Remember Love (Ravenswood #1)(77)

“I do beg your pardon,” he said. “I was quite out of line in offering you advice about a man I do not know at all. I take it there is some history between you and Stratton? I appreciate your speaking with me directly in this way. It took some courage. And already I know that my main feeling when I wake up tomorrow will be relief. I am thirty-five years old. I have known and been interested in a number of beautiful women over the years, but I was never tempted to offer marriage to anyone until I met you. I had decided long ago that marriage and I would not suit, but then you tempted me. I believe my earlier decision was the right one, however, and I will feel a bit like a prisoner newly set free in the morning. I am sorry. That is not a very apt comparison.”

“Yes, it is,” she said, though she was not quite sure she believed what he had just said. It was possible that he was merely putting a brave face on it. She smiled at him. “Do you wish to take that book to your room, Aled? Or shall I return it to the shelf?”

“I will take it,” he said, picking it up. “I want to find that poem about the daffodils—I wandered lonely as a cloud . . . Those are the opening words, I believe, and the only ones I can remember exactly. Except a host of golden daffodils.”

Gwyneth picked up the candlestick and led the way back to the drawing room, where her mother was regaling her father and Idris with bits of news and gossip she had picked up from her lace-making group during the afternoon.



* * *



—

The following day, Aled recalled that he had business in London that he really must attend to very soon. The wars were over and the Continent was opening up for travelers and for a resumption of cultural pursuits for all. He had been approached with a tentative invitation to do some conducting in Paris and Vienna and possibly Rome. It was something he would need to discuss in person with certain people.

It all sounded a bit vague to Gwyneth, but her parents were delighted for him. They did agree with Idris, however, that he would be missed.

“But you must stay for church on Sunday, Aled,” her father said. “The choir boys—and girls—sit in the choir stalls, of course, but the rest of the youth choir always sit together in the front pews, and the hymn singing is something to gladden the heart. I can almost imagine that I am back in Wales, where the singing sometimes lifts the roof a good six inches off the church.”

“There is silly you are sometimes, Ifor,” Gwyneth’s mother said, laughing.

But Aled did stay that extra two days and left on Monday after thanking everyone profusely for their hospitality and shaking her father’s and Idris’s hands warmly and kissing both Gwyneth and her mother on the cheek. Gwyneth felt something very close to grief. At any other time and under any other circumstances . . .

But no. It would always have been a mistake, and Aled deserved far better than a wife who would live to regret marrying him.

“All right, Gwyn?” Idris asked, his arm tight about her shoulders as the carriage disappeared from sight.

“Yes, of course,” she said.

“Of course,” he agreed.

“I thought perhaps,” their mother said, frowning and looking rather intently at Gwyneth, “he might have had a word with Dad before he left. But some men are dreadful slowtops. Perhaps next summer . . .”

“No, Mam,” Gwyneth said, smiling and fearing the expression looked like a grimace on her face. “No.”

And she picked up the sides of her skirt and hurried inside after her father, leaving her mother staring at Idris.

Gwyneth waited for two days. She knew it was something she could not possibly do. Just last week she had told herself she would never do it even if she could. But it was also something she could not not do, and if that was not a head spinner, she did not know what was. If she did not do it, no one else would. He would not. And she was tired of always waiting and of always trying to make a life and a future for herself that could never bring her happiness or even lasting contentment. It was so hard being a woman. But perhaps what she ought to realize was that it was probably not easy being a man either. It was not easy being Devlin. She understood that.

It was her mother’s lace-making day again and her father’s day for youth choir practice. She was going to ride over to Ravenswood, Gwyneth told them at luncheon when her father asked if she wanted to come listen to the choir and perhaps play the pianoforte while he conducted. She was going to have a word with the countess to see if there was anything she could do to help with the preparations for the assembly on Friday. It was a very slim excuse and would possibly be recognized as an outright lie. Everyone knew—it had been one of the main topics of conversation for the past week—that the countess was to have nothing to do with the organizing of the assembly even though it was to be held in the ballroom at the hall.

“Well, it will be pleasant for you to have a visit, cariad,” her mother said. “You have been in low spirits since Aled left.”

And so here she was, Gwyneth thought as she rode up the slight slope toward Ravenswood Hall. She had left a few minutes after her mother and father, having declared that she would rather ride on such a lovely day than go with them in the carriage. The groom who sometimes accompanied her when she rode beyond her father’s land had frowned when she told him she did not need him today, but he had known better than to argue. And this might be for nothing after all, she thought as she rode around to the back of the hall in order to leave her horse at the stables. She had no idea if Devlin was at home.