said what she thought of the simple fare. She’d wanted to find a decent inn in town, or go back to Bristol that evening, but Pen said he was otherwise occupied and couldnot take her, so she and sweet, languid Prunella were obliged to lodge at St. Sefin’s for the night.
She’d never get on with them. She’d never survive in Pen’s world. Better to stay here, the world she knew, and ask him to visit now and again, to breathe life into her.
“I do wish you’d let the authorities deal with the Black Hound.” Gwen heaped another helping of steamed cockles on Pen’s plate.
“That’s the thing. I spoke to all the authorities, including Sir Robert Salusbury.” Pen cracked open a shell with relish. “No one dares try to bring him to trial. They’re all too glad to let me address his crimes in any manner I see fit.”
“You know Sir Robert?” She handed the platter down the table to Dovey, who sat with Cerys and the boys, having their own giggled conversation. Evans sat across from Dovey, blushing every time he looked at her. Gwen tore her gaze away.
“Robert studied under my Uncle Broderick at Lincoln’s Inn,” Pen said, splashing vinegar onto his cockles. “Uncle gave a good report of him, far as I could decipher. Second Price sons are supposed to study law, you know, not buy an officer’s commission.”
“I—I suppose I didn’t realize there are more of you.” But Lydia had spoken of the family. When she’d kept Pen at St. Sefin’s, she’d thought she was doing no worse than keep an idle shag-bag from fondling maids and drinking too much grog. She hadn’t thought a moment about women who depended on him for their livelihood, about aunts and uncles and cousins.
How could he ever trust her after such a deceit? How could his family ever let her in?
He’d only come up with that daft claim of a betrothal to rout Vaughn and his suit, and perhaps get out of marrying the other young lady his stepmother had selected for his bride. She couldn’t hold him to it. Although as she watched him sitting atthe table, as easy as a lord as when he’d been simply Pen, she wished with a high, wild longing that shecouldmake this man hers in the eyes of the world. He was imprinted on her heart, so why couldn’t she claim and keep him?
“There are any number of uncles and cousins and nephews and second cousins waiting to see what might finish me off.” Pen carefully cut a truffle and gave her half. She rolled the morsel over her tongue, delighting in the rich, complicated taste. Much like Pen. “I’d love to tweak their noses by producing a brace of heirs. Maybe a round dozen of them.”
She swallowed the truffle past a suddenly thick throat. He had to know she was barren. Barren women had no right marrying men who were expected to pass along titles and estates.
“Sir Robert knew all along you were the owner of St. Sefin’s? I would have wagered his surprise was real when you appeared.”
He poured himself a small dose of small beer, the beer she’d made earlier. A lord of the realm, sitting at a table with paupers, drinking small beer.
“I approached Sir Robert about a week ago for his advice, and he warned me I was unlikely to find a second plaintiff to lodge a complaint against the Black Hound. People seem notoriously unwilling to accuse the man of anything, possibly because they usually hire him to cover up some peccadillo they don’t want known. With just the testimony of two former convicts, Robert didn’t think I had evidence enough to make up a formal complaint of my own. Though he said he wished I did, since the only interesting case he had coming up was a woman supposedly running a disorderly house in an old convent.”
Gwen’s stomach shifted, and she looked down at her plate. “You’re wondering why I didn’t notify you myself. Since it was your property I had brought into ill repute.”
“And since I am a landowner of some stature in this area, even if the Morgans own more acres than I do,” Pen said gently. She couldn’t meet his eyes. “Iamone of the authorities around here, as it turns out. But I was hoping you would come to me.”
Her eyes stung. How could she ask anything of him, after the way she’d betrayed him? How could he forgive her so easily?
His voice dropped to a low murmur, and he moved his hand to cover hers, which trembled. “I won’t hurt you like he did, Gwen.”
She couldn’t tell him this wasn’t about Daron Sutton. That man had no hold on her. No, what lay between them was her lies, what she’d become. He couldn’t lift her up with a silk gown and a diamond necklace; she’d always be what she was. She couldn’t hope for such wild happiness as a future with Pen.
Besides, she was needed here. She’d built St. Sefin’s with her bare hands. Even if it were safe under Dovey’s ownership, Dovey still needed her help.
There was a Cymric word for the ache that pierced her:hiraeth,that longing for something beautiful and lost. It built in her as she listened to Pen’s laugh, the deep timber of his voice, that sweetest of music. It built as he rubbed a hand over her back and the calluses on his fingers, gained from honest labor, snagged in her hair. It built as his heat wrapped around her, feeding an inner fire, one that was going to burn her to ash. He had pierced his way into her heart, this scarred, shattered man who was putting himself back together, and the loss of him was going to break her forever.
“I have to—pick some wormwood. And make up the beds.” She bolted as the meal drew to an end. She would let Dovey and Widow Jones clean up while she busied herself making up the best rooms she could find for their guests.
