William waits for her to answer. He must know. Theyallknow. Is he trying to make her say it? That they don’t want her there, that they think she’ll ruin it? Is he mocking her?
The thought slices through her.Is he like all the others?
She stands abruptly. “What are you doing here?”
“Looking for you.” He stands next to her and reaches into his trouser pocket. “I’ve been meaning to give you this.” He holds out his fist and waits for Beatrix to offer him her hand. She hesitates, sure it must be some cruel trick—a spider or a dead frog or horse dung. But her curiosity gets the better of her. She holds out her hand.
With a brush of his rough fingertips against her skin, William places a small wooden figurine in her open palm. A wolf no larger than her thumb stalks across the flat of her hand.
“Did you make this?” Beatrix breathes, lifting it closer. A foolish question. No one else could have captured the likeness—the spirit—of the wolf, fierce and proud and mysterious, so perfectly in wood.
“I was waiting for you to come back, so I picked up a branch and started whittling. I finished it weeks ago, but you were…”
Trying to be someone she isn’t.
He rubs the back of his neck. “Do you like it?”
“I do,” she assures him. More than he will ever know. “It’s wonderful. Thank you.”
She slips it into the pocket of her skirt for safekeeping. She’ll wrap it inside her clean handkerchiefs, hide it away in the bottom of her sack, and bring it to Tintern. She will keep it under her pillow and take it out at night, when the abbey is too quiet to stand. Balance it on her window ledge so it can see the moonlight. She will fall asleep watching it, thinking of her clearing in the wood. Of him.
William reaches for her, wipes the tear from her cheek with a calloused thumb before she knows it’s falling. “What’s wrong?”
Beatrix swallows the lump rising in her throat. She’s broken her promise, crying in front of him as well as the trees. She may as well tell them both the truth now. “I’m off to Tintern in the morning.”
William looks her in the eye, but she can’t read what she sees there. Thunder rumbles in the distance.
“Don’t go,” he says, more plea than suggestion.
“It’s for the best,” she says, even though what she really means is,I don’t have a choice.
“That doesn’t sound like you,” he says softly.
He’s right. It sounds like her mother and her father and Alice. Even Isabella, in the end. It sounds like all of Lancaut, sighing with relief as they watch her disappear beyond the horizon, never to be heard from again.
Isabella had tried to cheer her spirits. “They’ll teach you to read,” she said as Alice helped her into her wedding gown. “Then you can write to us.”
But even that gift has lost its appeal when she knows she’ll never get a letter back.
“They’ll keep you safe,” Alice had added as she pinned Isabella’s hair.
But Beatrix is sure she meant,They’ll keep you out of trouble.
The wind shifts. A lilting melody drifts through the branches, and Beatrix’s thoughts drift to the wedding. Is Isabella dancing with Alice? Maybe she is staring stupidly into her new husband’s eyes. Does she regret Beatrix’s absence or cherish the gift of it?
Will they miss her?
Her heart sinks, certain it knows the answer.
The sprinkle of rain grows into a steady downpour. Beatrix retreats under the protection of the branching oaks. Thunder booms overhead.
William is next to her again, closer now. She could count every freckle scattered across his cheek if she wanted to. The corner of his mouth lifts. “Dance with me.”
“What?”
He steps into the clearing, a sparkle in his hazel eyes. He grins as the rain soaks him through, turns his sandy hair dark. “Dance with me.”
Beatrix stares at him, wide-eyed. “You’re mad.”
