Remember Love (Ravenswood #1)(88)

“Devlin,” she said. “You are the Earl of Stratton. Besides which, they do not want me on their hands all their lives. Yet they know that is precisely what will happen if you will not take me.”

“Ah,” he said. And he felt close to laughter again. And so tired he hardly knew how to remain upright in the saddle.





Chapter Twenty-Two





I think,” Sir Ifor Rhys said the following morning as he spread his linen napkin over his lap and prepared to tackle the breakfast his butler had laid before him, “Stratton is coming here this morning because he wants to beg me to let him sing solo with the choir at our Christmas concert. I will have to think of an answer to give him before he gets here. How does one say no very, very tactfully?”

“Da-ad!” Gwyneth protested, though she could not help laughing too.

“Number sixteen,” Idris murmured.

“What was that, Idris?” Lady Rhys asked.

“Number sixteen,” he said more loudly. “Dad made fifteen guesses last night. I counted. The only one he still has not thought of is the obvious one.”

“Which is?” his mother said.

“He is coming to ask Dad if it is all right for him to be my friend again now that he has the earldom and all that,” Idris said.

“But how do I say no tactfully?” his father asked. “No one can tell me that.”

“Sometimes,” Lady Rhys said, “I think I must be living in a madhouse. Gwyneth, cariad, they are just teasing. But one as bad the other they are, your father and your brother.”

“Not quite, Mam,” Gwyneth said, eyeing her plate with its single poached egg and slice of buttered toast and wondering if she was going to be able to eat even that modest breakfast. “Dad has made sixteen suggestions if Idris is to be believed, while Idris has made only one. Here is another from me. Perhaps Devlin is coming to ask Dad for my hand in marriage, though he does not need to since I am practically middle-aged.”

“Number eighteen,” Idris said. “And a worthy contribution, Gwyn. It is what men do regardless of necessity, though. It is what I did a few weeks ago even though Eluned is twenty-six. Luckily for me, Mr. Howell said yes after giving me a good grilling.”

“How do I say no tactfully?” Sir Ifor asked again.

“Enough now, Ifor,” his wife said. “Can’t you see that Gwyneth is off her food this morning?”

Which was ridiculous really, Gwyneth thought. Yesterday she had proposed marriage to Devlin. She had actually lain with him, and then had lain awake half the night reliving every moment. Today was just a formality. But that was the point, was it not? Yesterday had been just the two of them, while today their families would be involved, and tomorrow . . . Well, tomorrow they would be borne inexorably onward to their wedding and their married life together. The thought had a strangely calming effect. For she had no doubts, no regrets, no second or third thoughts. No illusions either.

“I am not, Mam,” she said, and took a bite of her toast. “I was just so fascinated by the conversation that I forgot to eat.”

Idris patted the back of her hand.

“You have not lived with me here for twenty-four years, Gwyn,” her father said, “without discovering that I like to tease. I will be ready for your young man when he comes here at ten o’clock, and I will treat him gently. It is more than thirty years since I went on a similar errand to beg your grandfather for your mother’s hand, but I have not forgotten how my legs were shaking in my boots and my heart was booming in my chest and I was afraid I might forget my own name.”

Gwyneth dipped her toast in the yolk of her egg and took another bite.

“But I do hope you know what you are doing, Gwyn,” her father said, all signs of joking and teasing gone. “I know you took us all by surprise years ago when it turned out it was Devlin you had fallen for, not Nicholas. And then you got all caught up in that nasty situation and ended up with a broken heart. I will not belittle what you went through, but you were just eighteen. There is a difference between eighteen and twenty-four. A difference in maturity. Now he is back and he is a different man. There is hardness in him, maybe worse. And he has problems galore to deal with. Ravenswood has not been a happy place since that night. All of them have suffered and are still suffering, from what I see. Poor things. I feel particularly for the young ones. Their world was rocked. That is what you will be going into, Gwyn, if you say yes. Your mam and I are feeling sick at heart.”

“We agreed not to say anything, though, Ifor,” Lady Rhys said. “About our feelings, I mean. This is not about us, Gwyneth. It is about you. And when you love a man, you see him differently from the way other people do. It is not as though Dad and I dislike Devlin. We do not. We did hope with Aled, though . . . But no. No, no. Forget I mentioned his name. You see with the heart. We have been looking with the head for someone who will make you happy. The head has nothing to do with such decisions.”

“Nothing, Bronwyn?” Sir Ifor asked.

“Nothing,” she said. “My father warned me that if I married you, it would be forever music, music, music with you—and this from a Welshman, I might add. I knew it, but I married you anyway because my heart would not listen to my head. And I have never for a single moment been sorry. Well, perhaps once or twice when the pew in church has got to feel very hard after I have been sitting on it for a couple of hours at a stretch.”