Page 84 of The Gentleman’s Leading Lady

Or indifferent to him.

“She did not yet give me her answer,” Dante said through gritted teeth. He circled in place, trying to guess that Cerys’s next move had been. Bathsheba had left her alone here for some reason, telling the coachman to walk on. So he couldn’t identify, later, whom Cerys had left with. He held back the howl of rage boiling in his gut.

“If she ran off, that’s an answer,” Sir Hewitt remarked.

“She wouldn’t leave without telling someone.” Dante ran a hand through his hair. “I’m certain Bathsheba made up that tale to taunt me.”

Penrydd stepped close to Dante so the men were nose to nose. He was as protective of Cerys as her own father. “Why would Lady Baeccon be meddling with our Cerys, and what is her ladyship to you?”

Dante forced himself to relax his hands, to not show a challenge to the older man. “Bathsheba sees Cerys as a rival for my affections. Bathsheba and I—I courted her, long ago. She married Baeccon. Then she turned up here, and Cerys pretended we were in love to aggravate her.”

Evans rolled his eyes. “That sounds like a notion Cerys would take into her head.”

“So your offer of marriage wasn’t real,” Penrydd said. “You were playing along.”

“My offer was entirely sincere. I can assure you of that.” Dante flinched as a bat swooped close to his head, raking through the night air. The memory of jasmine teased his nose, and his chest ached.

The women disembarked from the coach, Cerys’s mother, the knight’s lady, and the viscountess. Gravel crunched beneath their boots as they joined the men.

Mrs. Evans looked about. “You might explain later, once we’ve found her. Where could she have gone from here?”

“Shush,” Dante said rudely.

Evans opened his mouth to chide him, then closed his mouth as a faint sound reached their ears. Singing.

“I’m like a skiff on the ocean toss’d, now high, now low…her rudder broke, and her anchor lost, deserted and all forlorn.” The voice trembled, small and far away, like a girl trying bravely to whistle her way through the dark. “Revenge, revenge, shall appease my restless spirit.” The voice broke. “Revenge.”

Dante was at the door to the spa before he knew he’d moved. “Cerys,” he bellowed.

“While I lie rolling and tossing all night…Dante? Oh, I knew it. I knew I would start to hallucinate.”

“It’s me. It’s me, my love.” He groped for the latch on the door, cursing the dark. “Why are you in there?”

“Well, you see, the door is locked.” Her voice came closer, as if she stood on the other side.

A padlock held the latch on the door to a hasp in the frame. Dante tugged at it. The warded kind, fairly basic, at least not a combination or puzzle lock. “I don’t suppose there’s a key lying about. Look for a key,” he commanded the others as they approached. “Why did Bathsheba bring you here?”

“She said Lord Baeccon was ready to fund our theater and would meet us here, and I, like a twymffat, believed her.”

He didn’t recognize the Welsh word, but he heard the accent emerging in her voice. In her fatigue and strain, the wild girl raised in Newport showed through beneath the polish that the people behind him had tried to cultivate. Dante wrestled with the lock, wondering if he could smash it with his fist.

“Is her ladyship all right?” she asked, her voice almost dreamy and very close to the door, as if she were leaning towards him.

“Is Bathsheba all right? Is she all right?” he repeated.

“Well, yes. I heard a scream and a scuffle. I fear she was attacked and that is why she left me.”

“If she was attacked,” Dante said grimly, “she had time to clasp the padlock and withdraw the key. She told us a tale that you had run away with a lover.”

“A lover?” Cerys gave a hoarse laugh. “But I’m going to marry you.”

He stilled. His voice was no steadier than hers. “You are?”

“Mmm. I’ve thought about it. I’ve had several hours to think, and a good chat with the mice. They agree. I shouldn’t like to give up the stage, at least not altogether, as I’m having such a splendid time of it, and you are going to build us a theater and all. But if I must choose, Dante, I would rather be with you.”

He rested his head against the door. “With me,” he repeated. His heart was cracking open. It was hard to breathe.

“Well, yes, because I love you.”