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servants were talking this evening, said she speaks to her dead husband, Douglas Sutton.’
    ‘Shall I wake her?’ Lucie asked.
    ‘Ma always said that folk should never wake a sleepwalker. Oft-times they die being torn from the world of dreams.’
    Lucie doubted that, but she decided against waking her aunt. And tomorrow night she thought she might move up to the solar. She had not wished to leave her aunt alone after giving her such sad news. But it seemed her presence offered no comfort.
    Phillippa had said the weakness came on her suddenly, just after Sir Robert departed. ‘Why did she not send word to me she was ill?’
    ‘She is a proud woman,’ Tildy said.
    Lucie already knew she could do little but comfort her aunt. Nicholas, Lucie’s first husband, had also been struck suddenly with apoplexy. He had suffered terrible headaches with it. But God seemed at least to have spared Phillippa the headaches. It was the hardest thing to bear, watching a loved one suffer and being unable to help them.
    *
    In the morning, remembering Tildy’s comment about the servants talking, Lucie sought a quiet word with Daimon. ‘My aunt is causing gossip among the servants?’
    Daimon shifted his weight, frowned. ‘I do not like to say it, Mistress, but Dame Phillippa has been queer of late. Muttering to herself, refusing to eat, fixing her eyes on a spot in the air, as if she sees something we cannot see.’
    ‘Tildy knew she paced and whispered to herself at night, but the rest of it – did it come on with her illness?’
    Daimon nodded.
    ‘This muttering? Can you understand any of it?’
    ‘Not myself, no. But cook says she talks to a man named Douglas and sometimes calls him husband.’ Daimon lifted his shoulders, dropped them, shook his head. ‘My mother talked much the same in her sickness, but to a sister who was long dead.’
    ‘Does her behaviour bother the household?’
    ‘We worry for her, is all. She is a firm mistress, but fair.’
    ‘Do you think she sees him?’
    Daimon looked down at his hands. ‘She speaks to him, Mistress. Whether she sees him I cannot say.’
    ‘Thank you, Daimon.’
    He shifted to the other foot. ‘Mistress Wilton, I must explain my conduct in the yard when you arrived.’
    ‘I have wondered what is between you and Tildy.’
    ‘I would marry her. But she will not have me.’
    ‘Truly?’ But what of Tildy’s blushes? And the warmth in her voice when she spoke to him?
    ‘She says that your children are too young. And her family too far away. And she is not good enough for a steward’s wife.’
    Too many arguments. They might all give Tildy pause, but could they turn a young woman against her heart? Lucie guessed the truth was something else entirely.
    ‘Are you certain that you love her?’
    ‘I am, Mistress. I think of no one else. Truly.’
    Daimon looked so sad Lucie believed him. ‘Would you like me to talk to her? Reassure her that she is free to follow her heart?’
    ‘No, Mistress, though I thank you for being willing. But she might take it wrong, think you encourage my suit. I do not think Tildy would be happy unless she came of her own accord.’
    The poor young man walked away with an air of doom. Lucie watched him cross the yard to the stables. There must be something she might say to Tildy.
    ‘Your steward has worried you?’ Harold said at her side.
    ‘God have mercy,’ Lucie said, almost jumping out of her skin. ‘You have a way of stealing up too silently.’
    ‘It stands me in good stead when I wish to catch a servant misbehaving.’
    She turned to look at him, not liking the sound of that. She believed that if she treated servants fairly, she could trust them. ‘Brother Michaelo says you walked about at dawn. Did you visit a tenant? Do you know someone here?’
    Harold shook his head. ‘I enjoy a morning walk. Did Daimon give you bad news?’
    ‘No. Nothing like that. Merely a heart broken that might be mended, with care.’
    ‘Ah. Are you to lose