Twilight Sojourn

By Marilyn Hailbronner

A Welsh warrior on a mission for the king. A beautiful woman lost in time. Will he try to keep her at his side, or help her return to her own world?

Mairwen, running from an unhappy life, slips into the turbulent time of 1081, where she meets the seasoned commander of a Welsh war band in the aftermath of a battle that has tipped the balance of power in this land. Together, they navigate the wilds of the Welsh mountains trying to escape an unexpected enemy.
Medieval Wales is a land torn apart by violence, and Mairwen knows she cannot keep Rhain from his mission. She must make a choice. To love Rhain she must give up everything she once knew and join the warlord’s fight for the freedom of Wales. . . .

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media
• Release date: Aug 18, 2020
• ISBN: 9781954779082

Book preview

Contents

A Brief History: Author’s Notes

Chapter 1: England, 1960

Chapter 2: Coming Home

Chapter 3: The Letter

Chapter 4: The man from the Train

Chapter 5: Truths

Chapter 6: Books of History

Chapter 7: The Castle Crag

Chapter 8: Whiskey and Rhain

Chapter 9: Enchanted Place

Chapter 10: A Slip of Time

Chapter 11: Rhain ap Cunadda

Chapter 12: The Price of Loss

Chapter 13: The Escape

Chapter 14: The Cave

Chapter 15: Into the Mountains

Chapter 16: Family Ties

Chapter 17: Journey North

Chapter 18: The Commander

Chapter 19: Uncertain Future

Chapter 20: The Hamlet

Chapter 21: On the Run

Chapter 22: Alone

Chapter 23: Truth and Lies

Chapter 24: The Hill Farm

Chapter 25: Pursuit

Chapter 26: The Mountains

Chapter 27: Bows and Crossbows

Chapter 28: The Viking Camp

Chapter 29: Captive

Chapter 30: English Border

Chapter 31: Hen Domen

Chapter 32: The Desperate Ride

Chapter 33: Cottage under the Crag

The End

Welsh Glossary

About the Author

In memory of my mum and dad

For buying me my first typewriter in Singapore at age fourteen.

A Brief History: Author’s Notes

The Welsh called themselves Cwmry, which means The Brotherhood. These were the people of the Ancient Britons. Celtic Britons after the arrival of Anglo Saxons were pushed to the far reaches of Britain to populate Wales, Ireland and Scotland. The Welsh were fearsome warriors, but this brotherhood of Cwmry were divided and their Kings and Princes fought bitterly amongst themselves to rule over more than one kingdom or to become the one King who would rule over all of Wales.

Like many times over the centuries Wales (Cymru) in 1081 appeared to be yet again fighting for its freedom, its very way of life.

Shortly after the battle of Hastings in 1066, William the Conqueror proclaimed himself king of Britain. He quickly established a line of motte and bailey castles along the frontier with Wales. Three lordships were established to hold the border against the Welsh, with the intent to conquer as much of Wales over the coming years as they could. These Marcher lordships were controlled by the Earls of Shrewsbury, Chester, and Hereford. The Marcher Lords were allowed to act independently of King William, and their appropriation of Welsh property was often brutal. This wasn’t always achieved by fighting, however, but by setting one Welsh kingdom against the other through political manipulation and treachery.

Divided by old grudges and long-time enemies three kings Trahaearn ap¹ Caradog, the King of Gwynedd, Meilyr ap Rhiwallon, King of Powys, and Caradog ap Gruffudd, King of Gwent, invaded the kingdom of Deheubarth forcing its king Rhys ap Tewdwr to flee for his life to the sanctuary of Saint David’s Cathedral. Rhys subsequently made an alliance with an exiled prince from Ireland, Gruffudd ap Cynan. The five armies met and fought at the bloody battle of Mynydd Carn in the southwest corner of Wales. The battle raged through the evening and into the next day. Moonlight glinted off sword and Irish long spear as the outnumbered invaders fought the Viking and Irish mercenary army. The Defeat was catastrophic, as each of the three invading kings fell on the battlefield and their armies scattered, running for their lives ahead of the Viking horde. But treachery was afoot, for imbedded into the invading army was a garrison of Norman arbalists² So sure were they of their plan to take over the whole of southern Wales, the Norman Marcher Lords had sent these arbalists with the three armies to ensure success.

The time was laced with heroes, bravery, and treachery, which is where the story begins.

The story is built around real events, research varies with the source as many of the histories of these events were written years and sometimes centuries after the events. Places, battle sites and dates all differ as do the names and spellings of the main characters Not surprising considering it is over nine hundred years in the past. In some references the three kings are called princes. Some unknown information has been fictitiously woven in to the novel and dates have been changed to allow for the flow of the story, for instance Ystrad Fflur (Strata Florida) monastery was founded in 1123 but I needed a place of sanctuary for Rhain and Mairwen to rest after they crossed the mountains. Many of the names of villages and towns in the novel are fictitious as are all the main story characters and do not portray any real persons nor do the events other that the battles historical record of the Kings and Marcher Lords of 1081. The site of Hen Domen no longer exists as a physical structure, but there is a wonderful model of what it probably looked like in the museum in Montgomery. The archeological site briefly mentioned is completely fictional. As for the old castle on the limestone promontory, it is stunningly beautiful set high on a hill and is open for the public to visit but other than the historical description of the castle nothing else is reality neither the fictional cave on the face of the wall nor the circle of boulders, that was purely the product of my imagination as I stood looking over the valley.

---

1 Patronymic designator, meaning son of.

2 i.e., crossbowmen.

Chapter 1: England, 1960

The train rumbled south through the dark countryside, towards the Welsh border. It was almost the end of October, yet there was already a deep chill in the air that made it seem more like December, and the inclement weather lashing against the windows of the passenger compartments reinforced that feeling. But inside the individual compartments it was warm, with a blast of hot air coming through the vents. The dim nighttime lighting in one of the compartments cast a soft intimate circle of light into the small eight passenger space.

Mairwen was bone weary. She had been travelling since early morning, the journey having taken all day. Now the hills of Northumberland and the town of Rutherby were left far behind her and with it the old life of Mairwen Tanner. When she had boarded the final train at Crewe, she had purposefully walked along the corridor, passing several compartments with empty seats in them next to other passengers—she had just wanted to be on her own. She hadn’t wanted to talk to anyone, so she had kept on walking along the corridor, one big, heavy suitcase banging awkwardly against her shin and a smaller old battered suitcase she clasped in her other hand.

The last compartment in the carriage was thankfully empty. Once inside, she had placed the smaller suitcase up into the corded overhead luggage rack, but the larger one was far too heavy to hoist up. She placed it under the window next to her legs and hoped that, being a late train, there wouldn’t be a lot of people getting on further down the line. She had slumped down into the plush, brown and tan patterned bench seat and sighed with the sheer relief of getting off her feet. She felt like she was a hundred years old instead of thirty-nine.

She let out a huge sigh, and yawned. When had her life become so complicated and plain messed up? This morning? A week ago? No, she thought, years ago would be more accurate.

She thought about her lonely walk home last night from the station in Rutherby. Unable get her husband Jack on the telephone, she had walked home burdened with this same heavy luggage. She thought back to unlocking her front door—she had been unable to push it fully open, so blocked with piled up newspapers and letters. Jack obviously hadn’t been home since she had left five days earlier, to clear her mother’s house. The funeral had been over a month ago but she hadn’t been able to face going back to the house. Too busy at work Jack had told her, couldn’t possibly spare the time to go with her. An excuse of course; she had known something was going on weeks ago. He was involved with someone again, another of the many affairs he had had over the years. It no longer had the power to hurt her and quite frankly she didn’t have the energy to listen to any more of the lies and promises.

Affairs happened to other people. At least, that is what she had thought until the night she had seen her husband’s sensuous kisses trail down another woman’s neck. Felt her own heart quicken painfully as she watched his roving hands cup the woman’s hips and press her into his body. He had been a handsome man back then. Mairwen thought about how her legs had trembled and tears had filled her eyes that night all those years ago. She had only been married for two years.

After those desperately sad early years, she hadn’t bothered to find out who the latest woman was. Oh, he made her promises in the beginning that she had desperately wanted to believe.

What a waste of her life. Mairwen looked out the train window but it was already too dark to see anything. She pulled off her hat. Her hair was damp and flattened. She reached up and ran her fingers through it. She didn’t really have a style, just let it curl about her face in an unruly mop. Shucking out of her coat, she looked down at herself, lost in the heavy jumper and black skirt, no luscious curves to be seen—not even a hint of her waist. Her critical gaze dropped down to her legs, comfy in warm stockings, and feet that burrowed into sensible, flat black shoes, aching and cold like her heart.

After she had gotten home last night she had just sat for a long time, thoughts coming and going: the revelation that her father was still alive; the letter he had written to her, but never received. How unhappy she had been for such a long time. She had let her mind roam about the house without actually moving, inventorying things that had any meaning to her. There was never a conscious thought of what she was going to do—she just started, no thought of the future and no real plan.

Stirred to action, she had opened up the suitcase with her personal things and piled everything onto the floor. How odd that, standing here in this house, surrounded by an accumulation of things gathered over the years, she needed little to be comfortable.

First she had gone over to the bookcases and scanned the shelves until she found what she was looking for, a thick book on medieval archeology, the other had been her working journal which contained her detailed drawings of archeological sites, their locations, mapped out grids of the dig and the artifacts found. These two books had travelled everywhere with her during those distant days in her twenties, when she worked during the summer at archeological digs.

She had been all set for a career as an archeological artist, working with a team of professionals. She loved history and art, uncovering ancient artifacts that told the stories of lost people, the painstaking labor of loosening them from the encapsulating detritus of layered time, the brushing away of centuries of dust to discover the treasures each dig held. Then the part she loved the most: the creation of detailed drawings of pottery shards; medieval arms, helms, and weapons; and beautifully tooled gold jewelry.

It was all a legacy of her father’s influence in her life. His love of medieval history, particularly Welsh history. He had taken her and her brother Edward to places in Wales during those early summer holidays. Hill forts and castles, standing stones and ruined monasteries, weaving stories to make things that happened a thousand years ago come alive. He had been—he was, she corrected herself—an amazing storyteller. She leafed through the pages of her work journal, always pleased and slightly amazed by the sight of her own work, the quality of the detailed drawings. To these she added a small box of art supplies. It had been years since she had drawn anything. She had let everything slip away. After marrying Jack, she hadn’t finished her degree and ended up working in a shop just to help pay the bills, then a clerk at a factory, and finally working in the archive department of the library.

She walked back to the suitcase, the books fit very well lining the bottom; to these she added other things that she treasured. Next she went to the closet and looked at her clothes: work clothes, suits, dresses—she discarded most of them, taking only a simple dress, a pair of nicely cut trousers, a summer skirt she couldn’t bear to part with, and a pair of black stirrup pants. To these she added jumpers, some comfortable blouses, a good pair of walking boots, lingerie, and toiletries, then closed the lid. If she needed anything else, she would buy it.

The older battered suitcase she left unopened She had found it hidden in the attic under the eaves of her mother’s house. She had stumbled over it in the dark. As a nine-year-old she had been told that her father and brother had tragically died in a car accident in 1930. For thirty years her mother had kept her secret, but inside the old suitcase the evidence showed Mairwen the lies she had been told. There where letters from her father, pleading letters to his wife, bank statements making house payments as late as 1958, There was even the last school assignment of her brothers, on the Norman Conquest of Wales that had never been turned in. The last letter to be added to the old suitcase before it had been closed for good was a letter addressed to her from her father.

My darling daughter,

There is so much I wish to tell you, too much to tell in a letter—especially one which I do not know that you will ever receive. I have sent many over the years, but I dare hope that this one will somehow find you. Mairwen, I am here in our old cottage in Wales. Even though you were only a child I am sure you will remember all the wonderful times you and I had together exploring the old castle and the walks we used to take. I wonder if you still love to draw. These are treasured memories for me. I hope someday I will open the door and there you will be standing, my girl. I long for a reunion with you. Perhaps it won’t happen anytime soon. No matter when you come, I just want you to know that the cottage and everything in it is yours.

Mairwen, come and find the truth after all these years.

All my love,

Dad

The address on the envelope was clear in her mind:

Mister Harold David Owen

The Speckled Hen

Llawgwalch, Carmarthenshire.

All these secrets hidden away all this time, a lifetime!

Mairwen’s eyes grew heavy and closed—she was too tired to think anymore. The muffled sounds of the train travelling over the rails lulling her into an exhausted sleep. Occasionally she had woken to see a thousand drops of rain race over the glass surface, inches from her nose, blurring the lights of homes and streetlights, spangling them in the raindrops. Her head resting against the edge of the window, her breath deepening, her head nodding as the first alarming wisps of a nightmare slipped unbidden into her mind.

Billowing clouds of choking smoke roiled around her and crept across the ground, an acrid blanket, smothering the scene around her. At the heart of the inferno, flames leaped and sparked into the night sky, spraying the tree branches with fire lite embers. The air super-heated pulled and sucked all around her, stealing her breath in a suffocating tightness. Her pulse quickened in response, fast, then faster still, until her ears pounded with the sound of each heartbeat. Fear tightened its grip on her belly, and slithered cold up her spine. She tried to run but time slowed until she was barely moving. Her heartbeat became insidiously overridden by a different pounding rhythm. Unable to move, pinned by her own fear she was thrown back, as a new threat burst upon her. Inches from her face, a wild-eyed stallion’s flaring black velvet nostrils exhaled a powerful, cloying stream of white vapor. The exhalation mingled with hers, swirling and seeping into her mouth and nose. Mairwen’s scream cascaded through her mind but produced no sound. The animal’s breath was all about her, choking her.

Above its arching neck, the face of the rider drew down closer. A man’s eyes boring into her very soul. Holding her in his gaze, probing her thoughts—he knew her.

She shrank back, trying to hide. The rider was so close she could see pinpricks of orange light flickering in his pupils. The orange lights grew into licking flames, brighter and stronger until they lit up the nose guard of his Norman helm. Screams filled the darkness—not her own, but somewhere close by. She sucked in a gulp of breath as if it might be her last and cried out.

Hush girl, it’s alright. Just a bad dream. A man’s voice soothed into the remnants of the nightmare.

In front of her, a man hunkered down in the space between seats, one knee hard on the train’s shifting floor. His face angled up, looking into Mairwen’s eyes, his green-hazel eyes searching hers. His look was friendly, concerned, but he offered no further words of comfort. His very stillness held her full attention.

The soft light seemed to hold them both and nothing else, as if everything around them blurred at the edges. She stared down into his face, just above her knees. She was completely speechless. Why she hadn’t screamed, she didn’t know. Perhaps she had been on the verge of crying out, but the scream had caught in her throat. She must have been asleep. She shuddered and remembered the dream, some horrible nightmarish thing. His voice had broken into the nightmare, dragging her back into wakefulness. Even with her eyes wide open she couldn’t shake images from the dream. She felt quite incapable of any rational behavior. That scream had seemed suspended between them and they both knew it.

His soft, heavily accented voice reminded her of the Welsh hill country where she had been born. His voice had filled the compartment like a caress, soothing, as a lover or as a father might speak to a frightened child.

She hadn’t heard Old Welsh in a long time, but she recognized the words right away.

Mairwen just stared, too startled to utter a single word. His clothes so obviously placed him from another age, the padded sleeveless gambeson over the homespun linen undershirt. The thick weave of his woolen breacan draped about his neck and shoulders, its warm folds of muted brown and lavender framing his head of dark, curly hair with a touch of grey at the temples. The breacan looked so soft, washed and faded to the color of heathered hills, held in place on his shoulder by a circular metal brooch. He was an apparition from the wild moors and hills. Mairwen felt drawn to reach out and touch him—to feel the curve of his cheek, to trace the dark stubble of his unshaven jaw—but she was too afraid to move.

When had the man come in? She hadn’t heard the door slide open. A shiver ran up her spine. How long had he been there, in the quiet confines of the compartment, just looking at her?

Mairwen’s initial shock hadn’t ebbed before she became aware of the warmth of his big hand resting on her crossed knees. The heat of him had been calming and solid, but as surprise gave way to awareness, Mairwen’s thoughts quickly changed to feelings of alarm and uncertainty. In that instant she had felt that scream starting to gather in her throat.

The stranger looked intently at her for a moment more, his eyes searching her face. His brows had drawn together questioningly, then suddenly he lifted his hand off her knee, raising it slowly, palm towards her in a gesture of reassurance that he meant her no harm. They seemed to hold each other with eyes alone. Then he shifted his weight and stood, towering tall and broad shouldered above her. The moment he moved, taking away the solid warmth of his hand, she felt absurdly vulnerable and alone. As if they had both shared the dream world she had been in moments before and were somehow connected through it. She knew he had saved her from something horrible, ridiculous as that seemed. She had the silly thought of reaching out to him, touching him, asking him not to go. Real or imagined, the horror of the nightmare still had a grip on her.

He looked as if he spent a great deal of time outdoors, his face was touched by the sun and weather. He had one of those timeless faces; he could have been forty or even fifty, handsome at any age. The woolen breacan he was wearing was an old-fashioned length of fabric similar to what early Britons might have worn. Mairwen thought about the colored plates in her history books, worn about the body and shoulders, instead of a mantel. The weave and dye simple, not the complex patterning of a modern length of cloth. As he had moved, the air had wafted about him and smelled of leather and the heavier, pungent odor of wet wool—his own masculine aroma, that had made her think of the outdoors, cool and earthy like the woods, and like something else fresh that she couldn’t put a name to. There had been a warmth rising off of him, folding around her. He had been so close to her that his breath had touched her cheek in a soft rush of air as he had spoken to her.

Mairwen felt herself completely out of step with reality, who was this man? At the compartment door he paused and turned to look back at her. Mairwen’s cheeks flushed bright red. She couldn’t recall the last time a man had looked at her that way, with the hint of a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth, admiring but intimately cheeky, as if he knew her. Then he turned and walk away. The wool breacan draped over his shoulders stirred with his movements, and, just that quickly, he was gone.

The train pulling into a brightly lit station broke the spell.

She stared at the compartment door that had just slid shut behind him. Slowly, she became aware of things happening around her: noises, the banging of train doors, passengers moving and talking as they boarded.

The shrill blast of the conductor ‘s whistle startled her from her thoughts. Mairwen leaped out of her seat and fumbled with the slide door to let herself out into the corridor. Pressing her face to the window she scanned the platform for the stranger, but he was gone, vanished into the cold wet night, swallowed up by the dark. She hadn’t apologized, or even thanked him for his kindness.

She watched the wooden sign with the station name on it slip past the window as the train started to gather speed. Pale-faced, she stared into the dark beyond the window. It was a moment before she noticed her own reflection. Even in the dim light she could see how tired and worn she was. Her heart shaped face, framed with short coppery red curls, looked forlorn. So much had happened to her in the last few days that the toll of it had stripped her bare, leaving her emotions close to the surface. Glancing at her watch she sighed, she still had an hour before arriving at Llandeilo, then a short bus ride and she would be in the tiny village of Llawgwalch. She hadn’t been to her father’s cottage in the Black mountain’s since she was eight years old.

There was hope for a new life perhaps.

Chapter 2: Coming Home

Mairwen had anticipated her arrival in the tiny Welsh village all day, a mix of excitement and nerves that fluttered in her belly at the thought of what she might find. Above all else she needed to walk into welcoming arms, at the end of this long day. What do you say to a man—a stranger, really—that was a father only in her childhood memory?

Through the long day the first flush of excitement had begun to give way to worry. The closer she got to her destination, the more fragile her hopes became. By the time the bus dropped her off in Llawgwalch, her spirits were flagging.

It had been a long time since she had stood here. It looked so much smaller than the picture she held in her memory.

She stood under the street light, taking a moment to reconnect with her distant memories. The one-room post office was still there across the street, with its shelves of jarred sweets. When she had turned seven, her dad had thought she was old enough to be allowed to walk into the village to buy sweets with her pocket money. She had stood gazing up at all those jars unable to decide, between multi-colored sherbet that came in a twist of paper with a stick of black liquorice that you dipped into it and sucked, or the liquorice allsorts with their bright-colored layers. In the end she had bought sherbet lemons because they were her dad’s favorite.

Right next door was the grocer’s shop. The lights were off in the interior, but the street light showed the shelves inside full of tins and packets of food, while in the bowed window there was a basket of bread: big, crusty farmhouse loaves, trays of assorted cakes, and wooden trugg’s with a variety of vegetables and fruit. Mairwen’s stomach rumbled noisily, reminding her she hadn’t eaten since twelve o’clock, when she had waited at Leeds Station for her connecting train.

There was a church just around the corner, she remembered, set back from the road on the other side of the village green. Its grey stone wall hiding the gravestones that circled the church. Her grandparents were buried there, side by side. Beyond the churchyard and far into the night—too dark to see now, but in her memory, she knew the landscape rolled away from the narrow valley to the rise of a craggy hill and a majestic Twelfth Century ruined castle that could be seen for miles around. Beyond that, the land continued its steady climb into distant hills and mountains.

The rest of the village, nothing more than a handful of houses, all made of the same grey stone, pressed hard up against the road. Their front doors crowding the narrow pavement. The only other building in the village was the pub: The Speckled Hen. The pub itself was set back from the road, but the tall, well-lit sign advertised its presence.

She picked up the suitcases, which had gotten heavier the more miles she had travelled. They banged for the umpteenth time against her ankles as she stepped off the pavement and crossed the empty street. The speckled hen on the pub sign looked handsome with its white and black speckled feathers and yellow legs. Its over-bright red eyes looked down at her as she walked by.

There were quite a few cars in the parking spots—it had to be close to nine already. She dropped the bigger case with a thump to struggle with the heavy black wooden door. She managed to crack it open enough to shove in the edge of the big case. The smell of beer and cigarette smoke seeped through the opening. Mairwen had just put her hip against the weight of the door so she could maneuver the luggage, when it opened so suddenly that she almost fell into the doorway.

A man’s hand reached past her for the suitcase handle. Here, let me help you. Oh, my! What you got in here, girl, a load of books? The man’s face, round and cheerful, smiled down into hers. He propped open the door with his free hand. Come on in. Scoot under my arm there. I’ll get your luggage.

She did as he bid, ducking under his arm, the white of his shirt sleeve turned up to the elbow. Brushing past him she caught the fresh spicy smell of his aftershave, a reminder of how hot and disheveled she felt.

Once inside, she seemed to have stepped into a foreign place—women didn’t normally venture into public bars on their own. She looked at the crowd of men standing in front of her, and wished she could retreat back through the door. The hum of men’s voices quieted as they turned to stared at her.

At first glance Mairwen could see they were mostly farmers, in working clothes, corduroy trousers tucked into boots, with flat caps pulled low, and an odd business man or two, in shirt and tie.

Mairwen dragged off her hat and run her fingers through her curls, smiling nervously. She hovered for a moment in indecision. The man forged ahead of her, suitcases in hand. Come on now, lads—make a lane, there.

She slipped along in his wake, glancing up only as she brushed by someone. Excuse me. The men stepped back as she sidled past. Slowly everyone turned back to their pints of beer and conversation—much to her relief.

Come over here, lovie. There’s an empty table just around the corner. The man’s voice was deep, with that singsong Welsh lilt she hadn’t heard properly in years.

Mairwen followed him obediently. Wishing she’d found a hotel today, instead of pressing on to the village right away? Here it was, nighttime, and she had no place to stay. What if, in the last two years, everything was different? What if her dad no longer lived here? She had taken the words in the letter too literally, taking for granted she had a place to come to.

There you go, love. He thumped the cases down. You come far with that load then, have you? He stood up and blew out a heavy breath.

I have. From Northumberland.

"That is far. He smiled, white teeth flashing in his ruddy face. You must be visiting, then." The man quirked a look at her, his eyebrows raised in question.

Yes. I have come to stay with my father. Mairwen put her purse down on the empty tabletop, feeling awkward about sitting. She really didn’t want to stay, but she couldn’t drag the cases all the way up the lane to her father’s cottage. She should have just asked if she could leave her suitcases here. She didn’t know if her father had had a phone installed, and anyway she didn’t like the idea of calling. Hello, I’m your daughter you haven’t seen in years, and can you come and get me? She wanted their first meeting to be special. She had let images of the imagined reunion play through her head all day—it had to be done right.

Your dad, you say? Who would that be, then?

She realized for the first time that it was strange her father would have used the Speckled Hen’s address instead of his own. Why was that? Why hadn’t that dawned on her to start with? She suddenly felt foolish. She hadn’t thought this through. Her face flushed with new anxiety.

He noticed her hesitation and the blush, which prettily spread across her cheeks. Realizing her discomfort in a bar full of men he attempted to put her at her ease. What will you be thinking of our Welsh hospitality? No sooner in the door, and I am plying you with questions. He thrust out his hand. Bryce Watkins. The Speckled Hen’s been in the family for generations.

Mairwen took his offered hand. Mairwen Tanner. Thank you so much for your help with the luggage. It has been a long day.

He waved his hand at the empty seat and small, round table Here, take a seat. Let me get you something to drink and perhaps a bite to eat? He pulled the chair out for her and waited for her to sit down. Looking down into her face, his pale blue eyes twinkled, then he winked at her. I will come back over with your drink, then if you like, I can call your da, if he’s on the phone, so he can come and fetch you.

She sat down in the offered seat. Thank you. That would be very kind of you. She didn’t want to explain to this stranger all the details of what had brought her here, so she reluctantly offered up the only thoughts traveling through her mind. He doesn’t know I’m coming, you see. A surprise. She looked up into the man’s face and managed a wan smile.

He nodded. How’s about a ploughman’s plate? It’s just cold fare—a wedge of pork pie, cheddar cheese, and a bit of salad. How would that be?

Lovely. Could I have a glass of red wine, as well? Mairwen watched him return to the bar and hoped he would be able to telephone her dad so she wouldn’t have to sit here on her own for too long. The atmosphere of the pub washed over her, noisy and unfamiliar. It was hard to see the interior of the taproom through the crowd of men. Some sat at tables, but over half the people stood socializing in front of the bar. The cigarette smoke was making her eyes smart. She hadn’t been in a pub on her own—ever. Even with Jack, perhaps on holiday, it had only been occasionally, and then they would sit in the snug away from the main bar.

Through the press of bodies, a fire crackled in the hearth across the room, its light winking on the gold color of the horse brasses that hung on the thick, black beams flanking the fireplace. She looked down at her hands, folded on her lap, and thought about the safety of her home in Northumberland. What had she been thinking? Obviously, she hadn’t been, had just been carried away by the moment. But even her situation now as untenable as it seemed, she wouldn’t have done anything differently.

There was a burst of laughter, and she looked up to see Bryce coming back with a plate in one hand and a large glass of wine in the other. Mind your backs, he said as he edged around someone. There, how’s that? He set the plate down, then passed her a generously full glass of wine. Just what you need after such a long day’s travelling. Bryce’s gaze shifted from her face to her left hand as she took the glass from him.

Mairwen raised the glass, quite aware of what he had been looking at. She took a sip of wine. Lovely, thank you. Do you serve all your patrons? That was the stupidest thing she could have said.

He laughed. Only the pretty ones. He noticed her green-blue eyes, the color of sea glass, look quickly away from him.

Good Lord, he was flirting with her. She blushed almost scarlet and frantically tried to think of something to say. My dad, she blurted out, as a distraction.

Bryce nodded, as though he understood. Does he live here in the village? I know just about everyone hereabouts. Not everyone has a phone though.

Mairwen set her glass down and reached into her handbag for the envelope, so she didn’t have to feel herself under the scrutiny of this rather attractive man and his bright blue gaze. Harold Owen. Do you know him? She found the letter and looked up.

Bryce wasn’t smiling. He looked down at her, his eyes narrowed and thoughtful.

Mairwen held the letter out between them. He cocked his head to the side to see the address. "He is still living here, isn’t he?" she asked.

He said you might come one day, your da, looking for him. If you came, I was to give you a letter. Bryce shook his head. That was a year ago, girl. I never thought to see you.

He isn’t dead, is he? She couldn’t bear it, to have come all this way hoping. The color drained from her face, and she looked down at her plate of food to hide her distress.

I don’t know. Bryce said, his voice pitched low so as not to be overheard, then squatted down beside her.

Mairwen looked into his face, feeling stricken.

Oh, now look, love. I don’t know. He isn’t here. He left a year ago. He waited, hoping like, but when you didn’t come, he gave me the letter and said I was to give it to you along with the keys to the cottage. He was well the last I saw him—not sick or anything. He stood and put a hand on her shoulder. Listen, why don’t you eat your meal then I will take you to the cottage, make sure your settled. I have to pick up the keys and letter from my house, but that won’t take long.

He watched her nod dismayed at the news. I know it’s a bit of a shock. Sit here and eat, have your wine. I used to keep the letter and keys here, but, well, as time went on, I didn’t think you would come, so I brought it to my place for safekeeping. He patted her shoulder and got up. I am sorry for it, love.

Mairwen stared down at the letter. She couldn’t believe he was gone. That she had missed him by a whole year." She took a sip of wine, then slipped the letter back in to her purse. She sat staring at the plate of food without really seeing it, sipping the wine until her head started to spin and she realized that, on an empty stomach, the large glass of wine was making her tipsy. She tried to eat but she no longer had any appetite, her stomach felt closed off. The crowd in the pub got louder. It was hard to hear herself think. Here she was, in this remote village, with no place to stay except for an abandoned cottage, and she just agreed to go driving off into the dark with a complete stranger. Was she mad? Was this whole escapade crazy? Leaving her home, leaving Jack, coming all this way without having a clue what she was walking into.

She put her head in her hands. Her head throbbed. Stupid! Stupid. Just when she thought she had managed to salvage her life, it had taken only two days for her to mess it up. She could be dead in a ditch by morning. She pushed the half-empty plate away and leaned back in the chair, wine glass firmly clasped in her hands, almost empty. How relaxed and at ease with life she had felt last night, in the safety of her own house.

Bryce came back. All ready to go?

She wasn’t, but she couldn’t think of a thing to say to prevent the inevitable. She didn’t feel safe going off with this man, but other than the empty cottage, she had nowhere else to go. She pushed her chair back and stood up just as Bryce turned to his side and held out his arm, pulling an elderly lady into