“Which household?”
“One no longer standing.”
“Very efficient.”
“I thought so.”
I hated how good he was at this. The story explained my accent, my lack of possession, and my ignorance of local customs. More importantly, it placed me under his protection.
“You’re lying for me.”
“I am preparing for eventual questions.”
“That’s a very lordly way of saying lying.”
His blue eyes held mine.
“Then answer mine truthfully, and I shall have less need.”
The air seemed colder all at once.
“Where is your home, Darcy?”
I looked down toward Ashford. Smoke curled from the thatched roofs. Tova ran across the lane after a hen, her little wool skirts flapping around thin legs. Godwin stood outside the storehouse arguing with Gilda, who had apparently found a third spinning wheel and was attempting to make a legal case for it.
Somewhere beyond everything I could see lay London. Not my London, not for another thousand years.
“Far from here.”
“Across the sea?”
“In a manner of speaking.”
His brow furrowed.
Not my best answer.
“Do your people live?”
My family. Everyone going on with their lives while mine had simply stopped.
“Some of them.”
Something in my voice changed his face.
“Was your home destroyed?”
“No.”
“Then why can you not return?”
He meant roads, or distance, or the Norman invasion, but I’d wondered the same thing every hour since I’d been tossed into the past without a by your leave.
“I just can’t.”
“Is someone hunting you?”
“No.”
