She watched, nervously dry-washing her hands, as Susan pulled Pylon up in a very unDelgado–like scrunch, then dismounted in an unladylike leap. Her braid had come half undone, spraying that damned blonde hair that was her vanity (and her curse) in all directions. Her skin was pale, except for twin patches of color flaring high on her cheekbones. Cordelia didn’t like the look of those at all. Pat had always flared in that same place when he was scared or angry.

She stood at the sink, now biting her lips as well as working her hands. Oh, ’twould be so good to see the back of that troublesome she. “Ye haven’t made trouble, have ye?” she whispered as Susan pulled the saddle from Pylon’s back and then led him toward the barn. “You better not have, Miss Oh So Young and Pretty. Not at this late date. You better not have.”

4

When Susan came in twenty minutes later, there was no sign of her aunt’s strain and rage; Cordelia had put them away as one might store a dangerous weapon—a gun, say—on a high closet shelf. She was back in her rocker, knitting, and the face she turned to Susan’s entry had a surface serenity. She watched the girl go to the sink, pump cold water into the basin, and then splash it on her face. Instead of reaching for a towel to pat herself dry, Susan only looked out the window with an expression that frightened Cordelia badly. The girl no doubt fancied that look haunted and desperate; to Cordelia, it looked only childishly willful.

“All right, Susan,” she said in a calm, modulated voice. The girl would never know what a strain it was to achieve that tone, let alone maintain it. Unless she was faced with a willful teenager of her own one day, that was. “What’s fashed thee so?”

Susan turned to her—Cordelia Delgado, just sitting there in her rocker, calm as a stone. In that moment Susan felt she could fly at her aunt and claw her thin, self-righteous face to strings, screaming This is your fault! Yours! All yours! She felt soiled—no, that wasn’t strong enough; she felt filthy, and nothing had really happened. In a way, that was the horror of it. Nothing had really happened yet.

“It shows?” was all she said.

“Of course it does,” Cordelia replied. “Now tell me, girl. Has he been on thee?”

“Yes...no...no.”

Aunt Cord sat in her chair, knitting in her lap, eyebrows raised, waiting for more.

At last Susan told her what had happened, speaking in a tone that was mostly flat—a little tremble intruded toward the end, but that was all. Aunt Cord began to feel a cautious sort of relief. Perhaps more goose-girl nerves was all it came down to, after all!