Remember Love (Ravenswood #1)(40)

“One of us must have left something at the hall last night,” Sir Ifor said, “and they have come to return it.” He set his napkin beside his plate and rubbed his hands together.

Idris returned within a minute or two with Devlin, who was looking pale and grim and tight-lipped—and was dressed for travel.

Sir Ifor and Lady Rhys both rose to greet their visitor. Gwyneth stayed where she was. She wished she could sink beneath the table, for this was the Devlin she had known all through her growing years. He did not even glance her way. And her instinct again, as it had been then, was to hide. Yesterday had been a dream more wonderful than anything she had ever imagined, but it had ended in a nightmare.

“Where is Ben?” her mother asked while her father shook Devlin’s hand.

“He will not come in,” Idris explained. “He is going to stay with the horses.”

“Come and sit down, Devlin, bach,” Sir Ifor said, using an unexpected Welsh endearment. “Have some breakfast with us. I daresay you have not had any yet. Idris will go back out and persuade Ben to join us. One of our grooms can watch the horses.”

“I am not staying,” Devlin said. “But thank you for the invitation, sir. Lady Rhys, I am sorry to interrupt your breakfast. I wished to apologize for involving your daughter in that rather . . . sordid scene last night. It was unforgivable of me. I did not intend to draw her into it, but that is no excuse. I—”

Gwyneth’s mother held up a staying hand. “Say no more about it, Devlin,” she said. “No one will think the worse of Gwyn for taking a stroll outside with you during the ball. A number of other people were doing the same thing. Ifor and I knew she had gone, and we did not worry in the least because we know you to be a steady, responsible young man. And never mind about that scene, nasty as it was while it was happening. I daresay it will all be forgotten within a few days as such things always are. Let me—”

“I came also to inform you that I am leaving,” he said. “Ben is coming with me. We will not be back. At least I will not.”

Gwyneth, gazing at him from her place at the table, felt as though someone had constructed a sort of tunnel between herself and him. Everything outside it receded into darkness. Everything within it was sharp and icy cold.

“Not be back, Dev? Have you taken leave of your senses?” Idris asked him. “You run Ravenswood and all the other properties too. You and Ben between you. You told me after you came down from Oxford last year that this is where your heart is and you would never willingly leave here again.”

“I am leaving, Idris,” Devlin said. “I will not be back.”

Gwyneth fought to save herself from fainting. She had never fainted in her life. She had no patience with vaporish women.

“I was wondering,” he was saying, “if I might have a word with Gwyneth before I go. Alone if it is possible. With your permission, ma’am. And with hers.”

The tunnel had opened back up a bit through the sheer effort of her will and the slow, deep breaths she was taking. She was not going to faint.

“But of course,” her mother said. “If it is all right with Gwyn.”

“I am going to have a word with Ben,” her father said. “Come with me, Bronwyn. You too, Idris.”

Idris stood frowning intently at Devlin for a while before turning to follow his parents outside. Gwyneth got to her feet, and she and Devlin faced each other across the table.

“I have to go,” he said. “It seems that what happened last night was my fault, and I am the one who must leave.”

“It will all be forgotten in a while,” she said, “and you will be able to return.”

She did not for a moment believe what she was saying.

“No, Gwyneth,” he said. “Even if I could come back, I would not. Everyone—my whole family—has lived with a lie for years and years. Perhaps all the years of my parents’ marriage. My mother has lived with it. Perhaps especially her. Even I have had niggling suspicions for longer than a year but have suppressed them because I did not want to dig deeper and perhaps discover that they were well founded. I did not know for sure until last night, but I have not been entirely innocent. I do know now. And it seems I made my decision last night not to be a part of the happy illusion that everyone condones by refusing to acknowledge the truth. Even my mother’s own family—her parents and her brother—have perpetuated it. All of them are doubtless frantically thinking at this very moment of ways to reconstruct the illusion so that normal life can resume. There has been nothing normal about our lives. I will no longer ignore the truth just because it is the convenient and polite thing to do. I will not live beneath a roof with that man again. I cannot.”

That man. He was talking of his father, whom he had clearly always adored. Whom everyone had. Or did. Oh dear God.

“Where will you go?” she asked him. “What will you do?”

“To London first,” he said. “I have money of my own. I am going to purchase a commission. In a foot regiment if they will have me. I daresay they will, though. The fight against Napoleon Bonaparte is heating up, and it is going to be a long and brutal one, I suspect.”

Gwyneth swallowed and gripped the edge of the table. Not Devlin. No one could be less suited . . . She tried to speak, but no words came out. She did not even know what she wanted to say. Her mind was refusing to function properly. He was leaving. Leaving Ravenswood. Leaving her. Forever. He was going to be an officer in a foot regiment. He would almost surely be killed and she would never see him again after this moment.