She tightened the shawl across her rounded belly. “Of course, once I knew, I thought what I should do. I thought about it all night long. It was a long night, and a cold one . . .” She trailed off. She wanted to tell him how bright the beach of shells had been in the moonlight, the heavy stones that she had chosen, the thought of walking into the mire, the certainty of death by drowning, and her revelation that the life of their baby was a joy to her.

Then she saw his face, closed and angry. “But I would never have done it. I wouldn’t use herbs to poison any baby. I certainly wouldn’t poison my baby. And I’d rather die than poison a baby of ours.”

She saw his shoulders hunch with an instant revulsion. “It’s not a baby yet,” he said. “Not in law. Not till it quickens. Not in the sight of God. Has it quickened yet? No?”

Wonderingly she looked from his scowling eyes to his hardened mouth. “Yes,” she said quietly. “Of course. We conceived him in September. I felt him move at Christmas. I know there is life in him. He sleeps and wakes inside me, I can feel him. Perhaps he dreams.”

“It’s not a boy child!”

Again, she looked at him with her steady dark gaze. “Of course, no one can say for sure. But it is a child, and I believe it is a boy.”

“It’s not. It’s a nothing. It’s not too late . . .”

“Too late for what?”

“For you to take the herb or the drink or whatever it is that you know. Not too late for that.”

“Not too late for me to push a bodkin into my belly to kill it in the womb,” she remarked.

He gulped. “Of course, I wouldn’t want you to do that. But, Alinor . . .”

“Yes?”

“Alinor, I want to take you to my home, I want you to live there as my wife. You will be the next Lady Avery.”

At once she was diverted. “Is that your name?”

“Yes, yes, what of it? That’s not the point. What I am saying is that I cannot take you to my mother and my father if you are big with a child and you are still another man’s wife. If you allow it to be born, it will take Zachary’s name. I cannot raise a child named Reekie in my own home! Bad enough that my mother will have Alys and Robert as her grandchildren! I cannot, Alinor. You must understand, I cannot. It would be to shame you, and shame me and my name.”

“I didn’t know that was your name,” she repeated. “Avery! Are you Lord Avery?”

“No. My father is a baronet. Not that it matters.”

“But I’ve thought of you all this time as James Summer. Is your given name not James? How shall I call you anything else?”

She was so ridiculous, so frivolous, that he grabbed her by the shoulders and at once, she jerked back to avoid a blow, following an old lesson that a shaking was followed by a blow, and if she let herself be knocked to the ground she would get a kick to the belly or in the face. At once he released her, horrified, dropping his hands from her shoulders and spreading them wide as if to show that he had no weapon.

“Don’t!” he said. “For Christ’s sake, don’t! I’m not that brute. I wouldn’t hurt you. Forgive me, forgive me! But I can’t make you hear me! Alinor, you must listen to me.”

“I’m listening,” she said, recovering herself faster than he could do. “I’m listening. But I can’t do what you ask.”

“Forgive me . . .” He was trying to calm the furious thudding of his heart. “It has been a terrible month, a terrible year. The very moment that I met with my parents—and they were so angry—we learned of the arrest of the king. So I couldn’t leave my seminary, as I was preparing to do, but had to go back into royal service. Since then I’ve been in London and The Hague, and then to London again, trying desperately—you have no idea—meeting with men who had no hope, asking for money from paupers, asking for them to act when they dared not, sending messages and getting no reply and now—God forgive us—now he is dead, and it is all over, and we have lost worse than we ever lost before, and I have to listen to your brother taunting—”

“Ned didn’t taunt you.”

“He did. You don’t understand. It was between men. It was about our country, our war.”

“My war, too,” she observed. “My country, too.”

He took a swift step away from her to the gate as if he would fling himself out of the gate and down the road, in a rage. “This is not the point! You aren’t listening to me!”

She stood as still and silent as a deer when it scents danger but does not know what is coming. She stood as innocent as a deer, as intent as a deer scenting the wind. He stepped back towards her, his fists clenched at his sides, and fought to find the words to explain. “You have given me a terrible shock. I don’t know what to say.”

A barn owl with a great spread of white wings flew along the hedgerow of the lane towards them, lifted clear of the bushes, and disappeared into the field on the other side of the garden. James saw how she watched it, as if it was warning her of something, and he thought that it was impossible for a man like him—an educated man, a spiritual man—to understand a woman like her, in a place like this.

“What?” he demanded, and she turned her gaze back to him.

“I was just watching the owl,” she said quietly, knowing that he was irritated but not knowing why. “I was attending to you. I was just watching her.”

“You’re cold,” he said, but it was he who shivered. “And Ned will be wondering where you are.”

“He knows where I am. I told him I was shutting up the hens.”

He had to bite his tongue on his irritation. “What I mean is, we can’t talk now. We can’t talk here. We must talk tomorrow. We must meet tomorrow somewhere and talk. Where will you meet me?”

“I have to take Rob to Chichester tomorrow.”

Again, he bit the inside of his mouth and tasted blood. “Can’t Edward take him?”

“Oh, no!” She was shocked that he would suggest it. “I want to see Rob’s master and his home, and where he will work. Mr. Tudeley will pay over the money. I have to sign Rob’s indentures. They will accept a woman’s signature. I have a good name in Chichester.”

He tried to be calm. “Yes, indeed. Then I will come to Chichester and meet you there.”

She nodded without speaking, and opened the garden gate for him to leave. He was astounded by her calmness.

“Alinor, we must be together, we must be lovers again. I will make you my wife. I will give you my name—my real name. You will become accustomed! I love you, I want you. More than anything in the world. You are all that I have left! I have lost everything else. You are all that is left for me.”

She nodded, saying nothing.

He thought her unnaturally serene while he was sweating with a mixture of anger and frustrated desire. “Where shall we meet?”

“The Market Cross?” she asked. “Before noon?”

“I’ll be there. Nobody knows of this, do they?” He jabbed towards her belly with his hand. “You’ve not told anyone?”

She lied to him, for the first time, before she had even thought of it. “Nobody,” she said.