Longing

by Mary Balogh

  “Wake up, sleepyhead,” he said, chuckling, “and get those legs spread. I have something for you.”

  * * *

  Angharad did as she was told then and twice more within the next couple of hours. And part of her could not help but rejoice at what was happening. There was nothing more cozy and intimate than Sunday afternoon lovings—nothing more calculated to make a man realize that he needed a woman permanently in his home.

  But another part of her was troubled and had been even before the interruption. She had come running to Josiah Barnes only partly because she had thought he would be angry if she did not. Partly too she had wanted him to stop the march even if it meant trouble for some. She was afraid of what would happen in Newport. She was afraid some of the men would die.

  She was afraid Emrys Rhys would die.

  But then there was the interruption.

  Curious as to the identity and message of the visitor when Josiah Barnes did not come back to bed after a few minutes, she had crept out onto the landing and down a few stairs, avoiding the one that she knew to be squeaky. And so she had heard all that had been said after Gwilym Jenkins came inside the cottage.

  And it troubled her. Her own message might have caused some trouble, but this was deliberate and malicious trouble being brought on someone innocent. Siân was her friend. She had always admired Siân’s dignity and ladylike demeanor—and the fact that Siân was never uppity. It shocked Angharad to hear Josiah call Siân a bitch and plot to have her hurt. It shocked her even more to realize that it was Josiah who had had those rumors about Siân put about so that Siân had been whipped by Scotch Cattle.

  “I think,” Angharad said when she felt that a suitable time had elapsed after his fourth use of her body, “that I had better be going, Mr. Barnes.”

  He was half asleep. He grunted. “As you wish,” he muttered.

  Angharad looked at him wistfully. She knew suddenly that she had been fooling herself all these months. And that even if she had not, even if there was still a flicker of hope, she was about to snuff it out herself.

  She got out of bed and dressed herself in clothes that were still not quite dry. By the time she was finished, Josiah Barnes was snoring in the bed. She gazed at him for a long time and sighed. One tear trickled unheeded down each cheek. She turned away and hurried downstairs, stepping over the squeaky stair. She drew on her cloak, pulled up the hood, and stepped outside. The rain had not eased at all.

  She hesitated for only a moment before turning in the direction of the castle and hurrying head down up the driveway. She had never been to the castle. She did not know where to go. But like Siân before her, she ascended the steep steps to the front door, and knocked hastily before she could give herself time to think again.

  The servant who answered her knock looked at her as if she was a worm and blocked the doorway quite dauntingly. He would have sent her away, but having got up her courage to come this far, Angharad was not to be denied. She told the man that it was a matter of life and death and on his own head be it if he stopped her from talking to the marquess.

  She almost died of fright when she was told to wait in a room grander than anything she had ever seen in her life. She almost died again when the Marquess of Craille stepped into the room a few minutes later, looking far more awesomely grand than he had ever looked in the few glimpses Angharad had had of him in the past.

  “Yes?” he said. “You have an important message for me?”

  He looked directly at her and his voice was kind. Paradoxically Angharad was even more unnerved. She tried to speak but no sound came out.

  “You are soaked,” he said kindly. “Were you afraid to step closer to the fire? Please do so now.”

  Angharad had not even noticed the fire or the fact that she was wet.

  “They have gone,” she blurted out. “He is tricking her to go after them and she will be caught. I don’t know what will happen to her then.”

  He looked at her keenly. “They have gone,” he said. “Who have gone where?”

  Was he stupid? Did he not realize that time was of the essence? “He sent him almost two hours ago,” she said breathlessly, her words tripping over themselves in her haste to get them out. “She would have gone right away. But they all went long before that.”

  He came toward her suddenly and Angharad took a hasty step backward. But he merely smiled and took her by the arm and led her toward the fire. He seated her in a very grand chair to one side of it. She was scared of dripping all over it and ruining it.

  “I am sorry,” he said, “I do not know your name.”

  She stared at him a moment until she noticed his raised eyebrows. “Oh,” she said. “Angharad. Angharad Lewis, sir. I mean your lord, my lordship. Oh.” She closed her eyes, mortified.

  “Angharad,” he said, “there is nothing to be frightened about here. What are you trying to tell me? Take your time. There is no point in haste when I am too stupid to understand.” He smiled. “Start at the beginning.”

  “The men are gone,” she said. “To Newport. They went up the mountain ages ago. They were going to wait for the men to come from Penybont, but they have probably gone by now. Oh, it will be too late. He sent the message to her two hours ago. Goodness knows what will have happened to her.”

  He had crossed the room while she spoke. He was back now and was handing her a glass with an inch or so of dark liquid in the bottom of it.

  “Drink it,” he said. “It will warm you.”

  “I am chapel,” she said. “I can’t . . .”

  “Think of it as medicine,” he said, “to stop you from catching a chill. So they have gone, have they? I am sorry about it, but I told them I would not stop them. It was their own decision, Angharad. Who is the ‘she’ you have been mentioning?”

  Angharad was coughing and grimacing over her first ever taste of alcohol. “Siân Jones,” she said, her voice an agony.

  He was down on his haunches in front of her suddenly, his expression taut, his eyes fully focused on her.

  “What about Siân Jones?” he snapped out. “Tell me clearly, Angharad.”

  She swallowed. “They forced all the men to go,” she said. “They forced Iestyn Jones to go.”

  She watched his jaw harden and was frightened again. She thought irrelevantly that this man would be too masterful for her. She would be too afraid of him to enjoy anything with him. Even though he had been kind to her.

  “And Siân saw and went after him?” he said, frowning.

  It was only afterward that Angharad realized that she should have gone along with his assumption. She did not think of it at the time.

  “No,” she said. “Gwilym Jenkins saw it and came to tell Mr. Barnes.” She flushed at the realization of what her choice of verb had revealed, but he did not seem to notice. “He was running away so that they would not take him too. But he told Mr. Barnes about Iestyn Jones, and Mr. Barnes paid him a lot of money to go back and tell Siân. He was to make it sound even worse than it was so that she would go after him and get caught. He called her a b-b-”—she swallowed again—“he called her a bitch. But she is not. She is my friend.”

  He stood up in front of her. Angharad risked only one glance up at him. She was terrified by what she saw. He looked as if he was ready to tear her limb from limb.

  “And this was two hours ago?” he asked, his voice tight.

  “Yes,” she said. “I was busy. I was too busy to come until now. I am sorry. I could not get away. He . . . We . . . I—I could not get away.”

  “I understand,” he said. And she had no doubt at all that he did. She hung her head in shame. “Thank you, Angharad. You are very brave. And a true friend to Siân. I will have you taken down to the kitchen so that you can dry yourself and have some tea before going home. Did he know you were coming here? Are you afraid for your safety?”

  “No,�
�� she said. “He was s-sleeping.”

  “This was hard for you to do,” he said, reaching out a hand toward her. “Thank you for doing it. He will never know how I found out.”

  She realized that she was to put her hand in his. She did so and looked up at him. His face was still blazing, but she realized that it was not with her he was angry.

  “What are you going to do?” she whispered as he helped her to her feet.

  “I am going to bring her safely home,” he said. “I must hurry, Angharad. Stay here and warm yourself. I’ll send someone to take you downstairs.”

  Angharad’s teeth chattered as she waited after he had hurried from the room. He would kill her if he ever found out. Mr. Barnes would kill her. And she would deserve it. She had betrayed all her own people just as Gwilym Jenkins had. She was no better. She bit her upper lip as she absorbed the thought. She had betrayed them. All because she wanted a rich husband and a good home and luxuries. Siân Jones was not a bitch. Siân was her friend. She did not deserve to get into trouble.

  It was she, Angharad, who deserved that. Siân had been whipped for what Angharad had done.

  25

  SIN’S determination to remain uninvolved shattered like a crystal glass on a stone floor.

  “Oh, Duw, Duw,” her grandmother said when Gwilym Jenkins called with the news about Iestyn. “There is wicked the men have become and all over an old Charter. Well, just don’t let them be expecting me to visit them in the old jail when they are caught and thrown in it, that is all. I wash my hands of them all—Hywel, Emrys, the lot of them.” She threw her apron over her head and burst into tears.

  Siân, white-faced, was on her feet. “Could they not let him alone?” she said. “One boy is going to make all the difference to their cause that he must be dragged away with his hands bound and a n-noose about his neck and a gun thrust into his back? So they will hang him or shoot him if he makes any more protest? And Iestyn will not keep his mouth shut just because he is afraid. Oh, Iestyn, my pet.” She covered her face with shaking hands for a few moments.

  “There is no telling what they will do,” Gwilym said. “They are in an ugly mood. Is it all right with you, Mrs. Rhys, if I stay here for a bit? If I go home, they will drag me off too. And I have the wife and little ones to think of.”

  “Of course you must stay,” Gwynneth said, “and have a cup of tea.” But she looked up sharply suddenly. “Where are you going, Siân?”

  Siân was pulling a dry cloak about her and lifting the hood to cover her head. “I am going down to Mam and Mari’s to find out the truth of it,” she said. “Perhaps they let him come home after all. Perhaps Huw spoke up for him.”

  “But only to Mari’s, mind,” her grandmother said, getting to her feet and grabbing for Siân’s arm. “You are not to go in pursuit of them, Siân. Promise me, fach. You can do no good by going after them.”

  Siân drew free and opened the door. “I must find out what has happened,” she said, and ran out into the rain before her grandmother could extract any promises from her.

  Iestyn, she thought as she hurried toward his home. Surely they would have allowed him to return home. Why drag an unwilling man with them all the way to Newport? And in such terrible weather. The rain beat down on her, and the wetness of it and the chill of early November seemed to seep into her very bones. They were mad. All of them were mad—Emrys, Huw, Grandad, Owen. All of them.

  Her mother-in-law and Mari were in the kitchen with the children. They were eating tea, both women with pale, set faces.

  “Where is Iestyn?” Siân asked without preamble.

  His mother sucked in her breath. “They took him,” she said. “Four of them came for him, Siân, and took him away with them. Everyone has to march, they said. There are to be no exceptions.”

  So the miracle had not happened. He had not come back home. She had not expected it, Siân realized.

  “Not Iestyn,” she said, almost in a whisper. “Oh, dear God, not Iestyn. There is going to be trouble on that march.”

  “Do you go, then, Siân,” her mother-in-law said bitterly, “and bring him back. Fight off a few hundred men carrying sticks and guns and bring my boy home. They will whip you to death this time and there is no man left down here who will be able to go up to carry you home.”

  Mari wept. “There is wicked it was of Huw to go,” she said. “He will leave the little ones orphans.”

  Siân turned without a word and ran back out into the rain. She did not fully realize where she was going until she found herself scrambling and slithering upward over wet grass above the houses. They were gathering on the hill, Gwilym had said. Probably in the usual place. She did not even allow herself to wonder what she would do if and when she came up to them.

  But before she reached the usual meeting place, she looked downward and could see that she was too late. Even through the driving rain she could see the long, dark column moving down the valley, well past the mine. The men had begun their march, and from the look of the length of the column it would appear that there were hundreds of them. More than the men of Cwmbran. The men must have come down from Penybont too and they were marching onward together until the one dense column, picking up more and more as it went along, met up with the other two and prepared to enter Newport.

  It was suddenly and sickeningly real. And yet it was not a totally secret thing. Although the exact date appeared to have been kept a closely guarded secret, everyone knew that this was going to happen. Goodness only knew what was awaiting the men in Newport. Perhaps a whole army of soldiers and guns and cannon.

  Siân pressed a hand to her mouth and closed her eyes. Iestyn. Her dear boy. With a noose about his neck and a gun thrust against his back—being forced onward to provide fodder for government guns. For one moment she felt that her knees would buckle under her.

  And for another moment she hesitated, a strong part of herself urging her to run back across the hill toward Glanrhyd Castle and Alexander. He would help her. He would go after them and force them to release Iestyn.

  But perhaps he did not know about the march. Perhaps if he did, despite everything, he would try to end it, call out some forces against it. Perhaps if she went to him now she really would be an informer. Grandad and Emrys were in that march. And Huw. And Owen.

  Her hesitation did not last long. Within a few moments she was running across the hill, slipping and sliding on the wet and slippery heather. But it was not toward the castle she ran, but away from it. She ran in pursuit of the marching column of men, moving downward as well as across. She wished she had put boots on. But there was no time now to return for them. If she did not go immediately, and run while they marched, she would never catch up to them and she would never free Iestyn.

  It seemed as if hours had passed before she was finally above the stragglers of the column. By that time she felt soaked to the very bone, and her lungs hurt from the exertion of half-running across an uneven and slippery hillside. There was almost nowhere to hide. Although there were trees farther down the valley, here there were few. She could only hope that the rain would keep the men’s eyes directed downward.

  Her own eyes searched frantically for Iestyn. And unwillingly they saw something else. Many of the men were carrying wooden pikes. Even from some distance above it was obvious to Siân that those pikes had been tipped with iron. Someone had been very busy preparing weapons—probably in hill caves with iron stolen from the works. The sight made her feel physically sick.

  And eventually, as she moved farther forward, she began to see the guns. Not just a few of them, but many, carried by the men on the outside of the columns. Oh, God. Oh, dear God.

  There was something incongruous and rather horrible about the fact that the men were singing as they marched—in full and glorious harmony. They were singing Welsh hymns.

  “God. Oh, dear God.” Siân found herself sobbing out the ina
rticulate prayer.

  She saw Iestyn eventually, marching between two particularly large and burly miners. There was no noose about his neck, thank goodness. That was what she noticed first. Neither was there a gun pointed against his back. But his hands were bound, one wrist attached to a wrist of the man on either side of him. Being Iestyn, he looked neither angry nor sullen. But neither was he singing. He was marching quietly along.

  She knew she had been spotted at the same moment as she decided that she was going to go down there. Arms were pointing up at her and one or two voices calling. There was one whistle. She turned sharply downward and ran and slithered down into the mass of marching men. She pushed through them, ignoring reaching hands and amused and lewd remarks, until she was beside Iestyn’s jailers.

  “Let him go,” she said. “You have no right.”

  “Duw,” one of the men said. “Siân Jones. We might have guessed. There is no other woman who would dare. Be off home with you before Owen or someone else in authority sees you.”

  “Siân,” Iestyn said, surprise and some alarm in his face. “Go home, fach. I am all right. After all I suppose I should go where my brother and my friends are going. Go home. Tell Mam that I am all right.”

  “But your hands are tied,” she said. She looked indignantly at the two miners who flanked him. “Untie him. Let him go.”

  “And feel the fists of Owen Parry?” the other one said. “No, thank you, Siân Jones. Guard him, Owen said. Everyone must march. So guard him we will. Don’t worry. We are not breaking his ribs or smashing his teeth.”

  Siân half ran to keep up with their strides. She did not believe it would be possible to feel wetter or more miserable. And yet the men had hours of marching to do before reaching Newport and then the demonstration to participate in and then—if by some miracle everything went according to their plans—hours and hours more of marching home.