Heat swept over Sophia’s face, completely unrelated to the fire near at hand. She couldn’t even protest that Alice was unjust. Shehadn’tthought very much when she’d been in Cathal’s arms, and certainly not of anything beyond the two of them. In truth, that had been part of the allure. “I know,” she interrupted. “And nothing happened, not truly.”
Had she been younger, or Christian, or heaven forbid, a lady, that might not have been true, even out in this near-wilderness. Looked at from a distance, what had passed between her and Cathal had been only a kiss, such as any lord might steal from a dairymaid or a farmer’s daughter—not quite the best of behavior, but easy enough to let slip past. She had no high relations to take offense, and she doubted he had enough chivalry to feel he had to make any gestures, but thought he did have enough to keep from trying for anything more.
If she let herself feel disappointed about that, Alice wouldcertainlyhave a few words on the subject.
As it was, her friend sighed and shook her head. “I’d say you should have been more thoughtless at home—or at least in France—rather than spending so much time in your books. Not that you should have beentrulyimproper, mind, but…at least you’d have a few callouses built up, yes? Useful around men like Sir Cathal.”
“You sound like I’m thirteen or fresh from a convent. You know that isn’t so.”
“I know that smiling at a few boys down the street and then going back to your studies doesn’t count for much.” Alice put a hand on Sophia’s arm. “I know that you’ve got freedom out here, and time to use it. And I’m not saying that I wouldn’t be tempted either, if I were in your shoes. But I also know thathe’s not human. If he were human, he’d still be Sir Cathal MacAlasdair, and you’d be Sophia Metzger, and you know very well what I’m getting at.”
“I know.” Sophia wrapped her arms around herself, but managed a smile and a little laugh. “Alice, it’s not as though I think I’m going to marry the man. I don’t dwell in books all the time.”
“No,” said Alice slowly, “no, I don’t think that. You neglect yourself, but you’ve never beensentimentalbefore.”
“And I have no intention of starting now, or with him.”
“I believe you. Does he know that?”
“I…” Sophia considered the question as best she could, though it came with disconcerting memories of the look on Cathal’s face just before he kissed her, and of being warm and wanted in his arms. Sophia shook her head quickly. “I very much doubt he thinks I’m mad,” she said acerbically, “and I’m certain he knows I’dhaveto be to imagine that there’d ever be anything…significant between us.”
Alice nodded. “Just as long as he considers what’s…significant”—her arched eyebrows and pursed mouth gave the word an unmistakable meaning—“to you. He’s a man, remember?”
“You think we’d be here if that had slipped my mind?”
“And he doesn’t seem the forceful sort, I’ll give him that…not that they always do.” Memory thinned Alice’s lips and drew a sympathetic noise from Sophia. Being unmarried, she hadn’t heard as much of the gossip back home, but she knew enough. Alice went on. “But he’s lord of this place—in fact right now, if not in title—and he’s got plenty of opportunities to be persuasive…and he might not really think anything of the risks you’d be taking. I thought it was worth reminding him. I still do.”
“Not so many risks,” Sophia said, her voice falling as she looked into the fire. She’d made her choices long ago. Few men wanted a scholarly wife, and her studies had left little time for courtship. In the right frame of mind, she counted herself lucky that she’dhadthe choice to make, that with one daughter married and two sons, her family had been both able and inclined to allow for an unwed scholar. But on some nights, and on a certain sort of gray afternoon, she couldn’t keep her mind from wondering about the untrodden path. “It isn’t as though the rabbi will have a list of men for my father when I go back, is it? And at my age, it’s hardly likely that—”
The hand on her forearm gave it a gentle slap. “‘Hardly likely’ is still possible, and you know italmostas well as I do. Remember Madame Laurent? Forty-five andtwins.”
“I remember,” said Sophia, who’d gone in with salves and potions to help the midwife. It had been a long night, but the yelling of healthy babes—and the look on Madame Laurent’s face—had been reward enough.
“So. And you never know—if you were at home, you might change your mind. You’re not a hag, you know, and this isn’t so scandalous that a man might not overlook it…maybe a widower, one who had his own life too.”
“The world does contain many things,” said Sophia, the nearest she could come to equaling her friend’s probably forced optimism and the closest shewouldget to admitting, either to Alice or herself, how little the prospect appealed to her.
“Well, then.”
“You don’t have to try to convince me. I’m not going to go throwing myself at the lord of the castle out of…of despair or recklessness. It was a moment. I don’t plan to repeat it, and I don’t think I’ll even have the chance.” Sophia managed another smile. “But it is good of you to worry.”
“No, it’s justworriedof me to worry.” Alice slipped an arm around her friend’s shoulders.
This time, smiling was easier, and Sophia leaned into the embrace easily. Concern was good, and perhaps the reminderhadbeen necessary. Her own resistance was evidence enough of that.
Fourteen
Sophia fell.
She couldn’t remember what or where she fell from; she couldn’t see what or where she fellto. She knew only falling, the headfirst plummet that left her stomach far behind. She gasped for breath and clutched at nothing. The landing would be painful. The landing might well be fatal. She could do nothing about that.
At first, there was only darkness around her. Sophia stared into it with wide eyes, looking for anything to grasp, any possibility of aid, but there was only black void. She’d been screaming from the first, but when she realized that the fall was taking longer than it possibly could have, she stopped and realized that there was nothing else around her to hear. The world might have ended.
Then she began to see shapes in the blackness. They didn’t look like the products of strained vision—she knew those well—but all the same, she shut her eyes for a second. On opening them, the shapes were still hanging in the void. Now a few of them were moving. They didn’t move like earthly things. They didn’t look like earthly things either, not in shape or color, but Sophia couldn’t have said precisely what theydidlook like. The mind shied away from specifics.
Through her fear, that inability irritated her. Details had always come easily to her. One pinned down the universe with knowledge. One looked, described, researched, experimented. Sophia’s mind had always served her well in that regard, and to have it fail her, even under such circumstances as these, vexed her all out of proportion. She glowered, braced herself, and then focused on one of the shapes.
It was almost blue, except where it was more almost pink. It was a circular sort of square. It moved sideways and diagonally at the same time. Sophia closed her eyes again and shook her head—a head now shot through with pain, as if she’d tried to look directly at the sun.
