Ella’s voice grew almost imperceptibly cooler. “You are very kind to offer, Alys, but we have lived in a proper village before. Everyone is either better than or lesser than another person. Here, we are all equal. And I hope you’re not offended, but I do consider this a real home, although I’m sure it’s not up to your standards.”
“Mam,” Tiny said. “Lady Alys didn’t mean—”
“Ella, no!” Alys was aghast. “I was only trying to—”
“Think nothing of it,” Ella interrupted and waved a hand. “Thank you for your offer, but no. Ira has sacrificed his life to afford us all a place to live in peace. We wouldnot abandon him simply for the promise of more grand accommodations.”
“I’m sorry if I insulted you, Ella,” Alys said, her eyes stinging with anger at her hasty, poorly chosen words. “That wasn’t my intention. I was simply looking for some way to repay you for the kindness you’ve shown me.”
“You can thank me by not revealing our existence to other outsiders once you leave here,” Ella said mildly, still kneading the dough.
Other outsiders.It was a reminder: you don’t belong here. Alys felt that she had committed a grave error, and she didn’t know how to correct it. “I would never,” she said solemnly. “Never. Ella, I—”
“Why do you not go and ready yourself for the feast?” Ella interrupted. “Perhaps Piers needs your assistance. Tiny and I can finish up what little is left here on our own.”
“Mam,” Tiny chastised softly. She looked up at Alys. “I’d go to Fallstowe. For certain, I would, Lady Alys. I’d go anywhere with you.”
“You hush, Tiny, and don’t be burdening the lady with your pleas. She has a man to tend to, and we have work to do yet.”
Alys’s hands froze over her mound of dough. She was being turned out once again. “Are you certain, Ella? I want to help, and—”
Her words were cut off and the woman pushed her way between Alys and the workbench. “I’m sure. Just go, Alys.”
Tiny looked over her shoulder and gave her a sad smile. “I’ll see you at the feast, Lady Alys. Can we sit together?”
“Of course, Tiny,” Alys said past the lump in her throat as she saw Ella give her daughter a discreet pinch. “I’d like that very much.”
Tiny nodded and turned reluctantly back to her work.
“It’s alright, Alys,” Ella said quietly over Tiny’s head. “I know your heart only wants good for us, and you’re used to getting what you want. But you can’t fix everything. And you shouldn’t try.”
Alys felt close to tears. Ella made it sound as if Alys was a meddler, instead of someone genuinely offering to help.
Was she a meddler?
“I’m sorry,” she said again, picking up a cloth and wiping her hands.
“Think naught of it,” Ella said, returning her attention to her chore. “It will be a grand feast to see the two of you off. I’m certain we’ll all remember this evening for many years to come.”
Alys ducked out of the hut, her brow furrowed, her confidence more shaken than it had ever been. What kind of woman was Lady Alys Foxe?
Or, perhaps more importantly, what kind of woman did shewantto be?
Piers finished dressing in his clothes that Linny had cleaned for him. He felt almost like himself again.
At least he thought he did. He wasn’t quite sure who he was anymore. In the span of little more than one month, he’d been a motherless, half-noble bastard; orphaned; married; and then discovered he had a grandfather. A living grandfather, who was at once mean as hell on a summer’s day, sharp as any learned scholar, and generous as though he were the richest man in the land.
That Alys had gone in search of help and found Ira was more than just a coincidence that had saved Piers’s life. She had given him another chance at saving Gillwick from Judith Angwedd and Bevan, true, but she had alsogiven him something that he had, for all purposes, never had in his life: family. Someone he shared a blood bond with, a history. Ira was his mother’s father, and through him, Piers was beginning to know the woman who had left him so long ago.
Family. Something that Alys took for granted, and something Piers would not let her forsake. Not for him, for what she thought she felt for him, not for anything. Alys needed her family. And she would be a fool to disobey the Foxe matriarch in her wishes for Alys to marry. The opportunities that Alys’s family ties would present to her and her future children were too many and too great for Piers to let her throw it all away with idyllic dreams of becoming a dairy farmer’s wife. She deserved more than that.
He would tell her tonight about Ira and his mother and father; tell her that while he still intended to go to London and attempt to secure Gillwick, he would not use Alys or her name to try to sway Edward. He would tell her that he wanted her to go back to her sisters at Fallstowe. That was all he could do.
He didn’t want to hurt her. In honesty, he didn’t want her to go back to Fallstowe, and he most definitely did not want her to marry Clement Cobb. There was something about Alys that pulled at his insides. That twisted his thoughts from their previously logical course. She was unpredictable and impulsive and reckless. And passionate and strong and brave. He felt pride at the idea that she could love him, that perhaps there was something worthy of him to love after all.
The best he could hope for was that she would heed his wishes for her to return to her family. She had changed during their adventure together. Piers could easily see that. Perhaps she would listen, this time.
He heard faint drumming below—sounds of the villagers readying for the feast—and then a moment later, Ira called up: “Lad! Are you coming down or nay?”
