strong and broad-shouldered. And the smell of him. He smelled—clean. And the knowledge that he was someone worthy of her respect and loyalty. She enjoyed the pleasant desire he aroused in her. He made her feel that she was back in the land of the living. He made her aware again of her femininity. He made her know that one day she would really desire and really love again.
It seemed a strange end to a night that had been devoted to violence and hatred.
Guilt and pleasure warred within him. She really did not know who he was. She did not even suspect. He could tell from the way she snuggled against him, all her weight resting sideways against his chest, her head nestled on his shoulder, that she trusted him utterly. It was foolhardy. She was alone in the middle of the night with an apparent stranger and trusted him to do her no harm.
And yet it was no man she trusted, he knew. It was Rebecca. She admired and respected and trusted him because he was Rebecca. He had told her there was nothing behind the mask. He had lied more than she realized.
He remembered suddenly the way she had leaned away from him, revulsion in her face, when he had reached for her that night the horses had been let out and she had been telling him about the letters she had sent him pleading for her husband. Don’t touch me! she had told him.
He should have left her to walk home with the Glynderi contingent.
But he had not done so and now he was committed to taking her all the way home. He would not do it again. Indeed, he would persuade her before letting her down not to join any of the Rebecca Riots in future. He would command her as Rebecca not to come. It was just this one time, then. And they must be more than halfway home already.
And because it was just this one time and because they were more than halfway home, he allowed himself to enjoy her closeness. It had been so long. And no one would ever convince him that young love was ridiculous and of no account. He had bedded his share of women and considered others as a wife, but he had never loved any of them as he had loved Marged. He had never suffered the pain of loss with any of them as he had suffered it with her.
He had loved her. And though he had not thought of her constantly or even often during the past ten years, he had thought of her occasionally and always with a pang of nostalgia and regret for the gaucheness that had killed his chances with her. It was partly Marged who had made him resolve never to return to Tegfan and never to know what was happening there.
And now he held her in his arms again, and like a dream, she rested against him, relaxed and trusting. Although he was no longer a young boy with a young boy’s foolishness, he knew that in the future he would continue to remember her occasionally and that when he did, it would be tonight he would remember.
And then landmarks began to look familiar as they loomed out of the darkness. They were almost home. He felt both relief and regret. Relief because enjoyment was beginning to turn to active desire. Regret because he knew there would never again be a night like this one.
He skirted past both the village and the park. He almost made the mistake of turning up into the hills toward Ty-Gwyn. He caught himself in time.
“We have just passed Glynderi,” he said. “You must direct me from here, Marged.”
She turned her head to look about her, and he realized that she must have had her eyes closed.
“Oh,” she said, “it seemed such a short distance coming back.” Perhaps he only imagined that he heard regret in her voice.
He chuckled. “Distances have a tendency to feel shorter when one is on horseback,” he said.
“You must ride often,” she said. “You ride easily. Turn right here up into the hills.”
He turned right and did not comment on what she had said.
“Your mother-in-law will be worried about you?” he asked.
“She does not know I am gone,” she said. “At least, I hope she does not. She had enough worries with my husband. She deserves to live out the rest of her life in peace.”