I nodded. I was sure he expected no less. Didn’t everyone always do what he told them?

The conversation seemed to be over. He reached out a hand to help me up, and I took it without thinking, suppressing a yelp of pain as he grasped it firmly with his own. This was not lost on him. The pale blue eyes focused sharply on my hands as he opened them out for inspection. His own hands were big enough to close around mine completely; but he had relaxed his grip to the merest touch, examining the rawness of my flesh, the start of an open wound, the remnant barbs of the starwort plant. My hands were not a pretty sight. I felt uncomfortable, standing so close to him. His face showed little indication of his thoughts.

“I don’t like this,” he commented without emphasis. “Perhaps I should lock you up after all. But I doubt that would stop you. It wouldn’t really matter what I did, would it?”

I shook my head. Don’t ask too many questions. There are things I may not tell. Don’t come too close.

“I must have been mad,” he said to himself, and dropped my hands, and we started to walk back down the hill. “They all think so. Crazy, or bewitched. There are plenty of theories. I don’t concern myself with them. We can, at least, do a little better than this.”

The terrier was rested and greeted us with a sharp barking and violent wagging of the tail. She pranced ahead of us back to the house, full of self-importance. There were eyes on us as we walked back together, but no more was said than a “Fine morning, my lord!” and a “Looks like fair weather.” I thought, there is a charmed space around him, and while I stay in there I am safe. Venture out, and it will be a different story. This did not comfort me, for I had no wish to be dependent on any man, least of all this sharp-eyed Briton who had given me no choice but to leave my own place. And I did not delude myself that his efforts to protect me were in anyone’s interest but his own. In the end he would get what he wanted from me, and that would be it. You suck the juice from a ripe fruit, and then you throw away the husk, and the crows come and peck apart the remnants until the last of the life is gone from it. Still, in the picture of things, that hardly mattered. For never a word would I speak to him, until the shirts were finished. And when they were finished, then—then all would change. When my brothers came. If they came.