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“All of these souls would have nowhere to go if we did not give them a home at St. Sefin’s, Your Worship,” Gwen said.

“I should say not,” said Sir Robert. “Good Lord, they’d be in the workhouse, or demanding outdoor relief from the parish.”

Gwen nodded. This was a tactic that might yield fruit. “I believe you were supplied a letter from Mr. Stanley, the vicar of St. Woolos? He attests that St. Sefin’s has been a great relief on the poor rates around Newport. We rely on donations and our own earnings, you see. Not taxes.”

The clerk handed over a letter. Sir Robert’s eyebrows rose as he read it.

“Housing for indigent—foreigners—that is concerning—young mothers giving birth out of wedlock? Hmm. Taking all manner of ill and diseased—asking no fee or surety for their care—but you are not a religious institution.” He peered at Gwen over the paper.

“No, Your Worship. St. Sefin’s was a priory of the Carmelite nuns, and then passed into private hands at the Dissolution. We are a secular community. Our only rule?—”

She hesitated. This was not the place to discuss her superstition about death.

A hollow ache pierced her womb, an old memory.

She’d borne and buried a daughter, and not two yards away stood the man who had fathered the babe, planted his seed and never thought again of the infant or its mother.

He had walked free and unburdened in his life of luxury, spending coin as it came, while Gwen wore her fingers to bone to feed herself and Dovey and Cerys.

She trembled with wrath, alight with it.

“None of this matters,” Vaughn butted in.

“Miss Ewyas owns the place and is therefore responsible for the goings on there. Charge her, threaten her with imprisonment, and let her throw herself on the mercy of her—friends.” His pale eyes, red-rimmed, glimmered with malice.

This was the next step in his blackmail, to make her cave to his demands to marry one of them.

She could protest no longer that she was worth nothing. Just that morning she’d received the letter from her father’s solicitor in North Wales. She was worth more than Greenfield and Vine Court put together, and she was daughter to a man knighted for service to the Crown.

She lifted her chin. “I do not own St. Sefin’s.”

“She can still be charged,” Daron said. “The law says she does not have to be owner to be held accountable.”

“What an odd law for you to be so intimately acquainted with, Mr. Sutton,” Gwen said.

Sir Robert frowned. “I know what the law says. But in my court the owner is answerable for what takes place on his property.” He peered at Gwen. “Who owns St. Sefin’s?”

“I do.”

Pen stepped through the door. Every gaze in the room swiveled to him as if they were iron shavings and he the magnet that drew them all in a line.

He was overpoweringly elegant in a double-breasted tailcoat of blue wool over a waistcoat embroidered with red.

Instead of breeches he wore buff pantaloons and a pair of gleaming tall boots.

The well-tailored, expensive clothes showed every powerful line of his frame, and he swept off his black wool hat as he entered, transferring it to the hand holding a bronze-tipped cane.

Gwen wondered if he needed the stick to walk, but his confident stride into the room suggested it was merely an accessory. This man had no weaknesses.

“Rhydian Price, The Right Honourable Viscount Penrydd,” Ross announced from behind him.

Ross too was well-dressed but wore a harried expression, while Penrydd was every inch the haughty lord.

He nodded in acknowledgement to Sir Robert, who half-rose in respect at the title before recalling that, as presiding judge, he owned the room.

“How did my family come by a Carmelite priory? An interesting story,” Pen said, though no one had asked.

“My ancestor, Gereint ap Rhys, was a Welsh knight and great friend to Jasper Tudor. He supported Henry Tudor’s troops at Bosworth and earned a barony for it.

At the Dissolution, Henry VIII gave St. Sefin’s to the family, by then calling themselves Price, and it’s been bound up with the Penrydd estate ever since, though I regret to say that not much care was taken of it.

Miss Ewyas, happily, has rectified that oversight. ”

At last his eyes moved to her, and a rush of air filled Gwen’s body like the fuel of a hot-air balloon. The shifting world settled. Pen was here. He was here to witness her disgrace, the last thing she wanted, and yet his being here made everything hurt less.

“You own it!” Vaughn yelped. “But you—you’re the man?—”

Penrydd watched him with the cool curiosity he might show a new kind of insect. “The rough, worthless man described as causing fights and—how did you put it—keeping company with Miss Ewyas?”

Oh, yes, company was kept. She carried those memories on her skin. Gwen enjoyed watching Vaughn’s Adam’s apple bob up and down his throat as he attempted to find the words to redeem himself. “But you—you?—”

“I was lodging on my own property to discover its state of repair before attempting to sell it,” Pen drawled. “I doubt that is a chargeable offense, Your Worship.”

The spectators tittered. Pen had won them all in a moment.

It seemed by Sir Robert’s chuckle that he’d won him, too, by his name alone.

Indignation and gratitude sparred in Gwen’s breast. She wanted to win this case on her own merit, but Pen swept her accusers before him in a way she never could, as if they were so much rickrack on the Severn’s tide.

“Penrydd,” Sir Robert said with respect in his tone. “Heard you fought under Nelson at Tenerife. Rather a bad time, wasn’t that?”

“Rather,” Pen said. Every line in his body went taut, and Gwen ached to soothe him. All those nights he woke screaming, transported back to that living nightmare—who came to him now, in his rooms at the inn, to whisper him out of his dreams?

“That Penrydd.” Daron finally made the connection. “You made Gwen your mistress?” His nostrils flared.

“On the contrary, I mean to make her my wife,” Pen said. “I’ll wed her as soon as she consents for the banns to be posted.”

The crowd rustled like shorebirds when a morning fisherman set them to flight. Gwen’s eyes tightened against a sudden threat of tears. Marriage was taking things too far. No one would believe this magnificent man would want her, in her dowdy gown and mended lace.

Daron snapped his jaw shut. “You can’t marry her. She’s?—”

“She’s what?” Pen crossed the room in a few bold strides.

Gwen caught the trace of a limp and wondered what he’d been doing to strain himself this early in the day.

Concern melted as he lifted her gloved hand and kissed the back of it.

Sighs rose from the females in the audience.

Gwen curled her fingers around his out of sheer instinct.

“Ruined!” Sutton exclaimed. “She’s been—I, a long time ago—and this place—the business there?—”

Pen lifted one brow, waiting, and Gwen adored his supercilious mien at the same time she cringed at it.

The viscount was out in full display. This wasn’t Pen, the man who made her laugh, the man who surprised and delighted her, the man who brought her to heights of pleasure and then picked fennel for her besides.

But it was him. These were all aspects of him, and if she loved the man, she had to accept all of him. She couldn’t pick and choose the parts to leave and the parts to keep.

“Vaughn told me what goes on there!” Sutton sputtered.

“Day and night. She’s available to any man who pays for her and trots all about the countryside at their bidding.

And the company she keeps, the dregs of society—it’s hardly respectable!

My lord,” he added, belatedly realizing he was swinging at an opponent far above him in weight.

“Choose your words wisely, Sutton,” Penrydd said. “You are making claims against my future viscountess and doings on my property, and the clerk of the peace over there is writing all of this down. Sir Robert, remind me—is there still a penalty on the books for insulting a peer of the realm?”

Ross coughed into his fist. “ Scandalum magnatum ,” he said.

Sir Robert’s eyebrows shot up. “Slander of the great? Not prosecuted much these days, but still a chargeable offense, yes. Need a jury for that trial, though. Have to go up to quarter sessions at the least.” He turned toward the plaintiffs. “And a much higher penalty, if the slander is proved.”

Vaughn, impossibly, turned even paler and took a step backward. Sutton’s lip curled as if he’d swallowed something sour.

“A case for another time, then,” Pen said, his voice as silky as the morning mist that rose from the basin of the Usk. “To the one at hand—have you had time to consider the evidence, Your Worship? Keeping a disorderly house, nuisance to her neighbors, and all that.”

Sir Robert fidgeted with the piece of parchment before him on the table.

“According to Mr. Stanley, a man from whom I have never known an untruth to be uttered, the establishment of St. Sefin’s is a public good and has kept any number of people out of the workhouse and off the poor rolls.

As a private home that does not charge fees, I see no licensing requirement that must be met.

And I find it unlikely a collection of widows would be running a bawdy house, with children about.

As to the matter of Miss Ewyas and her personal conduct—” He gave Gwen a sidewise glance.

“I feel certain, Lord Penrydd, that you would only offer for a woman of the highest moral character.”

He pounded on the table with his gavel. “Defendant is not guilty. The charges against Miss Ewyas are dismissed.” As an immediate babble resulted, Sir Robert raised his voice and fixed a protuberant stare on Vaughn and Sutton.

“The surety of the plaintiffs given as recognizance is forfeit to this court,” he shouted.

“And—there is a fee for my services, gentlemen.”