Truly - Mary Balogh Page 0,144

Not with noisy frivolity but with the singing of the praises of our Lord.”

Incredibly, Geraint saw, everyone gave the minister his or her full attention and all put on their Sunday faces. And yet there was no sense of false piety. Ceris had come back from the manure pile and had joined Aled in the middle of the room. They smiled at each other with warm love and joined hands.

“Let us give them Sanctus in full harmony,” the Reverend Llwyd said. “And think about the words we are singing, if you please. You will start us, Marged.”

Marged hummed a note and without further ado the house was filled with the glorious music in four-part harmony. “Glan geriwbiaid a seraffiaid,” they sang. Geraint joined his tenor voice to the next line. “Fyrdd o gylch yr orsedd fry.”

The room was crowded. Nevertheless there was a space all around him, as if he had some sort of contagious disease that no one wanted to come in contact with. He was going to look suspiciously unlike a partygoer. But someone must have had the same thought—two people actually. Idris moved to his side and gazed worshipfully up at him. Geraint smiled and set a hand lightly on the boy’s head. And then Marged was at his other side, her shoulder almost brushing his arm. He turned his head to look at her, but she was singing and resolutely watching her father, who was rather ostentatiously conducting. If she felt his eyes on her, she did not show it.

The door, which Idris had closed behind him, crashed inward.

Sir Hector Webb, Matthew Harley, and a dozen special constables filled the doorway and the space beyond it until the third and final verse of the hymn came to its glorious conclusion.

“Sanctaidd, sanctaidd, sanctaidd Ior!” everyone sang, clinging to the words and the melody with all the passion of a deep faith and an equally deep love of music. Holy, holy, holy Lord.

Sir Hector and Harley looked about the room with sharp eyes. Harley’s lingered on Ceris and Aled and lowered to their joined hands.

The Reverend Llwyd kept his arms raised to hold the people silent and looked politely at the new arrivals. “Good evening,” he said in heavily accented English. “Ninian, here are more guests for your party.”

“What is going on here?” Sir Hector asked, his frown ferocious.

“We are celebrating as a community the engagement and impending marriage of two members of my congregation,” the minister said. “Ceris Williams and Aled Rhoslyn.”

Harley’s head snapped back, rather as if he had been punched on the chin. He drew back among the constables.

“Aled Rhoslyn!” Sir Hector exclaimed. “Aled Rhoslyn was out with Rebecca tonight, smashing tollgates. He is Rebecca’s chief daughter, the one called Charlotte.”

“I am flattered,” Aled said. “Second only to Rebecca? It sounds like a great honor, sir.”

“And you.” Sir Hector’s arm came up and he pointed accusingly at Geraint. “Rebecca! Traitor! I’ll see you hanged, Wyvern. There will be nothing as soft as transportation for you.”

“Hector.” Geraint clasped his hands behind him and strolled toward the door. “You are making an ass of yourself. Do I understand that Rebecca has been out again tonight and has slipped through the fingers of these constables—again? And that somehow you think Aled and I were involved? Ceris would not have been amused if her betrothed had decided to go gallivanting with a white ghost instead of attending their engagement party. And I had the honor of being invited—Aled and I have been friends since boyhood, you know. You had better go and search elsewhere— unless Ninian would care to invite you to join the party?” He turned his head and raised his eyebrows.

“You would be very welcome, sir,” Ninian Williams said. “And all your men too. There is plenty of food for everyone.”

“Harley,” Sir Hector called over his shoulder, “take the men and search every inch of this farm. And what did you do with Mrs. Phillips, Wyvern? Kill her and hide her body with all the rest of your things?”

“Mrs. Phillips?” Marged sounded startled. “From the Cilcoed tollgate down the road, do you mean? She is spending the evening and night with my gran at Ty-Gwyn. She is lonely out there at the gate and sometimes slips away for a night. She says that no one ever wants to pass through at night anyway. Is she in trouble?”

“No,” Geraint said. “She is elderly. I will have a word with the lessee of the trust on her behalf.” He