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G wen would have enjoyed the opportunity to chat with some of Lady Vaughn’s guests at Greenfield, but Calvin Vaughn stuck to her side, regaling her with his various grievances, which primarily consisted of how tedious he found Newport and its environs.

“No entertainments whatsoever,” he complained. “Not the least bit civilized.”

“I take it the Viscount Penrydd has not made good on his promise to visit.” Gwen strove to keep her tone light, disinterested. “Have you heard aught of his whereabouts?”

She knew it troubled Pen that no one from his life had yet located him. It troubled her, too, for people must be searching—his secretary, if no one else. She could not hide him much longer. An English lord would not be allowed to simply disappear.

“Penrydd? He’s buried in drink and women in Bristol or somewhere else, that’s my guess.

” Vaughn leaned back in the rout chair he’d placed beside Gwen’s harp.

“I told Turbeville to come anyway, but he had a tangle with some local blokes who left him in rather bad shape. His secretary, Penrydd’s that is, told Turbeville sudden business called the viscount away.

” He sneered. “Wager he tupped the wrong woman and took to his heels when her husband set out after him.”

Gwen hid her face behind the glass of lemonade that a circulating footman had brought her. “So no one has seen him,” she probed. “Not his solicitor, or anyone?”

Vaughn narrowed his watery blue eyes at her.

Gwen sweated beneath her lace neckerchief.

The spring evening was warm already, and with the smoke of many candles and oil lamps added to the perfume drenching the guests, the room was suffocating.

She longed to open the window beside her harp, but Lady Vaughn was a firm believer in the dangers of exposure to outside air.

“Speaking of business,” Vaughn said. “Don’t set that blowsabella on me again.”

“I beg your pardon,” Gwen said, chilled by his shift in tone.

“Our old chambermaid. Mrs. Harries said she’s at that place you run. The home for idiots and thieves and those the workhouse won’t take. She came here today, wailing that I’d made vows to her. Turned her off with a few firm words, and I won’t take kindly to future visits.”

“Mathry?” Gwen tried to remember if she’d seen the girl that day. Mathry had been lackaday about chores from the beginning, often complaining of fatigue or overwork, but the last few days she’d been subdued in her manner. She hadn’t even flirted with Pen.

“If she’s putting about that I’m the father of her child, it won’t speed my suit with the Sutton family,” Vaughn said. “And we need their money.”

Gwen struck a discordant note on the harp and pressed the strings between her palms to stop them vibrating. Her face heated as others glanced their way. Lady Vaughn frowned at her son, chatting in the corner with Gwen instead of charming their guests.

“Su—Sutton?” Gwen stammered.

“Yes. Daughter’s a prosy bore, but a large dowry covers a multitude of flaws.”

“Where—where does she live?” Gwen, fumbling with her tuning pin, gave up and shoved it back in her pocket with trembling fingers.

He frowned. “Vine Court in Llanfyllin. You wouldn’t know it.”

“How could I,” Gwen echoed in a faint voice. “And Anne is—coming here?”

“We’ll marry there, I s’pose, and then roam abroad for the wedding trip. She wants to go someplace heathenish, like Scotland or Ireland. Her brother’s a prime buck, always ready to sport his canvas, so at least—how did you know her name is Anne?”

“Oh—didn’t you say it? Anne Sutton. Of Vine Court.” Gwen licked her lips, sticky and sour with lemon.

“You’re not about to flash the hash, are you? You look peaky.”

“It’s—dreadfully hot in here. Won’t your mother open a window?”

“Come.” He stood abruptly. “We’ll take a turn about the garden.”

“I—I shouldn’t. They’re expecting music.

” But her head was spinning. Far better to be sick outside than here in the drawing room.

Sir Mark Wood had engaged her to play at Pencoed Castle a few nights hence in honor of his daughter and her new husband.

She desperately needed a down payment toward the price of St. Sefin’s when Barlow—or Penrydd—came demanding it.

The medieval Greenfield Castle had been destroyed in the rising of Owain Glynd?r and rebuilt as a late Tudor manor house, sturdy in its walls of local red brick.

Vaughn led her down a dark hall to an outside door opening on a high walled garden, hemmed by tall hedges of hornbeam and English holly.

Light spilled from a first-story window, but the garden was close and dark.

It was air, however, and Gwen drew deep gulps of it.

“Ah,” she said after the cool evening air had done its part to calm her. “I am better now. I should return.”

“Something to confess.” Vaughn blocked the narrow path. Behind him stood the door to the house and the light and safety of the crowd. Fear darted through her. Oh, why had she been such a fool to come here alone with him?

Because she hadn’t had the least expectation that Vaughn would be a menace to her. “We ought to go back inside,” Gwen said, retreating.

“I’ve developed the most violent attachment to you.” Vaughn advanced down the path.

“Violent?” Gwen said with dismay, backing into a hedge. Prickles of blackthorn caught her gown and stabbed at her lace.

“Go mad if I can’t have you.” He said this as if they were discussing the weather. Gwen nearly choked on a wild gasp of laughter. Was this his notion of wooing?

“This is—sudden.” She looked about for an avenue of escape. He was not much taller than she, but portly, and she flinched when his hands seized her shoulders.

“I am sure the madness will pass,” she said. “Let us go back inside and have a glass of cool lemonade, and?—”

His frame pressed against her, and she turned her head to the side as his hot, sour breath wafted over her face. She tried shrinking further into the hedge as his fleshy body nudged against hers. No, he wasn’t wooing her.

“Give you—what you want.” His face descended, lips parting.

“No,” Gwen gasped, twisting in his grasp. “I don’t want—this.”

“Will in a moment. Hold still.” He slid his hands to her breasts, squeezing, moaning as his wet mouth probed for hers. Slobber trickled down her cheek and neck. She knocked his hands aside, and he grabbed her waist.

“Trollop,” he muttered, panting as he tried to lower his mouth to her breasts. “Coming here taunting me, pretending to be so pure. I know what you are.” He pushed his hips against hers and groaned.

Gwen’s heart stopped beating for a moment. Had Anne said something? No, Anne didn’t know what Gwen had done.

Unless her brother told her. Panic and furious shame roared through her head. “No,” Gwen said fiercely, pushing her elbows between them and turning to the side. “No. ”

“Hedge whore! Don’t think I’ll pay for it. You’ve been begging me from the first.” Vaughn clamped his hands to her bottom, churning his groin against her. “Know how to satisfy a woman. Bet the others at your place can’t. Runts and cripples. Half men.”

Gwen froze against her will. What did he know? Had he heard a new man was at St. Sefin’s? He might make the connection to the missing Penrydd, if so. A fresh fear gave her strength.

“I said no .” She drove her elbows apart and broke his grasp. In his moment of surprise she twisted away from him and the hedge, lunging for the path.

“I do have to pay you?” He whirled and followed as Gwen backed down the path, one arm held out before her.

His pale eyes glittered in the light from the window above.

“Come back here, wench, and we’ll settle this.

How much?” He stalked down the dark path toward her.

“Don’t price yourself too high, now. You’re a Welsh piece. ”

Gwen moved swiftly toward the doorway, safety and escape. Now that she’d gotten him off her, she felt bold again. She could outrun him if she had to, even in her skirts.

“St. Sefin’s is not what you say! Nor are its men.”

He sneered. “Every woman has a price. For most, it’s pretty words. ‘I love you. I’ll take care of you always.’ What’s your price, Gwen of the gutter?”

Gwen lifted her chin and crossed her arms over her chest. “Fifteen hundred pounds.”

He heaved out air. “Fifteen hun—you complete biter! No woman’s worth that price.”

“Anne Sutton is!” she flared. “Her dowry is twenty thousand pounds. What do you think she’ll do if I she finds out you accosted me? Or if she hears about Mathry, or any of the others?”

“You wouldn’t dare.” His face was mottled with shadow, his teeth bared. “I’ll run you aground. Every last of those thatch-gallows under your roof.”

“You’ll leave us in peace. Say a word against us, one foul whisper, and I will tell Anne how many women you’ve ruined hereabouts, how many maids have left this house because of you. She will believe me.”

The threat stopped him cold, but he still had the upper hand.

“Don’t dare go back in that house, you sly boots.

I’ll tell my mother you threw yourself on me.

Stripped to your diddies and begged me to take you.

Whining like a bitch in heat.” He adjusted the fabric at his crotch.

“Won’t get a shilling more out of her. Nor anyone else around here. ”

“Your mother knows what you are,” Gwen said.

He lunged for her, and she ran.

Gwen returned the horse and dogcart to the King’s Head and walked up Stow Hill, alert and trembling.

Normally she would be unafraid of the night or the darkness.

The evil lurked in the houses like Greenfield, where soulless men thought they could take what they wished without asking.

Here in Newport, the honest merchants and the tradesmen’s families slept peacefully in the rooms above their shops.

And, thanks to her and Dovey and the others, the desperate had somewhere to go.