She looked beyond him, to the river slipping past. ‘I think so. I don’t know. Nay, perhaps not.’

‘They want you to be happy?’

‘Aye. But perhaps they’ll think me – a different Sarah.’

‘But you’re not.’ He reached in past the linen that framed her face, found her lips. ‘You’re the same Sarah.’

‘Aye,’ she said. She did not sound certain. ‘This will – it’ll protect them too. Yes? I’m not beginning a new life and leaving them in the old.’

‘Of course.’

‘Because – because I’ll be paid? Even so, I can feed them, but how will they be safe? From the village, from the new …?’

Truthfully, he had thought little beyond bringing Sarah to him. But he spoke as sure as he could. ‘With your wages they will not need to sell charms, or any other thing that might bring trouble.’ He reached in, brushed her cheek with his thumb. ‘You can take them food, still. More, even. They will be safe.’

‘Yes,’ she said. But still she frowned, and bit on her lip.

As Bett prepared the food basket the next morning she looked at Daniel as though she’d like to prepare him for the spit.

‘I’ll send this with the young master while you’re off to your work,’ she said. Dismissed, Father and Gabriel left.

‘You – it looks like you’re about to slice me and feed me to the pigs,’ Daniel said. Tried a laugh that came out too thin and that he regretted immediately.

She scrubbed the table so hard that her arms shook.

‘You do not like Sarah?’ he asked. A guess, for she gave him no hint of how he had offended.

‘I like her well enough.’ She wrung out the rag, dipped it back in the pail and resumed wiping the already gleaming table. ‘I didn’t know it was she you had chosen when I agreed to pass on the clothes.’

‘You would not have helped us?’

She turned, folding her wet arms across her chest. ‘I’m not sure there is any helping you.’

He shifted, swallowed. ‘Not – not so. I have spoken to Father, he is expecting a dairymaid. Sarah has a natural sense with animals. I will teach her the rest. And now she has the right clothes. For which I thank you.’

‘She is not another broken beast you can fix and house in the barn.’

‘I am well aware.’ His breath was coming fast and sharp. He had not expected this.

Bett dropped the rag into the pail and reached for her broom, yanking chairs out from the table to better reach the floor. ‘And when you cannot save her—’

‘I can.’

‘What’s to become of her? Farmer’s wife? You know that can never come about. How can you even think to bring her here, knowing what your father feels about the family? The very one that laid the curse on Gabriel.’