He didn’t remember the suggestion.
“The day we left London,” she prompted. “Don’t you remember?”
“Maria Edgeworth.”
“Yes,” she said.
He’d talked about Mrs. Edgeworth to needle her, but if writing made her this happy, she could write Bibles for all he cared. “Are you going to write about matchmaking and husband hunting?”
Tess laughed. “I could.” She sobered. “I started writing about our journey. Actually, it is more of a journal, a bit like Minnie’s was.”
Brenn felt a touch of guilt.
Within the hour, they pulled away from the Duck Pond Inn’s yard. The three little girls and Darryl waved farewell enthusiastically amid calls to come back. Sarah was more reserved. But then, even weeks ago, before he’d set off for London, he’d known she didn’t like his plan.
Women’s heads were full of romantic nonsense.
“I don’t think she liked me,” Tess said, once they were out of sight of the inn.
“Sarah does like you. She’s just always been too serious.”
“Well, I can understand some of her worry.”
“You can?”
Tess nodded. “She is obviously concerned about the type of wife you’ve married. I mean, we really haven’t known each other long.” She hesitated and then asked in a soft, worried voice, “Brenn, why did you marry me? Was it only to save me from scandal?”
“What do you mean?” he asked cautiously. Tess was too perceptive.
“When you were telling that story last night, the girls wanted to believe it was about us. Amanda and Lucy both asked me about it this morning.”
Brenn felt a rush of relief. She didn’t suspect a thing. His smile was genuine as he said, “Well, they have vivid imaginations. They place themselves in every story I tell.”
Her hand came down close to his which was resting on the seat. “Did you know I’d begged an introduction to you the night of the Garlands’ ball? I knew you were searching for a wife, but there was more.”
“What more?”
“I saw you staring at me and, well, I don’t know…it just seemed as if something special passed between us.” She fixed a hopeful blue gaze on him. “Did you not feel the same?”
Brenn remembered the moment clearly. He’d wanted her. It had been lust, guilt-free, undeniable.
But he couldn’t tell her that.
And yet, Sarah had goaded his conscience. He had to be honest with Tess. So he admitted, “From the moment I saw you, I wanted you.”
He was glad he had told the truth, because she was in his lap in a heartbeat, raining kisses on his face. “I knew it!” she said. “This morning, before I came down to join you, I wrote the shepherd’s story in my copybook. It is the first thing I wanted to write because I never want to forget it.”
Pleased with himself, Brenn shifted her weight in his lap and put his arm tightly around her waist. His mind pictured other ways she could show her appreciation but at that moment the coach stopped. He pulled down the window and shouted for Tim. The postboy jumped down from his horse.
“I beg pardon, my lord,” Tim said. “But you wanted to stop when we reached the Welsh border.”
Tess opened the coach door and was out in an instant. Brenn followed her. The coach rested on a small knoll. The sky was a vivid blue with huge puffs of clouds floating across it. The sun caught and gleamed off a stream that wound its way across the landscape. Along the steam, sheep dotted the fields like miniature versions of the clouds in the sky.
A gentle breeze captured a few stray strands of hair, blowing them into her face. She pushed them back.
“It looks like England,” she said with a touch of disappointment.
“England?” The word burst out of Brenn. How could she not see the difference? Even the earth smelled differently to him. It made his senses feel alive, and had from the first time he’d crossed this border.
It was his home.
With a jolt, he realized that Tess didn’t feel his kinship with the land. He started to understand what Sarah had been trying to tell him.
And he began to worry.
What was Tess going to say when she beheld Erwynn Keep?
As they traveled into Wales, Tess noticed that Brenn had become very quiet. She shouldn’t have blurted out that she couldn’t see a difference between Wales and England. She’d immediately sensed the change in his attitude as soon as the words left her lips.
So because she wanted to please him, she talked about how much she was looking forward to arriving at Erwynn Keep. “Do you have your drawings close at hand?” she asked. “I’d like to look at them again.”
“I’m not certain where they are,” he answered, his voice sounding strained.
“You aren’t coming down ill, are you?”
“No. Why?”
“You don’t sound like yourself.”
“Nothing is the matter,” he said and, to prove it true, he started talking about the farm equipment he had ordered for Erwynn Keep’s fields.
Tess didn’t think any conversation could be more boring than one about the different shape of plows.
Around one o’clock, they pulled into a village off the main road. Tess was famished; they hadn’t come to a town for hours. Brenn assured her Wales was more populated by the coast.
It was too bad they hadn’t been traveling along the coast when she’d grown hungry.
Tim drove the coach to an inn whose door sat invitingly open. It was located at the end of a row of houses lining either side of the road.
The luggage coach pulled up behind them. Willa hopped out, needing relief. She ran to the back of the inn, muttering about never finding a place to stop in this uncivilized land.
“Willa exaggerates,” Tess told Brenn, before following Willa.
“I am not exaggerating,” Willa defended herself when Tess came around the corner. “I feel we are driving into a heathen nation with accommodations to match!”
“Don’t be silly.”
“Clarence was telling me stories. These people don’t think like us.”
“They don’t know us.”
“Not us—the English.”
Tess shook her head with a laugh.
“It’s true,” Willa stressed. “They call us Saxons.”
“So? It’s just an antiquated way of saying the English. They may be a bit backward here, but they are good people,” she declared with confidence.
A few minutes later, she questioned her opinion.
The inn was so small, it was obvious that there would be no private room. The main room was busy, but all talk came to a halt when their party walked in.
Tess leaned back toward Brenn. She covered her mouth with one gloved hand before saying, “I have been known to cause a stir when I entered a room, but I’ve never struck anyone speechless.”
He chuckled. “Come sit over here.” He directed her to a trestle table in a far corner.
A man who had the bearing of an innkeeper approached. He spoke to Brenn in gibberish.
Now it was Tess’s turn to stare.
Brenn spoke gibberish back. It surprised Tess to see that the innkeeper understood what he’d said and answered Brenn in English.
“We’ve got rabbit today. A good cheese and ale.”
“That will be fine,” Brenn told him.
Tess sat at the table, feeling very much the center of speculation. The table was not the cleanest. Willa’s eyebrows came up to say, I told you so. Tess frowned at her to sit down.
As the innkeeper turned to fetch their luncheon, the other customers decided to go back to their business.
The air filled with the sound of a foreign tongue.
“What language are they speaking?” Tess whispered to Brenn.
“Welsh.”
“Welsh? Why don’t they speak English?”
Brenn laughed. “Because the Welsh are cursedly independent.”
“Do you speak their language?”
“Just enough to say I don’t speak Welsh.”
Tess frowned at him, irritated.
“What?” he said, responding to her unspoken criticism.
“Why didn’t you tell me this before?”
“Tell you what?”
How could he be so thickheaded? “That this isn’t England.”
“It is England. They just speak a different language. And there are always people who speak English.”
Tess sat back, listening to the voices around her. “Not many.”
Brenn flicked a bit of caked food off the table. “Not in the country,” he conceded. “Along the coast, a good number of the Welsh speak English.”
“What about at Erwynn Keep?”
“Oh, well.” He took a moment before saying, “One or two speak English.”
Willa made a humming sound. Her back was ramrod-straight.
Tess glanced around the room. Everyone looked respectable enough. But she couldn’t help saying under her breath, “This is a long way from London.”
At that moment, the innkeeper arrived with their food. To Tess’s surprise, the meal was delicious. She even liked the ale. It was sweeter than any she’d had before, with a bit of a bite.
She was just about to say as much to Brenn, when a young man dressed little better than a sheepherder stepped in from outside. Everyone greeted him. “Daniel!”
But instead of answering them, Daniel began reciting.
“What’s he saying?” Tess asked Brenn.
“Poetry.”
Tess looked over the man’s rough costume. “Poetry.”
“They all do it here, Tess. The Welsh have a love for rhyme and song. They can go like this all day.”
To add truth to Brenn’s words, once Daniel had finished, another man stood up and began reciting. And then another who appeared little better than a chimney sweep. They were cheered on by the innkeeper and his patrons.
She finished her meal, thinking this was all a bit upside down. “Would you mind if I took a walk before we set off again?”
Brenn started to rise. “I’ll go with you.”
“No, you continue eating. Willa can come.”
The maid was only too happy to oblige. She’d barely touched her food.
Outside, Tess tied the ribbons of her bonnet into a bow as she drew a deep breath. “Let’s go this way,”
she said, pointing to her left.
Willa immediately started voicing her complaints, starting with all the posturing and carrying on in the inn.
Tess listened to her with half an ear. She had her own sense of disquiet to deal with. This was her new home…and she was a stranger in her own country! Perhaps after a short visit to Erwynn Keep, Brenn could be convinced to live in London. She longed for what was familiar.
They’d crossed the road and started their way back toward the coaches when a group of boys jumped out from between two houses, shouting and yelling.
“Merciful Lord, they’re attacking!” Willa shouted. She would have started running except that Tess grabed her arm.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Tess said sensibly. “They are boys…shouting at a bush.” Which was the truth. The lads gathered around a scraggly bush, shouting in Welsh at it.
“No, they are heathens worshipping!” Willa cried.
One of the boys threw a rock into the bush. At that moment, a scrawny black cat crawled out from beneath the bottom leaves and streaked through the lads’ legs, running for its life. The boys gave chase.
“It’s a cat!” Tess cried. “A poor little cat!”
She started after them, alarmed that anyone could mistreat an animal in such a manner.
The cat ran, its head low, its ears back. The screaming boys followed, and Tess followed the boys. Her straw bonnet came flying off to bounce against her back, held on by only the ribbons around her neck.
Behind her Willa called for help and deliverance.
Unfortunately, the cat’s path was blocked by the stamping coach horses. Unnerved, the animal swerved and then started to dash for the only safety it could see—the door to the inn.
Just as the cat would have run inside, Brenn stepped outside. The little cat smashed headfirst into his boots. Its paws scrambling, it started to run away but Brenn caught the animal in his gloved hands, lifting it up by the scruff of the neck.
“What have we here?” he said.
The boys skidded to a halt, their eyes widening at the sight of the tall stranger. Almost as one, they turned and scattered off into different directions.
Tess came charging up. “They were chasing this poor cat,” she said, trying to catch her breath. “You may have saved its life.”
The innkeeper and patrons crowded into the doorway behind Brenn, their eyes agog at the sudden commotion.
Brenn brought the cat up to eye level. It hissed and spat, trying to break free. There wasn’t much to him.
Sores and bald patches marred his coat. One ear looked as if it had been torn. He was so thin, Tess could see his bones. Her heart went out to him.
The innkeeper stepped forward. “Here, let me take him from you, my lord. That there is the vicar’s cat.
He’s nothing but a nuisance.”
“The vicar’s cat!” Tess said with indignation. “Why does he not take better care of his pet than this?” She reached for the cat before the innkeeper could have it.
The poor kitty recognized a safe haven. It dug its claws into Tess’s bodice and watched the innkeeper and the others with round yellow-green eyes.
“Why, the vicar’s dead,” the innkeeper said. “He passed on almost a year ago.”
“Then why doesn’t someone take care of this cat?” Tess asked. “Look at the poor thing. It’s starving!”
To give truth to her words, the animal let out a pitiful “meow” that was met without a blink of sympathy from any of the patrons of the inn.
“Everyone has enough cats of their own,” the innkeeper said. “Besides, those lads—” He shrugged.
“They are the sons of Dissenters. We’ve a good number of them around and there’s not a person that wants some Church of England cat.”
Tess wasn’t certain she had heard him correctly. “Are you saying that people in this village will not take in this cat for no other reason than because it was owned by a clergyman with the Church of England?”
“Yes, my lady,” the innkeeper said without an ounce of hesitation. “The Dissenters are a strong-minded lot. They have conviction.”
“Then I’ll take the cat” she snapped. “He’ll make his home with me!”
“Tess,” Brenn started to protest.
“I’m keeping the cat, Brenn.”
He looked from the mangy animal and back to her. “Very well. If my wife wants a cat, she shall have a cat. Innkeeper, do you have a hamper for this cat to travel in? And we’ll need an assortment of your best table scraps.”