“Pen,” she managed to say. “Let the authorities deal with him. You must have nothing to do with such a man.” He could be killed in truth next time.
His eyes tightened. She’d used her name for him, not his title. She didn’t get to call him Pen, or even Penrydd—that was a luxury reserved for his peers. He was Lord Penrydd now, his lordship or my lord to someone like her. The Right Honourable The Viscount Penrydd did she wish to write him a letter. She didn’t even know his given name.
And she had no right to learn anything more about him. Not after what she’d done.
Pen, forgive me.
Barlow’s eyebrows had taken up permanent residence near his hairline. “Can we call the constable on this Gooey—” He gave up trying to pronounce the Welsh syllables. “In no way are you bound to discharge this debt, milord. If I know the moneylender to whom you refer, he charges usurious, ruinous rates. The law cannot compel you to uphold an illegal agreement your brother made.”
“The law cannot compel me,” Pen agreed. “Which is why he’s trying other means.” He winced and rolled his injured shoulder.
“When he lost you, he contacted the viscountess,” Ross said unhappily. “She came here to pay him, thinking to free you all, but of course, with you absent—”
“She doesn’t have the funds.” Pen’s studied calm slipped. “Do you mean Lydia is here? Or Prunella?”
Ross lifted his hands in a shrug. “Er, both? The moneylender told them both he could seize their jointures if he wasn’t paid, which you and I both know he can’t do, but they believed it.” He cleared his throat. “They are currently staying in Chippenham with the family of Miss Carruthers.”
“Who the deuce is Miss Carruthers?” Pen scowled.
“The—er—girl your mother wishes you to wed. The one with the rather large dowry.”
“Coc oen,” Pen swore, and Mother Morris’s lips twitched. The older women, laundry forgotten, hung close by, listening as intently to the conversation as everyone else. Gwen had stopped breathing. Pen knew who he was. Pen had a mother and sister and possibly a betrothed waiting for him in his real life. What came next?
As if she’d spoken aloud, he turned to her. “Gather your things, Gwen. You’re familiar with my rooms at the Green Man—we still have them, don’t we, Ross? I can only imagine how delighted the dowager viscountess, my stepmother Lydia, and my brother’s wife, Prunella, will be to meet you.”
He snapped the stalk of foxglove in two and threw it at his feet. Gafr sniffed and turned away.
Gwen held to Dovey’s hand as if it kept her from drowning. “What of St. Sefin’s?” she whispered.
Pen scowled. “We will discuss that. Among other things.”
The arrogant lord was back, the one who could wave his hand and men, and women, would spring to his bidding. He was aviscount,of all things. What she had done to him was punishable. He could have her whipped and put in chains. He could have her transported.
Gwen lifted her chin. She couldn’t go with him, not even to save St. Sefin’s. She had no bargaining power with the arrogant lord.
“My place is here,” she said quietly.
She missed him already, Pen, the man who had shared this place with her. He’d disappeared, and she hadn’t had a chance to say goodbye.
His face froze with that flat expression she couldn’t read. Dovey, dropping a brief curtsey, tugged at her hand. “We’ll gather your things, milord. Only give us a moment.”
Lifting her leaden feet with conscious effort, Gwen followed Dovey to the men’s dormitory and Pen’s room. The room where she’d spent all those blissful, wondrous hours in his arms.
While he was betrothed to someone else. Or about to be.
Pen was already wearing his own clothes, so all that remained were the few trinkets he had gathered during his sojourn with them. A scarf that Mother Morris had knitted for him. A set of stockings from the donation box that Widow Jones had embroidered with beautiful rows of the letter P, like elegant clocks. A cockle shell from the handful he’d brought back for Tomos the day she sent him to gather seaweed, and a shell from the oysters he’d brought Ifor.
Gwen picked up a smooth stone he’d found along the Severn. Below it, pressed between old newsprint, was a bluebell.
Her heart clenched, a little hiccup of despair escaping.
“How long do you suppose he’s known?” Dovey reached to strip the linens from the bed. Gwen, recalling what had transpired on those linens a few short hours ago, stopped her, swapping the cloth bag of Pen’s small relics for the housekeeping task.
“I don’t know. Perhaps when I showed him the Penrydd estate.” Though that had been a fortnight ago. Surely he wouldn’t have stayed all that time if he’d known. “Perhaps when Vaughn and the Suttons visited. He seemed very agitated after they left.”
But that had been yesterday. Wouldn’t he have said something the moment he realized they’d tricked him? Railed, shouted, accused, threatened—
Or lain in wait for her to be truthful with him, at long last. A cold certainty splashed through her, like she’d fallen into the river.
