And for a split second, I think the blacksmith is going to defend me to my father–then I realize I’m not the target. Dad’s blue eyes glare past me, pinning Rhys Evans in place in the stone courtyard.

“Shameless. You bring my daughter home in the middle of the night, covered in your filthy hand prints? By what right?”

I peer down, heart thumping when I see what he means. Sooty hand prints trail all over my body, over my waist, my hips, and up and down my limbs. Rhys was only checking me for injuries, but Dad doesn’t know that, does he? It looks like he touched me everywhere, and all for fun. It looks like he’s brought me home after several rolls in the hay.

Ha. If only. “Rhys was helping me. I slipped by the forge—”

My father holds up a hand, talking louder like I’m not even here. “She’s promised to the Thomas boy, Rhys Evans. Don’t go meddling with that.”

The blacksmith stiffens, gray eyes flashing to me then away. It’s difficult to tell with his thick beard and the gloom, but I swear he’s gritting his teeth. A flush crawls up my throat.

“I am not,” I say hotly, because I’ve had this discussion a thousand times now, and I’m beginning to feel like I’m talking to a brick wall. “I told you, I won’t marry to help the farm, Dad. I’ll help out in some other way—”

“What other way?” The man who raised me rounds on me in the doorway, backing me against the cracked wooden frame. “Are you suddenly useful, Gwendoline Roberts? Have you discovered secret talents? Because we can’t pay bills with blackberries, and you haven’t even brought those home. Useless girl.”

I blink, eyes burning, and my throat is like sand. It’s always like this when he turns on me. In the moment, I’m stunned into horrified silence. It’s only later that I think of the comebacks I should have said; the points I should have made.

It’s only later that I realize he was too harsh. That there was no need.

“Don’t speak to her like that.”

The deep warning makes my hair stand on end. I don’t know how Dad can sneer at the blacksmith like he does, not with the promise of violence in the air, because Rhys Evans is big enough to grind him under his heel. He’s big enough to rip the roof off the farmhouse.

“Or you’ll do what?” A bristly blond chin jerks my way, my father’s cheeks red from anger and windburn. “You’ll take her home yourself? You’d send her home within three hours, Mr Evans. You’d be banging on my door, begging me to take her back by the next day. Our Gwendoline is a walking disaster. You sure you want that around your fancy forge?”

I swallow, so miserable, but Rhys ignores my father altogether and looks straight at me. “Well, cariad?” Dad scoffs at the endearment, but my tummy flutters. “Do you want to come home with me after all?”