“My lady?” It was a very young maidservant, nervous and ill at ease. “The lady Oonagh wants you, please. Straightaway, she said.” She bobbed an apology for a curtsy, and fled.

I had been almost happy. Now, as I knelt there with my hands covered in soil and my hair tumbling down, my heart grew cold again, even in the center of my own quiet place. I could not shut her out, not even here.

I walked back between the lavender beds. They had bloomed well this year, and remnant flower spikes still released a memory of summer into the air as I brushed past them. Inside, I scrubbed my hands, but the nails were still black. I tidied my hair as best I could and hung the apron on a peg. Well, that would have to do. There were limits to the amount of trouble I would take for the lady Oonagh.

She’d been given the best chamber, one whose narrow windows gave a view of the lake and caught the afternoon sun. She was waiting for me, standing demure by the bed, with rolls of cloth and laces and ribbons strewn around her. Her auburn hair outshone the brightest of these adornments, trapping the light in its dark tendrils. She was alone.

“Sorcha, my dear! What took you so long?” It was a gentle enough reprimand. I advanced cautiously across the stone floor.

“I was working in my garden, my lady,” I said. “I did not expect to be called.”

“Hmm,” she said, and her gaze traveled over me from tousled head to muddy feet. “And you nearly thirteen years old. It comes of growing up in a houseful of boys, I suppose. But we’re going to change all that, my dear. How disappointed your mother would have been, to see you so wild, and on the very threshold of womanhood. It’s as well she is not here to see how your upbringing has been neglected.”

I was deeply affronted. “She would not have been disappointed!” I said angrily. “Our mother loved us, she trusted us. She told my brothers to look after me, and they have. Maybe I’m not your idea of a lady, but—”

She interrupted me with her cascade of laughter, and her arm around my shoulders. I tensed under her touch.

“Oh, my dear,” she purred, “you’re so young. Of course you defend your brothers; and I expect they did the best job they could. But they’re only boys, after all, and there’s nothing like a woman’s touch, don’t you agree? And it’s never too late to start. We have a year or two, before we must think of a betrothal for you; time enough. Your father wants a good match for you, Sorcha. We must polish your manners, and your appearance, before then.”

I pulled away from her. “Why should I be polished and improved like goods for sale? I might not even want to marry! And besides, I have many skills, I can read and write and play the flute and harp. Why should I change to please some man? If he doesn’t like me the way I am, then he can get some other girl for his wife.”