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away. Rose’s ears rang faintly. Her breath moved roughly in and out of her body; she had never been so aware of it. I am alive, after all.
    â€˜In the hall, my lord.’ The guard dipped his head towards Rose. ‘He has news from your sister, my lady.’
    Bluebell had sent Heath to Folcenham? That was a surprise: her sister had kept them apart for three years. Perhaps Bluebell thought time and distance would cool her love for Heath. They had not. Some days she had tried not to love him but, inevitably, the ordinary misery of her life forced her imagination back to thoughts of him.
    Wengest propelled her gently towards the bowerhouse. ‘Go, Rose. Take Rowan to her nurse. I’ll meet you in the hall.’
    â€˜Can I not come, Papa?’ Rowan asked.
    â€˜Can she not meet Heath?’ Rose echoed, somehow managing to keep her voice steady.
    â€˜You know I don’t like to do business with the child around,’ Wengest said, with a dismissive gesture. ‘If he stays long enough to eat, Rowan can meet him then.’
    Rose scooped Rowan up — the girl grew so heavy — and hurried out the chapel gate. Heath was here. Music in her veins.
    Rose found the nurse in the spinning room, and left Rowan there playing with threads on the floor. Her heart sped and she dashed into her bower to tidy her long, dark hair in the bronze mirror. She stopped a second, steadying herself on the bed pole. Breathe in, breathe out. It wouldn’t do for Wengest to see her with such a high colour in her cheeks, to see the frantic desire behind her eyes. She had never stopped hoping Heath would come back. That she would be able to look on his face again and feel his touch on her skin. But she had carefully hidden those feelings. She mustn’t let them slip out from under cover now.
    The door to the hall creaked open under her trembling hands. There he was. Her heart caught on a hook. He was deep in conversation with Wengest, his back turned to her. His body, so familiar to her yet so long kept from her: his square shoulders, his lean legs. His clothes were dirty from the journey, his long, golden hair lank with sweat.
    Wengest glanced up and saw her and came to take her hand with a sad expression on his brow. Rose’s vision darkened. Her bliss bled away. It was ill news, that’s why Bluebell had sent him. Rose felt a fool, young and self-centred.
    â€˜What is it?’ she said, her voice giving way.
    Heath turned, his sea-green eyes fixed on her. ‘Rose,’ he said, and his voice was a breath on an ember that had never faded to coal. The heat of her heart was in her face, but cold dread weighed down her hands, gripped roughly in Wengest’s fingers.
    â€˜My sisters?’ she managed.
    â€˜Are all well,’ Wengest said quickly. ‘Your father, though, is ill.’
    â€˜Ill?’
    Heath tilted his head, almost imperceptibly, to the side, his mouth tightening softly. His adored cheek was faintly lined, not as smooth as it had been three years ago. What horrors had he seen in the intervening years? ‘Your father is dying,’ he said, plainly.
    An image of her father sprang to mind: his tall, lithe body; his unruly fair hair; his boyish smile. ‘But ... but I saw him not two months ago. He was here with his wife. He looked well.’
    â€˜I’m sorry, Rose.’ He spread his hands in a helpless gesture. ‘Bluebell rides even now for Blicstowe. She wants you to join her immediately.’
    â€˜Of course, of course.’
    â€˜Slow down,’ Wengest said, dropping her hands and standing back. ‘I can’t race off to Blicstowe now. I have business here.’
    â€˜I have to go,’ Rose said, indignant. ‘It might be my last chance to see my father. Your ally. The king of Ælmesse.’
    â€˜You can’t travel alone.’
    â€˜I travelled here alone five years ago, when we married.’
    â€˜Women can’t wander about by