letters on the way to every landowner in the area, myself included.”
Aled nodded. “You have been prompt,” he said.
“It is to be Wednesday night, then, and two gates?” Geraint said. “We must make doubly sure that secrecy is maintained. This push for informers may bear fruit.”
“I doubt it,” Aled said. “You are insulting my countrymen, Ger.”
“And my own.” Geraint grinned briefly. “Aled, Rebecca has coffers of gold.”
His friend looked at him blankly.
“Money has been sent from the coffers to the Penfro gatekeeper and his wife to compensate them for the loss of their home and livelihood,” Geraint said. “The same thing will happen in future. And money has been sent or soon will be to people who are suffering badly from the way the Earl of Wyvern and other landowners treat them. Charlotte will doubtless be asked about it. I mention the existence of the coffers so that your jaw will not hang and make you look stupider than usual.” He grinned again.
“Is it necessary, Ger?” Aled frowned. “None of the committee will be able to contribute.”
“I have not asked for help,” Geraint said. “They are the coffers of Rebecca and I am Rebecca. I must go, or anyone who is timing me will think I am flaying you alive. Wednesday, then.”
Aled nodded curtly.
Marged was doing another backbreaking round of the field that would be sown to wheat soon. She had ignored some of the smaller stones during the first round, convincing herself that they were too small to matter. But with the larger stones gone, the smaller ones had suddenly looked bigger themselves and they had stared accusingly at her every time she was busy about something else in the farmyard.
So she was picking stones again. She had been at it since early in the morning. By early afternoon she was feeling hot and stiff and dirty. Dirt was encrusted under her fingernails, she saw with distaste. And the soil of the field must be on her face, rubbed there by the back of her hand, with which she frequently and ineffectually pushed back tendrils of hair that had worked themselves loose from her bun.
There was going to be a bath tonight despite the inconvenience of hauling and heating all that water. And clean clothes. And relaxation before the fire until bedtime. But tonight seemed a whole era away. She straightened up to look across the field, trying to convince herself that she was halfway.
And then she turned her head sharply toward the yard. Her nostrils flared. He looked so immaculate that she wondered if he did anything else at home but soak in a tub of hot water and send down his clothes for laundering and ironing. And of course he had just the sort of short curly hair that hardly moved in the wind. He probably did not know what sweat felt like. Or soil—though he had felt it constantly many years ago beneath his bare feet.
He was standing by the gate into the field, watching her. There were two other women on this farm. If this was a social call, he might have knocked on the door of the house and entertained himself with Mam’s conversation and Gran’s for however long he had decided to favor them with his company. But oh, no, it was she he had to take from her work.
She rubbed her hands hard up and down her dirty apron and strode toward him. She could not have felt dirtier or scruffier or uglier if she had tried, she thought. And with every stride her anger mounted because it mattered to her that he was seeing her this way. It did not matter. She did not care how he saw her or what he thought of her.
“What on earth are you doing?” he asked in that hateful cultured English voice.
“You have caught me playing instead of working,” she said tartly. “I am picking stones off the field when I could be doing some real work like feeding Nellie. What does it look as if I am doing?”
“Marged,” he said, “this is man’s work.”
“Oh, of course.” She smote her forehead with the heel of one hand. “How foolish of me. I shall go to the house without further delay and call out all the men who are sleeping in there or in the barn.”
He stared at her with his cold blue eyes and impassive face. She did not care what he thought of her insolence or what he would do about it. And then