through his mouth. She stared woodenly downward at the floor.
“There has been a dreadful mistake,” Matthew said. “And I am not surprised she has said nothing. She belongs to the chapel here, you know, and it would be considered sin enough to have her expelled and driven up the mountain.”
He knows about Aled, Ceris thought desperately. She looked up fleetingly to see the earl raise haughty eyebrows.
“Ceris and I got engaged yesterday,” Matthew said. He sounded almost embarrassed. “We went walking last night. We went quite a distance across the hills. And then we got to kissing and then to other things and”—he laughed—“well, I suppose I tried to go too far and she took fright. She went running off, and before I could catch up to her to apologize, we got all caught up in whatever was going on down on the road. Suddenly there were black-faced men fleeing to all sides of me and Ceris was down on the road. And then a rider in dark women’s clothes snatched her up and made off with her. I have been worried silly. That was why I sent this gatekeeper over to you, Sir Hector, instead of dealing with the matter myself. I am sorry. I neglected my duty.”
“It is my duty to be up and dealing with such matters,” the earl said.
“Ceris?” Matthew came into her line of vision. “Are you all right? Oh, please let them untie her hands, sir. She has been an innocent victim. Did you recognize him, love? Or anyone else? And what did he do with you? If he—”
“I did not recognize him,” she said, looking down rather than into his eyes. She did not know quite what was going on. “He dropped me from the horse’s back when, I suppose, he thought he was safe from pursuit.”
“Thank God.” Matthew drew a ragged breath.
They believed him. She did not really listen to all that was said over the next few minutes, but they believed him. Her hands were released and were soon so painful with the pins and needles of returning circulation that she had something to concentrate on.
“I’ll take you home, Ceris,” Matthew said, setting an arm loosely about her shoulders. “If you can trust me after last night, that is.”
Never did words have more of a double meaning, Ceris thought.
Chapter 23
IDRIS had told her. He had come darting into the farmyard while she was there with his father, talking over with him what his duties were to be. Idris had told both of them.
“They have come for Miss Williams,” he had gasped out. “They have dragged her down to Tegfan with her hands tied behind her back.”
No longer than five minutes later—she paused only long enough to run into the house to remove her apron and grab her shawl—she was striding from the farmyard and through the gate and down the hill. She did not even listen as she passed Idris trying to persuade his father that it would be all right, that the Earl of Wyvern would not do anything dreadful to Miss Williams.
Ceris had been recognized. Foolish woman. She had gone running out onto the open road without any attempt at disguise. Those two men who had shot at her and Aled must have seen and recognized her. That particular gatekeeper—if he was one of those two men—had used to live in Glynderi. She had been recognized and it had been assumed that she was part of the crowd that had destroyed the gate. And now she had been arrested.
But what had she been doing down on that road? Marged had had no chance to run down to the Williams farm during the morning. She had half expected that Ceris would come up to Ty-Gwyn.
Marged quickened her pace so that she was half running by the time she neared the bottom of the hill and turned in the direction of Glynderi and the gates into Tegfan park beyond it. Ceris was the one who had been caught and dragged off to Tegfan with her hands bound. How ironic. Ceris, who was so adamant in her disapproval of the Rebecca Riots that she had broken off her relationship with Aled and almost destroyed her friendship with Marged.
Ceris had been caught.
Marged felt sick over the fact that she had been so very happy this morning. He loved her. Rebecca loved her. They had made love three times in the hovel on the moors before he had brought her home. She had been