than Rebecca? “My husband died in the hulks while being transported to Van Diemen’s Land. He had been sentenced to seven years for trying to destroy the salmon weir at Tegfan. The Earl of Wyvern never even lives there.”
“I have heard he is in residence now,” he said.
“Yes.” She could hear the bitterness in her voice. “But I wish he had stayed away. His coming has brought it all back fresh again. I used to know him when we were children. We used to—play together. I thought to appeal to that old friendship after my husband was sentenced. I wrote to him—twice. But he did not help. He did not even answer my letters.”
For a moment she felt his cheek against the top of her head, but he did not keep it there. “I am sorry,” he said softly. “It must have been a dreadfully painful time for you.”
She swallowed but did not answer. This was not good for her, this being cradled by a man’s arm, her head on his shoulder, feeling his sympathy. It was not good at all.
“Who are you?” she asked him.
He chuckled. “I am Rebecca, Marged,” he said.
“But who is the man behind the mask?” He was someone she had never met. She knew that. But he was someone she would like to meet. She would like to see him in his everyday clothes. Was his physique as magnificent as it felt through the robes? Was his face handsome? What color was his hair? “Where are you from?”
“There is nothing behind the mask,” he said. “There is only what you see. And I come from the hills and the valleys and the rivers and the clouds of Carmarthenshire.”
She smiled rather ruefully. “You wish to keep your identity a secret,” she said. “That is understandable. I should not have asked. But I would not betray you, you know. I admire what you did tonight and the way you did it more than I can say. I will follow you in the coming nights as often as you call us out.”
“That is high praise indeed,” he said.
They were moving downhill. It would have been easy for her to sit upright again. But his arm held her to him, and she did not struggle against it.
They lapsed into silence. But she was not embarrassed by it. Her initial fear at his closeness and at her precarious position on the horse’s back had passed. They were alone in the dark hills, but she was not afraid of him. Leaning against him, no longer looking at his disguise, she could feel that he was only a man. And he was a man she trusted. He was Rebecca.
And yet other feelings came gradually to replace the fear. An awareness of him as a man. An awareness of the fact that she was cradled against the chest of a stranger, her head on his shoulder, his arm about her waist, his inner thigh pressed against her knees. And that they were alone together in the hills on a dark night.
But still there was no fear and no embarrassment. Only a guilty enjoyment. It had been so long. Until recently she had felt guilty about thinking of other men, wanting other men. She had felt disloyal to Eurwyn. She had felt still married to him. But lately she had admitted to herself that he was dead, that her loyalty to him while he lived had been total, but that she still had a life to live. She had started to feel her emptiness, her need of a man. And yet she had been unable to feel interest in any of the men who had signaled that they might be interested in her.
She had a mental image suddenly of a man standing in darkness before her, his back to the doorway of Ty-Gwyn. Of that man taking both her hands in his and raising them one at a time to kiss the palms. And of the shameful way she had wanted him. Shameful because she hated him. She shivered and pressed her head harder into Rebecca’s shoulder.
“You are cold?” his voice asked against her ear.
“No.” She shook her head slightly. “Am I taking you very far out of your way?” But she knew she was. They had walked for miles earlier before they came up with him.
“No,” he said, but she knew he lied.
They were silent again. And she closed her eyes and frankly enjoyed her closeness to him. And the feel of him,