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Charmaine. Not today. And good lord, not with Alice Torrance trailing along behind.
    “Do you know what that horrid creature of yours has been doing?”
    Valerian turned to face the irate countenance of her cousin. Charmaine was at least ten years older than herself and they had not been kind years. Her face bore the striking structure that marked the females of their line, but a lifetime of dissatisfaction had worn unpleasant grooves into its surface, her lips thin and white in a perpetual expression of discontent.
    Charmaine did not like being the daughter of one supposed witch, Theresa, and the cousin to another. She had never wished to pick up the broom of family tradition, so to speak, and whatever unusual qualities she may herself have possessed were deeply buried beneath her quest for normalcy. Her husband was the town cobbler.
    “Good day to you, Charmaine, Mrs. Torrance,” Valerian said, acknowledging the innkeeper’s wife. “Has Oscar been causing trouble?”
    “And when does he not?” Charmaine asked. “ ‘Tis the second time this week he has pulled my laundry to the ground. If I did not know better, I would think he had been sent on purpose to aggravate me.”
    “I am terribly sorry about your laundry,” Valerian apologized, genuinely contrite on behalf of Oscar. She could not wish extra laundry chores on anyone, not even Charmaine. “If I knew how to break him of his bad habits, I would.”
    “Someday someone is going to shoot that bird,” Mrs. Torrance put in.
    Valerian narrowed her eyes at the woman. “I would be quite upset by that,” she said, her voice filled with unspoken threats. “I do hope no one is so foolish as to try it.”
    Mrs. Torrance tucked in her chin, taken aback by the fierce tone. “You ought to keep him away from town, is all,” she temporized.
    “Is Howard well?” Valerian asked Charmaine, seeking to change the subject. Mrs. Torrance loved to stir up trouble, and she was best ignored.
    “Yes, fine. Gone to Yarborough for supplies for the shop,” Charmaine said absently of her husband, and then she lowered her tone, her eyes turning bright and hungry. “You have met the baron, I hear.”
    “Baron Ravenall!” Oscar squawked joyfully, then buried his head in Valerian’s hair.
    “Yes, we met.” Charmaine and Mrs. Torrance were the last people with whom she wished to discuss the man.
    “I saw him from a distance. He is young. Good-looking.” Charmaine eyed her cousin’s body in a manner that made Valerian acutely aware of her own breasts and belly. “I also hear he invited you to the hall, and you went. Alone.”
    “To tend Mr. Carlyle’s injury, yes.”
    “And?”
    “There is not much to say. I did my job, and I left.”
    Charmaine stared at her for a long moment. “He has been asking about you, you know.”
    A flush crept up Valerian’s cheeks, her cool composure suddenly in danger. “What? Who has?” She was aware of Mrs. Torrance listening closely, a smug smile on her lips.
    “The baron, silly girl. Or so I hear. He even asked Alice about you, at the inn.” Charmaine nodded towards Mrs. Torrance.
    The temptation to ask for details was nearly overwhelming, but that Valerian would not do, not with this pair. “Well, I hope he heard nothing ill.”
    “Pity he did not come to me. But perhaps he does not know that you and I are family.”
    “I cannot imagine the genealogies of the townsfolk are of any interest to him.”
    “It would be better for him if he knew we were not all witless farmers. It might save him making mistakes in his treatment of us.”
    Valerian did not want to think about what Charmaine was implying, or what scandalous scenarios she may have been speculating upon with Mrs. Torrance. “I must be going. I apologize again about the laundry, Charmaine. Good day.”
    Charmaine nodded, wishing her good day in return, but Valerian felt both women’s eyes on her, following her down the street. She wondered if others were watching her,