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She was no more than a woman in the world, and that was the way of the world, was it not?

“Stay out of my business, Nanny. If you’re only out for yourself, then I have to see to my own affairs.

I’m meeting Darch at the Fleur de Lys, so don’t look for me later, and don’t go meddling.

No telling tales to your bedfellow, neither.

I’ll find my own way back. I’ll find my own way anyhow, now you’ve left me in the lurch. ”

“Daron!” That cut deep. She’d always been loyal, obedient. She’d come south with him to help lure Gwen back into his good graces. She’d run to pull Gwen into the trap he’d laid the moment she learned the Black Hound had turned on him and held Daron in his grip.

But he saw none of this, gave her credit for none of the ways she’d upheld him. Saved him. Instead he leapt down as she stopped the pony cart in the back yard of St. Sefin’s and slouched off down Church Street, muttering. Abandoning her.

Anne pressed a hand to the shard in her chest as she watched him walk away, once her handsome and godlike brother, now a young man with a blurring jawline and a well-fed belly pushing out his waistcoat.

He was walking away from her, as had Gwen, as had all her other friends. She wasn’t his favorite anymore.

She wasn’t anyone’s favorite.

Dismounting, Anne pressed her face into the side of the horse’s neck, seeking comfort from the animal if she could find it nowhere else.

The great beast stirred and stamped, huffing a breath, but she didn’t fear it as she had before.

It felt good to touch something large and warm and strong. As if she could gain courage.

As if she could gain any insight as to what in blazes she was supposed to do next.

All her life, Anne’s future had been laid out before her as clear as a painted landscape.

She knew what to do. Listen to her nurse and her governess and her mother and the teachings of the Church, and she would grow into a gently bred girl who deserved the praise and admiration of those around her.

Her mother would teach her the manners she would need and her father would bless her marriage to a gentleman of some lands, perhaps the son of a titled man or better yet one in line for a title himself.

Her husband would give her standing in the neighborhood, a generous table to preside over as lady, gowns to wear and a carriage to go about in, children whose little minds and natures it would be her charge to shape.

She would live to be a credit to her husband and her family and her parish, and she would be buried with all honors in her husband’s family tomb and her name spoken of with a blessing, for the few years she was remembered.

Anne had often, as a game with Gwen, tried to imagine the face of her future husband.

He had, in her mind’s eye, looked much like Daron.

Like Calvin Vaughn, blond and blue-eyed and full of lazy charm.

But now she faced a reality so much different: a sharp-jawed, somber soldier with silver in his hair and a hardness that came into his eyes at times.

A man with a warning against his name and a stiffness to the set of his shoulders that she was certain, now, came from injury.

A man who said aloud that he need not be honorable, but who treated everyone in his life with strict courtesy, even if they did not deserve it.

A man who did not spend his coin at the card table or racecourse or pub with his friends, but who spoke of investing, of building things, of securing an income for his family and the people who depended upon him.

A man who knew the secret ways of pleasure, and taught them to her.

A cheerful whistle startled Anne out of her reverie. “ Haia and well-met! That’s Greenfield’s cob, innit? I recognize the step of you, Cadfael, I do.”

The blind goat boy came forward and lifted his hand, and the horse in the traces pushed his nose into his palm in greeting.

The boy scratched his muzzle with practiced ease.

Gwen said the boy’s mother had gotten the pox, which often caused blindness in their infants, and so he’d been left on the church steps at St. Woolos.

The sight of the boy’s scarred blue-white eyes no longer made Anne quite so nervous.

“Hello, Ifor, it’s Miss Sutton come for a visit again,” she said.

His grin broadened. “I knew that. You smell of meadow clary, y’do.”

The older boy, the simpleton, edged close to the cart. In his arms he cradled a hen. “ Pert ,” he greeted Anne with a grin, reaching out to stroke her skirt.

“Mind your toes, Tomos, Cadfael won’t care that you’ve new boots,” Ifor remarked. “Miss Sutton, Tomos says you’re pretty.”

“Thank you, Tomos,” Anne said, looping the ribbons around the cob’s neck. “I hope I may leave the cart here for my visit?”

“Aye, that you can,” Ifor said agreeably. “Tomos can help me unhitch Cadfael and we’ll set him loose to graze with Gafr. He’s turned out of the churchyard while the vestry meets.”

“ Cyw ,” Tomos said, holding out his arms to indicate the chicken.

“Er. Yes. A fine chicken. Very fine,” Anne said, and Tomos beamed.

“ Hel? , Miss Sutton!” Cerys called from across the yard.

She stood beside a hedge of brambles spotted with blackberries, a basket over one arm and a bonnet dangling down her back, purple juice staining her fingers.

She looked like a nymph of summer, smiling and carefree, and Anne waved back, charmed by the girl’s irresistible sunniness.

“We’ll have blackberry wine,” Ifor said gleefully. “And elderberry, too. Mother Morris knows a spot. And Tomos and I are after hazelnuts. Mrs. Evans makes them into butter.”

“ Cyw ,” Tomos said solemnly, presenting the chicken once again. He’d lost his customary grin.

“Oh. Hmm.” Anne stroked the dark red feathers, silk beneath her fingers. The chicken jerked its head, comb flapping, and trained one beady eye on her. Then, with a satisfied cluck, it settled further into its nest in the boy’s arms. Tomos lifted the beast to rub his cheek against its fat back.

“ Cyw pert ?” He directed a hopeful look at her, and Anne’s heart softened.

“The loveliest of chickens,” she agreed, and only as she spoke realized she’d understood the Welsh words.

“Oh, Miss Sutton! Wonderful that you’re here.” Eilian stood in the kitchen along with the ever-present pot on the hob, an assortment of plants spread out over the oaken worktable, and the baby on the table beside her, swaddled in flannel. “You can help me bathe wee Daniel.”

She said this as if Anne could absolutely be trusted to dandle a day-old infant.

She greeted Anne as if she were already a boon companion.

And Anne realized why she had come here, of all places: it was the one place she felt welcomed, and useful.

In the drawing room of Greenfield, the talk over tea was always of family health and the doings of the neighborhood and occasionally the broader gossip of the kingdom. The women of St. Sefin’s worked .

Anne stripped off her gloves and laid them and her bonnet on a chair, smiling at the newborn with his tucked-in face, lips shaped in a pout.

“Is it safe to bathe them so early?”

“Mother Morris says no,” Dovey sang from the stillroom, whence came sounds of chopping and some rustling about. “Don’t let her catch you at it.”

“Just a bit of a wipe down,” Eilian said briskly, unwrapping the babe with efficient hands. She dipped a cloth in the basin of warm water and handed it to Anne, giving her a sideways look. “So. The gentleman as collected you yesterday.”

“Hewitt? Mister—Captain Vaughn.” Anne’s neck heated. She concentrated on tugging her cloth along the baby’s toes, round as the tiniest mushroom caps.

“He’s the eldest, aye? And his mother’s pride and joy, I hear.”

Anne shrugged, affecting diffidence. “There seems much to admire. He was very well-liked as a young man, always beautifully behaved from what I have heard of Lady Vaughn’s acquaintance.

None but the usual boyish mischief and tricks, and he was always protective of his brother.

Mrs. Harries says it was a picture to see the two of them together, so devoted. ”

And what a change now between the brothers, the distance, the disdain. Which Anne had only deepened by her actions. She concentrated on baby toes.

“There were never any other children?” Eilian asked casually. She cleaned the babe’s belly, dabbing carefully around the stub of the umbilical cord. “No sisters?”

“None that I’ve heard of, only the two boys.” Anne cupped the baby’s foot and he kicked slightly, flexing his tiny knees. The way the horse had pressed back against her, a fellow creature seeking touch.

“I heard that Mathry’s child was Calvin’s,” Eilian said.

Dovey materialized from the stillroom, a jar capped with cloth in her hand. “We wouldn’t be gossiping, would we, Mrs. Lambe?”

“Mathry as much as told me herself,” Anne confessed. “It seems Calvin pursued her, then turned her off when she submitted and paid the price.”

“So he’s done to many a one hereabouts,” Dovey said shortly. She poured several flakes from her jar into a stone mortar and began grinding with the pestle. “They most of them came here to St. Sefin’s for aid, and good fortune for us, the vicar looked the other way.”

“Why would he disapprove?” Anne asked in surprise.

Dovey raised her brows. “He don’t, but the town fathers look down on a woman alone, heavy with child. A decent household isn’t to take her in. She’s shunned and pushed along when it’s known. Nipped out of town like an ewe with a dog at her heels.”

“There’s a law on the books at Newport,” Eilian said.

“I know them all now as they were read to me when I arrived, weren’t they?

We foreigners are given an education on the way things are done here.

” She screwed up her face, letting Anne know what she thought of certain of these rules.

Or being called a foreigner, because she hadn’t been raised in the borough.