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Concern flashed through her eyes. “That’s why Evans is going with you.”

He stepped closer. Appealing to her nurturing side was the wrong move. It wasn’t nurturing he wanted from her.

“Are you certain I’m up to the task? I don’t think my ribs have healed yet.

” Though they hurt far less than they had.

He had the vague feeling that they’d hurt much worse before his beatings.

He’d spent a long time contemplating his scars, wondering how he’d gained them.

All that rose to his waking mind were sensations of white-hot agony and red flashes of blood.

He could move easily now, and it felt strange, like he hadn’t done so in years. Gwen had healed him.

“Don’t strain too much, and stop when you’re weary. You need to keep your lungs clear.” She tapped his chest. “Deep breaths.”

He caught her hand and held it. She’d touched him again. He didn’t want her to play nurse with him, either. He wanted her to see him as a man.

“Is that why you’ve been setting me to all these ridiculous tasks,” he growled.

“And then laughing at me when I’m rubbish at all of them.

” His pride still stung from being the joke of St. Stuffy’s.

Everyone else had a place, had a part, made a contribution.

Except Pen. “And now I’m to play stableboy? ”

“Half a stableboy, with one good arm,” she said archly. “With Evans, you make a whole man. Like you said.”

He moved closer, crowding her, her hand still anchored on his chest. He hoped she didn’t notice the accelerating beat of his heart. “I would like you to know I’m a whole man. Very whole.” A step closer and she’d be acquainted with his manliness, pressing against her hip.

She froze, and the playful teasing in her face evaporated. Fear fled over her features, followed by wariness and stiff reserve. They were back to the guardedness. The smiling girl, kin to the songbirds, was gone.

“Then we’ve been good for you.” Her voice sounded strained, breathless. “Staying here at St. Sefin’s has helped you. Will you admit it?”

He frowned. “Helped me? I’ve been a prisoner. The moment I have a place to bolt to, I’m breaking out.” He lifted his free hand and stroked a curl that refused to stay beneath her kerchief. “You might come with me.”

“And do what? Go where?” Her eyes were wide, fathomless pools, sucking him in.

“I don’t care where we go. And as for what we’ll do…

” He leaned toward her, leaving but an inch between their faces.

She needed to close that last distance; he wanted her surrender.

Wanted her to admit what flared between them.

That beneath her impatience and dismissiveness with him was a deeper yearning. He felt it, too.

A pointed pressure against his left side brought him out of the swirl of fantasy. He stepped back and she lowered the stirring stick.

“You’re shoveling muck today. That’s what you’re doing,” she said.

“All day,” he said. “You won’t want an interlude, or—” He rubbed the lock of hair wrapped around his finger. “Even a brief few stolen minutes with me?”

“I will be making the soap,” she said, deliberately turning away.

But her hands were unsteady as she stirred the kettle on the stove.

At least he had the satisfaction of knowing he’d unsettled her.

But she was no pure maiden to blush and titter when a man showed he desired her.

He’d eat his hat if she wasn’t an experienced woman who knew exactly what he was proposing.

But she didn’t desire him. Or she did, but refused to act on it. Worse yet.

“You needn’t deny yourself, or me,” he said peevishly. “And I don’t see why you would want to stay in this ramshackle place. Whatever I can offer you would be better.”

She whirled back to face him, stick raised, her eyes narrowed.

“We help people here,” she hissed at him.

If she were a Medusa, he’d be stone already.

“We helped you, only you’re too thick-headed to admit it.

I belong here. This is my home. And even if it weren’t, don’t think I would leave it for the kind of man who—” She cut off the next words.

“What?” he challenged her, stepping towards her again, a different heat shooting through his veins. What had she meant to say? “What kind of man am I?”

She turned her back and plunged her stick into the liquid on the kettle, stirring madly. “The kind who leaves,” she said shortly. “If you’re going, begone with you. If you come back, bring a barrow full of manure, if Mr. Trett will spare some. Dovey can use fertilizer on the garden.”

Impossible, interfering, irritating woman. She was lying to herself and denying him. A dalliance would be the one good thing to come of his cursed time here. Pen looked for his hat, a battered old wool cap he’d borrowed from Evans, and set out.

The girl Mathry met him as he crossed the yard to fetch Evans and the wheelbarrow.

She wore a shawl about her waist in what seemed the manner of these Welsh women, who used it for apron, basket, and cleaning cloth.

He guessed in a few months’ time, Mathry would be using hers as a sling for a babe.

She had that ripe look of a woman increasing, a glow to her skin, her uncovered bosom swelling in generous curves.

He took a moment to appreciate the view, but it didn’t improve his mood.

“Mr. Pen.” She paused before him with a coy look, setting one hand on a curving hip. “Where you to?”

“Shoveling muck with Evans, it seems. A Herculean task to be sure.”

The reference was lost on her. She wouldn’t know who Hercules was, much less his seven labors. He bet Gwen would recognize the allusion. And then scoff at his comparing himself to Hercules. She still saw him as inept. Inadequate. One more thing she had to take care of.

Mathry made a sympathetic click with her tongue.

“Poor darling,” she cooed. “You haven’t had much to make your stay here agreeable, you haven’t.

” Her sweat smelled spicy. Did they not bathe at St. Sodding’s?

But Gwen always smelled like a summer afternoon, and occasionally whatever she’d been cooking.

Mathry drew closer. Her hand, cradling a shawl full of plant cuttings, nearly brushed his groin. Did the lass know what she was about? He suspected she did.

She pitched her voice low. “If I can help you in any fashion, Mr. Pen, I will.” She slid her tongue over her lips.

He watched, fascinated. Had he fallen for such lures in his past life? There was something vulgar about her obvious offer, though he had to credit her good sense. He was a cut above the other men in her orbit. He was merely surprised she’d waited this long to make her play.

“The only thing that would help me right now,” he said with complete honesty, “is finding out who I am and going back to my life.”

She leaned in, which gave him a near-entire view of her breasts, lifted as they were by her tight stays. “Take me with you.”

“You and your babe?” His lip curled. “A merry little band of three?”

She faltered, withdrawing, the sultry look turning to concern. “How did you?—”

“I don’t dally with mothers,” he said shortly. “Sink your hooks into a man who’s a better bet than I am.” And he stalked across the shorn yard to take out the rest of his irritation on Evans, who was man enough to handle it.

Maybe he’d just walk on from Newport and never come back. Leave Evans and all the rest of them to the manure and the poisons and the chamber pots and the bloody belligerent goats. He owed Gwenllian ap Ewyas nothing; she had no hold over him.

Or if she did, he wouldn’t heed it. He would cut rope the instant opportunity presented itself.

Proving her right after all: that he was a man who ran.