his dependents. He had made life hard for them, unnecessarily hard. He never behaved hastily. His education and training had taught him that every coin has two sides and that both must be examined with care before one commented on the whole coin. But he would make changes, he was sure of it. He could not imagine finding any reason why he should not. Tegfan was a very prosperous estate. And even if it were not, he was a very wealthy man.
“You have denied me my freedom to walk alone,” she said.
“We were friends,” he said. “You and Aled were my only friends.”
And yet how could he expect either of them to be his friends now? The improbability of it struck him fully even as he spoke. Another thing his training had taught him was that one could expect friendship only from people of one’s own station, and sometimes not even from them. There were still men—mostly men he had known at school—who despised his background even though his birth and lineage were impeccable. Though not quite, he supposed. His mother had been a commoner, a mere governess, even if she had been his father’s legitimate wife.
“That was a lifetime ago,” she said. “Longer even than that.”
“It was what happened when I came home?” he asked. “You cannot forgive me for the liberties I tried to take? You were a very desirable girl, Marged.”
She laughed, though she did not sound amused. She was matching him stride for stride along the path, he noticed.
“It was a long time ago,” he said. “Ten years.”
“Yes,” she said. “Ten years. Another lifetime.”
“Your singing voice has matured,” he said, changing the subject. “It is even lovelier than it used to be. You are even lovelier than you used to be.”
He was not quite sure what he was trying to accomplish. Perhaps he was trying to make her soften, to make her smile, to make her show pleasure in a compliment. But he knew he was being clumsy. He was not usually clumsy with women. Perhaps because he did not usually feel awkward or on the defensive with women.
She stopped walking and turned to him, her back straight, her head thrown back, her face tense with anger.
“What is it that you want?” she asked. “But I need not ask, need I? You think to get from me what you almost got but did not quite get last time you were here? Perhaps if I smile nicely enough it will not even be on the hard ground in the hills as it was then. Perhaps it will be in the earl’s feather bed in the earl’s grand bedchamber. Or am I being foolish? Whores do not merit being taken to the earl’s bed, do they? You will not find whores for your pleasure in this part of the world, my lord. You should have stayed in England for that.”
He reacted instinctively. He held himself erect and stared at her coldly. “Have a care, Marged,” he said, his voice quiet and under rigid control, “and remember to whom you speak.”
But she was not to be cowed. “Oh, I do not forget,” she said, her voice a passionate contrast to his own. “I do not forget who you are, my lord. Murderer!” She turned with a swish of her skirts and started up the path toward Ty-Gwyn and the hills.
He did not pursue her farther. He stood looking after her, startled and frowning. Murderer? She might have called him a number of derogatory things with some justification, but he had certainly not expected that. It sounded very dramatic, but it had no meaning. She was obviously very angry over something, though, and there was no point in following her. There was no chance of holding a rational conversation with her in her present mood.
He turned around and stood staring down into the water of the river for several minutes. Marged had always been one to espouse a cause, especially when it was more someone else’s cause than her own. She was probably angry over the way he was squeezing every last penny out of his people, herself included. He could hardly blame her. And he would not use ignorance as an excuse, even to himself.
He would change a few things after a little more careful investigation, and then perhaps he would redeem himself somewhat in her eyes.
He wanted to redeem himself, he thought. Especially in Marged’s eyes. He had had mistresses and flirts in the past ten years. Twice