Oh, St. Beuno’s bald spot, he was not sporting with her again. Gwen straightened her back as Mathry shot her a narrow look. “Stepping out, are you?”
“I told you I refuse to stay.”
Her hopes plummeted. He hadn’t given them the ghost of a chance. They’d never had one. She pointed her spatula toward the kitchen door and the short hall leading outside. “Hwyl fawr! Godspeed.”
He scowled. “I have no reason to stay here.”
“That you don’t.” Gwen turned to the griddle.
“You can’t keep me a hostage.”
“Nor should we wish to.”
“But to go out on your own like that, sir? We’ll take care of you,” Mathry cooed.
Gwen looked up in time to see Pen’s flat expression change to interest. “Just what are you offering?”
“Mathry,” Gwen said, “serve the tea. Here’s turmeric for Mother Morris’s gripe.”
“Saes!” Mother Morris shouted from the refectory, leaning forward to peer through the servery door. “Twll din pob Saes!”
“What is she saying?” Pen demanded to know.
Mathry giggled. “All English are ass—”
“Cerys!” Gwen barked. “Take the bread—the loaves are hot, mind—and help Mathry pour the tea.”
Mathry pouted but headed for the next room, skirts swishing. Penrydd’s eyes didn’t follow her. Instead his gaze settled on Gwen.
“I’ve met you before,” he said.
Her breath hitched and she returned to the griddle. If he was starting to recognize her from their earlier meeting, he was a mere step away from remembering everything. And knowing the hold he had over her, over all of them.
“Where you to?”
“Anywhere. Someone has to know who I am. Surely there are people out there looking for me.” He spoke with the solid assurance that he mattered. That he would be acknowledged, welcomed, and obeyed. What a difference it was to be a man in this world.
“Come with me,” he said.
She nearly dropped the sizzling cakes as she scooped them from the griddle onto a wooden platter. “Why for?”
He gave her that slow smile again. Sensual. Wicked. “To keep me from bad dreams.”
She stood rooted to the old stone floor. A wild part of herwantedto go with him. Take up her shawl and her favorite hat and dash off into the unknown.
Leaving everyone who depended on her, those who had nothing and no one. She needed to settle this with him now, before he left. Before he realized they’d known who he was and hadn’t told him.
“I—I must see to something.” She needed to find Dovey. She couldn’t bargain with him without Dovey there.
But Dovey wasn’t in the dining hall, and when Gwen returned to the kitchen, Penrydd was gone, too.
She fought to breathe through the crushing sense of panic, of loss. She’d failed. He was gone. Someone about Newport might piece together that he was Penrydd, and what would her gamble cost them? She could only pray it would take him a while to find out. Pray they had a few hours to plan what to do. How to barricade their door if he came back bearing a pitchfork, or worse, Barlow the solicitor.
Stupid of her to feel it a slight that he’d not found her intriguing enough to stay. This wasn’t about her, until he realized she’d tricked him, withheld his identity. Then he would rain down the wrath of the outraged aristocrat, and she had no excuse, no defense. And no one to turn to. These people she cared for would lose everything, and it was all her fault.
CHAPTERSIX
She hadn’t spent the hours planning. She spent the day nursing Ifor and preventing Tomos from gnawing the bandage off his hurt hand. She was already exhausted and unraveled when the boy came running up from town to fetch her.
