smiled kindly at him. He found himself hoarding the few smiles he was favored with. Most of the people he visited were polite and little else. With a few he felt hostility bristling just behind the politeness.
It seemed that the past few years had not been kind to farmers. There had been more rain than usual and damage had been done to the crops. Market prices were down for almost all farm products. A few farmers stated, as Marged had done, that they were carrying fewer livestock than formerly. Clearly no one was prospering. Geraint felt rather ashamed that he had avoided learning anything about his estate in Tegfan. He had appointed the best steward he could find to look after it for him and had closed his mind to a place and a past he preferred not to remember. But he should at least have read reports from Tegfan. He should at least have known that his farmers were struggling. He could hardly blame them for showing some resentment at his appearing suddenly, well-dressed and clearly not suffering financially at all.
Also he had grown past his na?veté of ten years before. Ten years ago he had expected to come home to find everyone rejoicing in his good fortune. It was rather like a fairy tale for the discovery to be made twelve years after the birth of a penniless waif that he was the legitimate heir to an earldom and three vast estates—although his mother, of course, had always told him to hold his head high as she held hers because she had been married to his father, the earl’s son, before he had been killed, though she had no proof and no one would believe her. In fairy tales everyone always rejoiced at the reversed fortunes of the Cinderella-type characters. But he knew now that it was not so in real life. He knew that his people must resent him just because of who he was.
He was going to have to stay in Tegfan, he thought reluctantly as the days passed. He thought of spring approaching in London, bringing the Season and all the giddy round of social activities with it. But he would have to let it proceed without him this year. He was going to have to stay to convince his people that he was not the enemy, that he did not look down upon them with smug satisfaction because he had now been elevated above them. He was going to have to find out about his property and the true state of his farms. It would not be difficult to do. He was very knowledgeable about his other estates and had a reputation as a fair and approachable master, he believed. He had real friends among his English tenant farmers.
He was going to have to stay.
Of course, there were people he had still not called upon at the end of those few days of intensive visits. One of them was Aled Rhoslyn. Geraint had felt reluctant to renew his acquaintance with his former friend and partner in crime. But if he was to stay for longer than a mere week or so, then the encounter could not be avoided forever.
Finally one afternoon he walked to the village and stepped inside the blacksmith’s forge. He had heard a hammer ringing on the anvil from well down the street. The sound was almost deafening once he was inside. Aled had his back to the door. He was hammering out what looked to be a metal wheel rim. A boy at his side, apparently a young apprentice, drew his attention to the customer and faded nervously into the background.
Aled had not changed a great deal. He certainly had not shrunk in size. He was still only two or three inches taller than Geraint, but he was broader, with the powerful arms and shoulders necessary to his trade. He still had rather too much fair hair on his head and hazel eyes that seemed always to be smiling. His face was still good-humored and good-looking.
Geraint observed him as he glanced over his shoulder and then set down his hammer and straightened up and turned slowly, wiping his hands down his large leather apron as he did so. It was obvious from his expression and his whole manner that he was as reluctant for this meeting as Geraint. There was no noticeable hostility in his eyes, but there was a wariness there, a certain embarrassment.