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The flush crept back up her neck. She was fighting it and losing.

"Me mam always said my husband would trip and fall into my eyes. Says I ought to be careful or I'll drown the poor sod."

He laughed. Warm, easy. It came from somewhere deep in his chest and sounded like a man who had all the time in the world and wanted to spend it right here.

She softened. He could see it happening, the anger draining out of her shoulders, her hands loosening on the basket.

"The men in your father's shop," he said. "How many were with the Māori?"

She leaned forward, warming to the telling. "Two others. Tall Irishman and a shorter one I didn't get a proper look at."

"Did they ask about me?"

"They did. Wanted to know if you were living here. Alone. I told them you were." She bit her lip. "I didn't know about the lady, you see."

"What else did they say?"

"The Irish one did most of the talking. Asked how long you'd been here. Whether you kept to yourself. Whether anyone came to visit." She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. "I told them nobody visited except me."

He held her gaze and let the silence ask for more.

"They paid for salt pork and tobacco and asked my father about the roads east of the village. The old lane past the orchard wall." She paused. "Are they friends of yours?"

"We do this every year. Old friends. I like to surprise them."

She smiled at that, pleased to be in on a secret.

"Thank you, Martha. Truly."

She stood. Picked up the basket. Held it against her hip. "You could thank me properly sometime. I've got sweeter fruits than them, if you take me meanin'."

He smiled. "Perhaps."

She left with a flush on her neck and a lightness in her step that hadn't been there when she'd arrived. He stood in the kitchen and listened to her footsteps fade across the yard.

Kit stood in the kitchen in the silence she left behind. His fists were clenched, his pulse jumping in his throat.

A Māori warrior. Reeve's men were already in the village, already watching.

He went through the house and locked every door and window. Side door. Kitchen door. The drawing room windows with their rusted latches. The back entrance. All of it shut and bolted. Then he went to find Audrey.

She was in the drawing room. Sitting in the chair by the cold hearth, her back straight, her hands folded in her lap, her hair pinned, her dress buttoned to the throat. Every layer of clothing back in place. The woman on his settee last night, bare shoulders and loose hair and cotton thin enough to see through, was gone. Packed away behind linen and whalebone and a jaw that could crack a walnut. She did not look up when he came to the doorway.

"Audrey."

Nothing.

"I need you to listen to me."

"I am listening. I am simply not looking at you."

He stepped into the room. "They're here. Already."

Her head turned. The coldness cracked, giving way to alarm.

"What? How do you know?"

"The butcher's girl mentioned a Māori warrior in the village. It cannot be a coincidence."