disappointed that he had donned his whole disguise before doing so, but she had understood. For her own safety as well as his, it was important to him to guard his identity. She refused to be hurt by it. She was too happy. He loved her.
But now this. While she had been wandering about the farm this morning, dreamy-eyed and absentminded, and while she had been talking with Waldo Parry, only half her attention on what they were both saying, disaster had been coming to Ceris.
What would they do to her? What would he do to her? Marged had unwilling memories of the nightmare of two years before when Eurwyn had been captured—the trial and conviction, the sentencing, the knowledge that he had been taken away, that he was in the hulks, that . . . She shook her head and hurried on.
She had to stand aside when she was halfway up the driveway to Tegfan for a carriage to pass. She caught a glimpse of Sir Hector Webb of Pantnewydd inside. There were other people with him, but there was no chance to see who they were or even what gender. What if one of them was Ceris being taken off to jail? Marged was already breathless and her legs already felt like jelly, but somehow she stumbled into a run.
She banged the knocker on the front door, not even thinking about going around to the servants’ entrance. And she faced the footman who answered the door and the butler who was in the hall with such fierce determination despite the fact that the latter looked at her as if she were a worm, that she was allowed to step into the hall. The butler went to see if his lordship was at home.
It seemed that his lordship was in the library and that he would see Mrs. Evans there immediately. The butler managed to look expressionless and contemptuous all at the same time. Marged hardly noticed. One sweeping glance about the library when she stepped inside revealed to her two walls lined with books, a high coved ceiling, a large desk strewn with papers, a thick carpet underfoot. But they were details her mind did not dwell upon. Geraint was setting down a quill pen and rising from his chair at the far side of the desk.
“Marged?” he said, his eyebrows raised.
He was immaculate and handsome and she hated him. “Where is she?” she demanded. “What have you done with her?”
Geraint, eyebrows still raised, looked pointedly beyond her shoulder until she heard the door close behind her. “She?” he said, bringing his eyes to hers.
“Where is Ceris Williams?” she demanded.
He came around the desk, though he did not come close to her. He stood with feet apart and hands clasped behind his back. The cool, inflexible aristocrat. “News travels fast in a small community,” he said. “Doubtless you have heard that she was arrested for involvement in the destruction of a tollgate last night.”
Hearing it from his lips suddenly made it all horribly real. Marged feared for a moment that she was going to succumb to panic. She threw back her head and glared at him.
“Ceris?” she said. “A gentler, more timid woman would be impossible to find. Or one more firmly opposed to lawlessness and violence. Someone has made a ghastly mistake.”
“Timid?” he said. “I would say it would be impossible to find a braver lady. She said nothing, Marged. Nothing at all. You do not have to fear that she betrayed all your friends and neighbors. She did not.”
But if Ceris had refused to say anything, they would be incensed. They would try to make her talk. What would they do to accomplish that? There were instant images of torture and rape. She drew a sharp inward breath.
“There was a mistake,” she said. “She was seen on that road, wasn’t she? When she went back down to find a lost h-handkerchief that might have been traced back to her. That was it, wasn’t it? But that was not Ceris. It was me. I was out with Rebecca last night, smashing gates, not Ceris. It was me.”
He looked at her long and hard and she found herself for some absurd reason wondering if Rebecca’s eyes were as blue as Geraint’s, or if they were gray. Perhaps she would never know. Probably she would never know. She was glad suddenly that she did not know Rebecca’s identity. She was not sure how well she would stand up against