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Other than that he was good, and strong, and cast of honor to his core.

Fiercely intelligent, fiercely kind, a lover of fine music as much as his mother, and a man who could not stand to watch a gentlewoman be shamed in his home.

And so he had acted as if they were in love, as if he were the besotted bridegroom in truth, and she had gone mad with a fever and threw herself into his arms like the shameless hussy New Anne had become.

Begging for him to hold her, choose her, want her. Love her.

The imprint of his body, the burn of his lips, the grip of his arms about her, holding her up, she could erase none of that from her senses now. He was pressed upon her like a seal. He had said it was just pleasure. Not something more.

The gossip that Hewitt had stood up before all his mother’s guests and claimed Anne would make the rounds of the country houses today as fast as morning calls could be paid. All it meant was that Anne had an even less clear idea what she must do.

“The vicar’ll know more of Captain Vaughn, should you ask him,” Evans said.

“Stanley knows the great families hereabouts and reads the English papers besides. But I don’t think the Captain’s a bit like his brother.

Saw him tend his mother at the wedding breakfast. Read how he beat the French back from Acre, then got himself thrown in prison for it.

Dovey, that’s my missus, she told me Hewitt made the captains of the ships he owns stop trading in slaves. He’ll carry only honest cargo.”

This was confirmation of what Anne already gleaned for herself. The man she’d trapped into offering for her was a moral man, one with strong beliefs about fair treatment and just works. Not a dirty dish, like his brother or hers, and not a man who would exploit others, like his brother. And hers.

Anne pinched off a bit of bara brith for herself and nibbled on it. The bread was surprisingly tasty.

She desired Hewitt, and he desired her. They could marry and pretend they loved, save face with the world with that lie.

But she didn’t want to live a lie. That was what she’d wanted to tell him, but with him standing there, as splendid as a god striding over the land he commanded, his hair rumpled from her hands running through it—she hadn’t found it possible to speak.

Because he might say no. The answer might be pas de tout , as everything had been of late, for her. And what would she do with herself then?

“Here now, my love.” Evans straightened as Dovey charged into the room, her arms full of bed linens. “That’s a full load ye have.”

He stretched out a hand to take part of her burden, leaning on his crutch. The white linens bore the dark crimson and rust of bloodstains, old and new. Dovey curled into the crook of his arm.

“I can’t stop the bleeding,” she said, her voice muffled against his shoulder.

Her body trembled with distress. Anne had never seen Dovey other than sleek and perfectly put together, as if she were dresser to a duchess and not making do in a falling-down priory on the edge of the civilized world. “I don’t know what to do.”

“Shh, my love, my little bird. You’ve done all that you can and more. You’re an angel, that you are. Did you call for Mrs. Lambe?”

“Aye, Ifor went to ask after her this morning. She said she’d come, didn’t she, Ifor?

” Dovey raised her head, blinking tears from her large, lovely brown eyes, and her gaze fell on Anne.

Then Ifor with his plate, and Tomos beside him licking his fingers, then the largely demolished loaf of bara brith.

“Aye, said she was for looking in on Mrs. Gossett, then’d come here straight away.” Ifor popped the last bite of bread into his mouth. “Miss Sutton saw to Tomos’s hand.”

“Did she. And the bread. Did I hear the kettle?”

“I stopped it but didn’t know what you wished,” Anne said, gesturing toward the hob. “Shall I start tea?”

Dovey let her husband take the soiled linens from her and rubbed her eyes.

“I don’t know. I’m so tired I can’t hook two thoughts together.

Do I give her yarrow to stop bleeding, or will that bring it on?

Was it blackberry tea or raspberry?” She glanced toward a door leading deeper into the priory. “Where is Cerys?”

“Rounding up a chicken in the church, I believe,” Anne said, since Ifor had his mouth full.

One corner of Dovey’s full mouth hitched up in a crooked smile.

“Did I ever imagine I’d be here,” she said, looking around her as if momentarily bewildered.

“Walking over the shades of dead sisters. With fowl loose in the sacristy and two hens quarreling in the scullery.” She shook her head.

“They’ll just have scrubbed the stains out of the last batch of linens. ”

She leaned into Evans and the nest of his arms, and his hand stole around to press her shoulder toward him.

He turned his head and printed a kiss on her forehead.

Dovey’s shoulders slumped in a quiet exhale as she drew strength from her husband.

There was something so tender in his gesture, so protective, and at the same time, the flex of muscle in his lean cheek as Evans kissed his wife made Anne’s stomach jump with impossible yearning.

Desire wasn’t enough. What she wanted was this . A man whose arms would hold and bear her up when she was sinking. A man who would stir in her the devotion that shone in Dovey’s eyes as she lifted her head to look at her husband.

He pressed another kiss to her temple, then the side of her mouth. “You need rest, my love,” he murmured. “You were up all night.”

Dovey sighed and straightened, pulling herself from his embrace with clear reluctance. “I’ll rest when she’s better.” She ran her hands over her hair. “Miss Sutton, might I have some of your bara brith?”

“I am quite sure ’tis your bara brith, Mrs. Evans,” Anne said self-consciously, picking up the knife. But the gentle request made her stomach flip again in that odd fashion.

They all had folded her in with them like spiced currants in the bread, giving her a place in their community.

This community that, to Anne’s mother and Lady Vaughn and perhaps all the other well-bred women at Greenfield last night, would be considered one step above stable muck in quality.

And Anne was honored— thrilled —to be accepted here.

One of the merry outcasts of St. Sefin’s. At last, she had found a world where she belonged.

The door to the yard flew open and heavy footsteps tramped down the short hall. Eilian stepped into the kitchen, pulling off her cap and shaking raindrops from her hair.

“Throwing rain out there, it is,” she said. “A glaw bras , I call it. Big fat plops of it.”

“The glaw gochel, my knees say. The heavy rain.” The older widow, the crone they called Mother Morris, hobbled out of the stillroom and, with an impatient yank, took the soiled pile of linens from Evans.

“The little mother’s a-bleeding still and we can’t seem as to stop it,” she announced with no other greeting, though she gave a curt nod upon spotting Anne.

“The blackberry tea?” Eilian asked. “Cerys was gathering leaves for me.”

“I started the water.” Dovey looked to the hob, where the kettle sat quietly steaming.

Anne picked up the green stems laid along the worktable. “These?”

Widow Jones emerged from the scullery, wiping her hands on the plaid shawl she wore tied at her waist. “Not enough,” she said. “We need horsetail.”

“Best as a powder.” Eilian laid her hat on a small side table. “Have you any?”

Dovey worked her fingers at her temple, attempting to relieve a headache. Evans rubbed circles on her back, and again, his touch seemed to give his wife strength and ease. “I can’t recall,” Dovey said.

“I’ll need fresh nettle, lots of it,” Eilian said, then glanced around. “Where’s my pwt ?”

“In the church with the vicar,” Ifor reported. “Tomos and I can fetch your nettles, Miss Lambe. Miss Sutton fixed Tomos’s hand right good.”

Tomos held up his bandaged hand. “Cyw,” he explained.

Eilian gave Anne a curious smile, welcoming, but adulterated with something else, a restraint Anne didn’t expect. “Survived the do at Greenfield, did you?”

Anne fumbled with the brambles. “You heard?”

“The boy as delivered our morning bread came back with some stories. A rival for Rosemond Mountain at Greenfield last night, and fair Rosemond’s the best singer on the English stage, they say.”

Anne felt her cheeks burn. “I am not nearly a Rosemond Mountain.”

“And you spurred Hew—Captain Vaughn into making a declaration, then and there.” Eilian moved to the worktable beside Anne and began stripping leaves from brambles, far more efficiently than Anne.

“The most romantic thing in Newport in a decade, according to Mrs. Jones, who stayed home with the headache. One Mr. John Jones called on his mother for breakfast, and she and his sister heard all.” Eilian slanted a sidewise glance at Anne. “You’ll say yes, then?”

Anne pricked her finger on a bramble and puffed out a quiet curse. Being around this company, their ease and banter, their lack of affectation, made her lose the strict decorum she’d been trained to uphold. “I’m not certain.” She let her hands rest on the table, trying to still their trembling.

She wished she could confess all: how much she wanted Hew. How much she wanted, at all the wrong times, for this something between them to be real .

Eilian observed Anne’s discomfiture and changed tack. “Mrs. Evans, are you for nettles, too? We’ll need a great many. The juice must be fresh, not dried.”

Anne pulled her gloves out of her pocket, craving a reprieve from Eilian’s inquisition. If the news were making the rounds indeed, then she was signed over to Hew already. This wasn’t a family agreement, as she’d had with Calvin, but a public pronouncement as good as reading the banns.

Jilting him, after this, would be so much harder.

“I’ll help.”