they had often used to be as children, Geraint usually leading them into some mischief. And yet now there was the yawning gulf between him on one side and her and Aled on the other. And the terrible tension.
“I am free to go?” she asked.
“Why ever would you not be?” the haughty voice of the Earl of Wyvern said from behind her. “Good day to you, Marged.”
She fled, sparing only one hasty look at Aled as she passed. Thank heaven at least that she had been there and had been able to warn him in time against being as foolhardy as she had been.
Why had he pretended not to believe her? she wondered. Why had he let her go? Was he trying somehow to make amends for what he had done—or not done—to Eurwyn? Did he still care?
He took her on the shorter route home, up over the hill at the north end of the park and then across the hills to her father’s farm. He took her by that route in order to avoid having to pass through the village. They walked side by side and in silence until they stopped by unspoken but mutual consent close to the top of the park. Close to the place where they had picnicked and become betrothed the day before.
Her eyes were downcast, her face expressionless. He felt heartsick.
“Ceris,” he said, “did they hurt you?”
“No.” There was almost no sound, but she shook her head.
“You betrayed me,” he said.
She looked up at him then. Her eyes were large and calm, though there was pain in them too. He knew that he ought not to have said that. The betrayal had been mutual, but his had perhaps been worse because he had deliberately set out to trap her.
“And I betrayed you,” he said.
“Yes.” Her gaze was steady and now definitely sad. “Why did you lie for me?”
“Because it was all my fault,” he said. “Because you were not guilty of anything except loyalty to your people. Because I love you.”
She lowered her eyes again.
“Who was he?” he asked.
She shook her head slightly.
“The blacksmith?” The disguise had been impenetrable in the brief glimpse he had had of the man close to—and even then his eyes had been more on Ceris than on the man with whom she rode—but all night he had been haunted by the conviction that it was the blacksmith.
She stared at the ground between them.
“Did you spend the night with him, Ceris?” He knew that she had. He had had to return on foot from that road whereas she had had a ride. The chances were good that she would have been home long before he reached the end of the lane leading to her father’s house. But he had spent the rest of the night watching it, anyway, waiting for her to come home, trying to persuade himself that she was inside, fast asleep all the time. She had returned, walking up from the direction of Glynderi, at dawn.
She said nothing.
“You told me yesterday,” he said, “that you were a virgin. Could the same be said today?”
She looked up at him again. “No, Matthew,” she said softly. “I am sorry. You will want to withdraw the offer you made me yesterday, and I must change my answer. I am sorry.”
“Would you have gone to warn them last night if he had not been with them?” he asked her. He could hear the bitterness in his voice.
“They are my people, Matthew,” she said. “I do not like what they are doing, but they do it in the earnest conviction that it is the only way to protest the intolerable conditions of our lives. I went because they are my people.”
“And because you love him.” He could not leave it alone. “Say it, Ceris. You stayed with him last night. You would not do that for less than love, would you?”
“I am sorry, Matthew.” Her eyes filled with tears. “I should never have said yes to you. I was fond of you and I thought that would be enough. You deserve better.”
She had been fond of him! His hands clenched at his sides.
“You do not need to come farther with me,” she said. “It will be better if I go alone from here.”
He nodded and watched her turn away. And imagined her small, shapely body spread naked beneath the blacksmith’s.
“Ceris,” he called after her. She turned to look back at him. “Tell your lover that I am going to catch him and