She walked with her head down, exhaustion evident in every line of her body. She wore a faded red cloak that had seen better days, and carried a small basket clutched to her chest. Even from this distance, he could see the weariness in her posture.
His jaw clenched. She was working herself to the bone every day, and her father, that prick of a leatherworker cared not, except that she put in her hours in his workshop as well.
Not for much longer.
Alaric had already made his plans. He intended to provide for her, watch over her, and it mattered not that she know who her benefactor was. He would not tarnish her name further, but her needs were urgent, and he was determined to protect what was his.
She disappeared now around the next bend, heading toward the cottage at the end of the road.
He gave her a few moments head start, then began to follow, His gaze sharp and his steps silent as he paced through the undergrowth.
He'd been watching her for three weeks now since he had learned her habits.
He knew which paths she preferred, which shortcuts she took when she was running late, and where she paused to rest when exhaustion made her stumble.
She hadn't noticed him yet. But he knew she felt something in the woods following her from the way her eyes scanned the trees now and then.
Soon, though, she would know. Soon, he would step from the shadows.
But not quite yet.
Alaric smiled grimly as he ghosted through the trees, keeping pace with the woman who didn't yet know she belonged to him.
Soon, Hanna. Very soon.
HANNA
Hanna dragged her feet as she slowly walked away from the cottage. It was already late afternoon, and no matter how fast she walked, she knew she would be late enough to ire her father.
Everything she loved lay behind her in that cottage. Maria, an old friend of her mother’s, had taken Hanna in when everyone in the village turned their heads with shame as she passed. As soon as her condition had become apparent, her father had turned her out of the home, leaving her to the wolves when Hanna needed him the most.
Her mother would never have turned away from her, Hanna refused to believe otherwise. Her mother had worked in service her whole life and had gotten Hanna the position there as an undermaid. She had known what a woman faced in that situation.
The ways of the men who came through those doors. Arrogant, entitled. Taking what they wanted when they wanted it.
Hanna drew the fading red cloak tightly around herself, trying to remember her mother’s scent, gone from the fabric formany years now. Sometimes Hanna thought she could almost remember it.
She knew what she needed to do.
Hanna had no recourse. She must write to the young Lord Emsley and tell him of the child. Hope that he would acknowledge his blood and offer some small allowance or support. It galled her, but the thought of little James falling ill, or worse, ending up in a foundling home, was just too unbearable to think of.
Maria was a widow, too old to work, relying on the charity of the parish and her small annual allowance. She had no living children of her own. A trial, and a blessing. For surely they would never have approved of Maria taking in the bastard babe of a disgraced servant girl.
Hanna’s leather half boots dragged in the dirt of the road as her exhaustion made itself felt. She was absorbed in her thoughts and spied the horses on the road a minute too late.
Even as she tried to dash for the undergrowth of the wood, the youths circled her with their horses. Laughing and spitting at her feet.
“What have we here?” called one, the son of a tenant farmer. His fellows snickered, the horses' hooves churning the dirt as Hanna kept her eyes down, refusing to look at them as she searched for a gap to make her escape.
“Fancy a bit of a tumble?” yelled another, braver than the others. “I’m sure this one wouldn’t mind a green skirt in exchange for a few coins,” he added, to loud guffaws all around.
Hanna felt anger surge, her spine stiffening with indignation. Just as she was about to take a chance and dart through the horse’s legs, a loud shout rang out.
Alaric Wolff stepped from the woods beside the path, his brow furrowed with anger as Hanna stared in surprise. Unspooling the whip tied at his waist, Wolff cursed, lashing thelegs of the nearest mount and sending the beast rearing, its rider tumbling to the ground with a yell.
Stalking over, Wolff viciously kicked the youth where he lay, making him gasp in agony and curl up around his middle.
“Get yourselves gone, the lot of you,” Wolff said in a dangerously low tone, his tight grip on the handle of the whip creaking ominously .
