Rob was waiting and the Sharpes inside the shop were waiting for her to leave. Alinor knew she could do nothing but walk away. Still, her feet did not move.

Rob kissed her. “Go on,” he said, more like a man than her boy. “Go on, Ma. It’ll be all right. You’ll see.”

Alinor smiled shakily and turned and walked away.

The Market Cross was at the center of the town and the streets were crowded with townsmen and women, people delivering goods, and traders setting up stalls or just standing with baskets on their arms or pedlars’ packs at their feet and shouting their wares. Alinor, with her hood pulled up over her head, hiding her face, went to the steps of the cross and found James Summer at her side, appearing as if from nowhere.

He took her hand without saying anything and drew her into the front room of the nearby inn. She hesitated at the door.

“I can’t come in here,” she said, shocked. “What if someone saw me?”

“It’s not a tavern,” he corrected her. “It’s an inn. Lady travelers can dine here and drink. It’s perfectly—”

“Nobody would take me for an honest woman, seeing me in here with you.”

“Not at all! Look . . .” A family party climbed down from their traveling coach and walked through the hall to their private dining room, without glancing at her. “My own mother dines at inns,” he told her. “It’s perfectly all right.”

“I’ve never set foot in such a place,” she resisted him.

He realized that a poor woman from the country would never have seen the inside of a coaching inn, would not understand the distinction between a grubby village alehouse and the respectable coaching inn of a small town like Chichester. He realized that he must learn to be patient with her—and introduce her slowly to his world. “Alinor, please, we have to go somewhere that we can talk. Come. I promise you that nobody will see you, and it is quite all right if they do. You have to trust me. I will judge for you now, and in the future.”

He took her by the hand and led her to where he had reserved a table in the corner of the dining room, with a jug of mulled ale for both of them and a plate of bread and meats.

She sat nervously on the edge of the chair that he drew out for her and peered around her. He repressed his irritation that this Alinor was not the fey stranger that he had met in the churchyard, nor the free countrywoman who had cooked fish on sticks. Here, she was a poor woman afraid of the judgment of others.

“Has Robert started work? Were you happy with his place?” He realized he was speaking loudly as if to someone hard of hearing, or simple.

She took the cup of warm ale and wrapped her cold hands around it. “Yes, yes,” she said. “I think he’ll do very well there. They’ve a good trade and the mistress brews her own . . .” She trailed away as she saw the darkness in his face and realized that he had no real interest in Rob’s work. “You don’t want to know about that.”