Rain.
It had not ceased since Wednesday past and although one became accustomed to the inclement weather here in Wales, today it dampened her mood, the low-slung cloud causing the hour to feel as if it were three of the afternoon rather than mid-morn.
Her father’s study overlooked the apple orchard, bare branches contorted and weeping with moss, teardrops of water glistening.
She could almost hear the laughter of distant childhood, Tristan, Rhys and herself clambering there for rosy apples in that lazy summer before school had separated them all.
The Evans’ estate, which had been in her family for ten generations, neighboured that of the Llanedwyn earls where Tristan and Rhys had grown up, thoughneighbouredwas a loose term, the land between their houses amounting to some fifty acres, the Cythraul Woods and a good half-hour’s coach ride. As a child, she’d oft played with the twin brothers who’d lived there – Rhys, now the Earl of Llanedwyn and moreover the Duke of Aberdare to boot, and his younger-by-moments twin, Lord Tristan… Deceased.
She blinked and placed a palm to the chill windowpane.
A rook took scant refuge on a gnarled branch, hunched like an old man in mourning.
The wild sea had always staked a claim upon Tristan’s affections yet she’d not minded, been content to share…
Until that stormy July eve sixteen months ago when it had claimed him forever.
And still a pain clenched at her heart.
To never again view his green eyes filled with mirth. Hear his jovial boisterous laugh. Watch his long-loped stride. Feel his calloused fingers brush her cheek.
Her hand clutched at the carved dragon pendant which rested beneath her bodice.
As children they’d been no more than innocent playmates, and after her mother’s death, Gwen had been boarded at a Ladies’ School in Caernarfon, then sent to London to remain with her aunt through many a Season.
During that time away, Tristan had married young and Gwen remembered him and his beautiful wife forever laughing, Sarah birthing an exquisite girl. Yet only two years later, Sarah had died in her second childbirth, the baby boy with her, leaving Tristan desolate and to raise their daughter Mari alone.
A gust of wind rattled the windowpane and Gwen shivered, watching the lone rook do likewise before taking flight.
Gwen had returned from London for Sarah’s funeral and the occasional summer, grown to adore Mari as she’d watched her flourish into the vivacious young lady she now was, while herself and Tristan had remained friends, almost casual acquaintances, till some two and a half years ago when Gwen had returned to Wales for good.
It was then that something more had begun to flourish.
Until–
“Another one licks the dust, eh?”
Gwen spun. “Father!” Held an icy palm to her chest. “And I wouldn’t say that. Just that Miss Millichip was a mite…officious. I felt all of twelve years old and rather thought I’d end up being her companion instead, winding her wool and chastising waiters.”
The Earl of Penffordd, as he was known to his peers, wrenched at his crumpled neckcloth, grey hair needing a trim. She must speak to his valet.
“That was your fifth candidate, was it not?”
Indeed.“Perhaps I should widen the net.”
Father harrumphed and ambled to the Chinoiserie side table where Gwen had dumped – tidied, she meant – all his papers that had previously scattered the desk. “Don’t see why you have to go off travelling anyhow,” he grumbled. “Plenty to do here, transcribing all my notes.”
Hmm.
Gwen loved her father dearly and she knew he loved her back…in his own way, but on occasion she worried that her neat penmanship was, to him, her only attribute.
“I’m quite sure,” he continued, “that I’m on the verge of discovering the whereabouts of that stone circle of Brynfach. I can sense it. I’m close. Who is going to record it all?”
“I’ve arranged a student of history from Cambridge to assist you in March.”
“Won’t make the tea the way I like it though, will he?”
Gwen crossed her arms. Once she would have mumbled an apology and capitulated, but over the last sixteen months she’d learned that life was short and tea could wait. “I shall leave instructions for him.”
