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“I heard your speech,” he said. “I know what you’re going to do.”

“I looked for you in the crowd, but you weren’t there!”

“I arrived just in time to hear you promising that you could get food and medicine. Before that, I was at Ferrick’s near the churchyard, putting leeches to his son’s neck.”

“Please, say no more—”

“We gave him gall of boar and bled him for hours, but he’s raving and purple with fever. I don’t think he’ll last until cockcrow.” Otto said this as calmly as if he were predicting that it would snow. He was more used to death than I ever wanted to be.

I reached my arms around his neck and pushed my face into his chest. I felt sadness crushing me all over again. “Belin died,” I whispered. It was hard to even breathe.

“No! Not Belin, too,” he said. He pulled me closer and held me as I wept. “You should’ve called for me.”

Why? I knew there was nothing you could do.

He pressed his mouth to the top of my head. “My love, my love, I’m so sorry,” he whispered into my hair.

I shivered and leaned into him, wanting to forget everything.Achingto. I felt blood suddenly rush to my cheeks—and to every secret part of me. How could I desire him like this when I was so full of sorrow? And would he desire me enough to help take me away from here, even for a few stolen moments?

“Come inside with me,” I urged.

Otto hesitated. “Hannah,” he began.

“Shhhh,” I said.

I reached behind me and felt for the door of the cottage, and blindly I unhooked the latch. Pulling Otto along with me, I moved into the dark chill of the abandoned room.

Otto put his fingers to my lips, and I kissed them. He bent toward me, tipping my chin up and pressing his mouth to mine. Heat flooded my body as one of his hands cupped my breast and the other reached up to the nape of my neck. I shook with desire as our soft, open-mouthed kiss grew harder, more insistent. I could feel him stiffening against me, and I grabbed his hips and pulled them tight against mine. There was a pile of clean straw in the corner, and we stumbled together toward it.

Then Otto pulled back, gazing at me urgently with eyes as green as summer. “Are you sure?” he whispered.

“We are as good as wed,” I reminded him, “having promised ourselves to one another.”

“We’ll be married right after the Maying, Father says.” Otto’s voice grew hoarse with lust as his hand slid between my legs. “And we shouldn’t forget,” he added, “that we have alreadygivenourselves to each other on many delightful occasions.”

I kissed him. “Stop talking,” I said.

I knew I should go home to my family, but the truth was that I needed this. I lay back in the straw, sighing as he lowered himself down beside me.

Here, at last, was a hunger that could be satisfied.

CHAPTER 5

I returned home flushed and breathless. My lips felt bruised, and I could still feel the warmth of Otto’s skin on mine. As I took off my linen headwrap, bits of straw shook loose and fell to the floor. Thankfully, no one noticed.

But whatever happiness I’d stolen in Otto’s arms quickly vanished. Mary sat huddled in a corner, miserably twisting yarn on a wooden spindle, and the air was heavy with Belin’s absence.

“Where did you go?” my mother asked, stirring a pot of gruel over the hearth’s feeble fire. “There’s the darning to do, and the thatch in the south corner is rotten ….” Her weak voice trailed off.

I made a show of hanging up my cape and brushing dust from my skirt. I kept my eyes away from the corner where Belin had breathed his last. Where did I go? I couldn’t tell her.

My name is Hannah Dory, and I am a traitor and a tramp.

“She just went for a walk, didn’t you, Hannah?” Mary said quickly. “I told her to, Mother. I thought it would make her feel better.”

I gave her a grateful look. Though I always thought of myself as Mary’s protector, she looked after me, too.

My mother sighed wearily. “I hope it did, since supper will be small comfort.” She reached out and took my hand in her roughfingers, to show that she forgave me for running off. “Call Conn in to eat, please.”