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“You’ve gotten so much done with so little, Ophelia. It would be impressive, even for a seasoned crew,” Silas said, running his hand over the chipped paint of the drill.

“Mrs. Darling is an excellent teacher, and we all had at least some training from the WLA. We’ve managed to pull together so far.” She realized she hadn’t quite kept the defensiveness from her voice when Silas ducked his head to make eye contact.

“I was in earnest, Fee,” he said, the nickname between them before he caught it. “What you are doing, not just with the farm ... it’s impressive. All of it. Something’s changed in you, not just your clothes or that you’ve left the estate ...” He trailed off a little.

“I feel it, too,” she said quietly. “I think it’s my mind that’s changed, even more than my body.

” She wondered briefly if she should have spoken of her body aloud, but decided not to examine that thought too closely.

“It’s like all of this”—she gestured between herself and the room full of machines—“was in me, but not even I knew it. I had to come here and do this to truly realize it.” She wanted to explain to Silas what it meant to work on the farm, to be useful in a concrete way; she wanted him to understand what she was trying to build for herself.

“When I told my father my plans with the WLA, he was so angry and I was so afraid.” Silas nodded when she paused.

“But I did it anyways and maybe that’s the most important part, the doing , even more than whether it was farm work or nursing or something else. ”

He was quiet beside her, his face thoughtful, his body still.

She appreciated that he hadn’t tried to minimize her leaving the estate, but also hadn’t made it the most important part of what had changed.

She wondered if he also felt relief at leaving the farm and before she could help herself, she was asking him.

“Why did you leave, Silas? I mean, I know you enlisted, which surprised me, honestly. I suppose I imagined that you would always be there, as your family was, hadn’t realized you were patriotic in that way.”

He met her gaze, his green eyes dark as a forest glade, and if Ophelia hadn’t been watching so closely, she would have missed the moment his face shuttered and rearranged itself into something resembling neutrality.

“I hadn’t considered it originally,” he admitted slowly.

“Had planned on applying for exemption to keep the farm going, grain and milk off to market, all that ... but I suppose I worried that wasn’t enough, wouldn’t protect anyone if it came right down to it.

” He pushed his hands through his hair, the strands immediately falling back into place across his brow.

“It felt important to defend something, what I think of as my country, my family and friends, of course.” His long fingers gestured in the space between them as he said friends, and Ophelia couldn’t help remembering how lovely their short summer had been.

A reprieve she hadn’t known to hope for.

“Your mother must have been beside herself with worry,” she said, thinking of how close Mrs. Larke and Silas had been.

“Aye, surprised and grieved. I know she’d been counting on me to keep things going for all three of them. Samuel hadn’t really taken on much of the farming then, and Delphine, well, she was just as she always was, driving my mother to distraction.”

The fondness in his voice was like an ache Ophelia could feel in her own chest. She wanted to take his hand or draw him close.

She reminded herself that she didn’t need to soothe him, that she didn’t have to take on his past or responsibility for his feelings.

She looked up at Silas, still standing with his back toward the door, his face lost in shadow and memories of his family.

“Have you been to see them since you were sent home to recover?” He shook his head, and she saw that she had hit on the real point of pain.

“Why not, Silas?” She couldn’t understand why a man so devoted to his mother and siblings would stay away, but when she looked up to continue her questions, she saw his face twist with anger and sadness.

“I’ve nothing to offer, have I? My leg is only just shy of a wreck and I feel of no more help to them than when I was across the Channel. I’m”—he swiped a hand across the back of his neck—“I’m ... there’s reasons I can’t visit them, in any case,” he gritted out, his jaw sharp with tension.

Ophelia didn’t know what to say, hadn’t realized that Silas, strong, capable Silas, might feel himself less for his injury, and immediately understood what a silly assumption it was.

There were expectations of manhood, not as inflexible as those for women, but expectations just the same.

The rigid set of his shoulders and hands fisting at his sides told her everything she needed to know.

“That isn’t true, Silas, it could never be true of you.

It isn’t your duty to protect everyone, even if it were possible,” she said gently.

She wanted to say more but he was already shaking his head, so instead of pushing him further, she motioned while moving across the passage.

She lifted the horses’ bridles down from their hooks and swiped the jar of leather cleaner from its place on the shelf.

Her hands felt unsteady as she worked the buckles on the horses’ bridles, her fingers tripping over the familiar movements.

Silas lingered behind her in the doorway, his broad shoulder resting against the rough boards.

He said nothing, but she could feel the weight of his eyes on her, and it made her neck hot and her hands clumsy.

She whirled around, desire and sadness hot in her chest, and said, as breezily as she could, “Well, you may as well make yourself useful if you’re going to stand there. ”

Silas dipped his head and stepped across the hallway in one easy stride.

Next to her at the waist-high shelf, he pulled one of the bridles toward himself, and taking a piece of rag, began gently wiping down the leather, removing the dust and grime of the previous day.

Almost immediately, Ophelia realised her mistake; sharing the jar of cleaner meant that he stood close enough to brush her elbow with his.

She couldn’t help but watch his long fingers moving against the leather reins, every stroke of his hand sending ripples of movement along his muscled forearm, the pale skin sprinkled with golden hairs, revealed by his rolled-up shirtsleeves.

He made no attempts at conversation, nor came any closer, but worked steadily at the task, his body seeming to fall easily into the rhythm of the work.

Ophelia found herself listening to the steady metronome of his breath, instinctively matching her own movements to the timing of his.

They worked in silence, surrounded by the soft snuffing of the horses eating and the clucking of the hens.

It felt so easy to work next to each other like this, Ophelia thought.

She tried not to let herself imagine a future version of her life where there was nothing that they couldn’t face together, no burden they could not shoulder side by side.

But even as she felt her body sway ever so slightly toward Silas, their shoulders companionably close, she had an inkling that he hadn’t shared everything with her.

“And what of you?” His voice was soft and worn like the leather they worked on.

“What of me?” she said, irritated by her unsteady voice.

He snorted softly, and she could feel the warmth of his smile against her cheek.

“I’ve spilled my guts and still know no more than that you arrived here without your father’s blessing.

” He paused. “Which I have to say is no mean feat given the sway he held over your life last I saw you.” He turned toward her at the bench, his hands stilling in their work.

“I can’t imagine how much has changed in your life and I find myself eager to know. If you’re willing to share, of course.”

Ophelia huffed a small laugh into the warm air and tried to ignore the sizzle of nerves in her belly.

She wasn’t sure why she felt nervous to tell Silas about her move to the farm.

They were both here now, so surely it made no difference how they had arrived.

He had enlisted, and as much as that had thrown his life into disarray, the decisions she had made in his absence had changed the course of hers. She cleared her throat.

“Things were much the same after you enlisted, with my father, I mean. There was another potential proposal, and when I told him I didn’t intend to marry his choice, he threatened the usual retributions.

” She paused, and Silas nodded to show he understood her shorthand.

“I wasn’t supposed to visit your family, though I did stop by a few times.

I saw that the visits made your mother melancholy, so I didn’t continue.

” She kept her hands moving to keep her mind from dwelling on the loneliness of that time; the empty manor house seeming colder than she could ever remember, the bleak, sere fields echoes of her own isolation, pushing her to seek change, connection, some new version of her life.

“When I met Hannah at the recruitment meeting, she was doubtful of my intention. But by the time I got home that night and got over the embarrassment of being called a lightweight, I knew I would join. The WLA makes sense to me, did then, and still does now.”

“How do you mean?” Silas asked.