<<They took her>>, Liza meant to me, her intentions like fog over a dark moor. <<They took Lilac>>.

Episode 71: A Young Woman Takes A Rest With The Moon Overhead

Took her? The sweet pyre with whom Niall kneaded dough for bread every morning? The one he met when the moon was setting and for whom he wore a kerchief around his neck?

Niall straightened where he sat and shook his floppy head. “Cousin, you must not cross my father, as I have. He does not ever forgive. There is”—he inhaled—“no kindness in his soul. He does not even own a heart. And he will make sure to ruin whatever life you carve for yourself. Once he has set his wrath on you, there is no escaping it….”

He took my hands in his and kissed them feebly. “Go back to your punishment, Aurelie. If he finds out you have left, he will never forgive you. If you defy him, he will take what you love and he will…kill it.” To Liza, he motioned toward the manor. “I am fine, Liza. Believe me, I am fine. Take her back. Please.”

I freed myself from Niall’s grasp only so I could take Liza’s hand and place it in his. She would remain with him in his time of great sorrow as I walked back toward the manor until I was no longer in their line of vision.

Then, once I was sure I was out of their sight and with a great breath of courage in my lungs, I turned myself to the place where I hoped Edgar Cranley’s Estate lay. Finally freed from my room, I would not wait to be married off this way or that. I would not beg and sit and hope that my love, Rosemary, would be saved. For just as quickly as a slave could be sold away forever to spite someone, one could be rescued.

A few tumbles were necessary, as I was in a great hurry and did not know my way around the foreign forest and had not eaten nor drunk in some time. After my fourth fall, I sat for moment, catching my breath in a spot on the forest floor where I could see the moon and feel its light again.

<<I could sit with you a while>>.

I would have been startled if the meaning was not as gentle as the moonlight that floated down from the sky. Alexander appeared beside me, lowering himself to the leaves and dirt.

How does he always find me? How does he always know when I want to be found?

I desperately desired to hold his hand, to understand what his palm felt like once again, and to have him nourish me as he always did when he touched me. But I could not bring myself to be so bold as to take his hand without him offering it first.