Beatrice didn’t need the rooster to wake her the following morning. That would mean having slept at all, which she had not. How could she when her life was over, or as good as?

She had wept for hours after the deacon revealed his terrible news, well past the point where her soup was cold as ice. Her appetite was long gone, anyway. Deacon Eddard had been thoughtful enough to empty the untouched bowl back into the pot on the dwindling fire.

“What am I going to do?” She’d asked until her throat was raw, but there had come no answer. She had no choice, so there was no sense in stating the obvious.

She had to marry the man.

Was there no one who could speak for her? No one who would protect her from what would surely be a sad and empty life?

“Emptier than now?” she whispered to her otherwise silent bedroom. There was no one to hear. No one but her.

Would marrying Lord Randall be worse than spending endless days and nights on her own? Wandering around the house, performing the same tasks day in and day out? Milking the cow, feeding and chickens, collecting the eggs. Tending the garden, harvesting more than she could ever possibly eat on her own. Sweeping the floors, washing her few dishes, cleaning the hearth. Going into the village to trade for the goods the farm couldn’t provide.

She couldn’t trade for companionship, could she? There was no way to fill the emptiness which weighed on every bit of her life.

Even so, it was her life. Hers alone. She had spent so much of it—almost the entirety—living under her mother’s rule, to the point where she’d devoted what were supposed to be the carefree, sunny years to caring for the woman when she was an invalid. She had lived for nothing more than her mother’s comfort and her own meager existence.

While she did not enjoy the aching loneliness of her days, especially in Margery’s absence, she preferred it to the thought of living under the Lord’s roof. She’d never seen the manor up close, only from a distance as she traveled the road into the village on Market Day. A sprawling, intimidating sort of place, even from the road.

How would she ever learn to live in a house like that, when all she ever known was around her right at that very minute? She’d never wanted more—well, perhaps a new kirtle now and again, and the ability to purchase new shoes when the soles of the only pair she owned wore out. She wouldn’t have begun riding sweet, old Cecil if it hadn’t been for the wear and tear on her shoes otherwise.

What would it entail, being the Lady of the manor? Because she would be the Lady. Nobility. She, the daughter of a farmer who’d been the son of a woodcutter.

Was she honestly entertaining the idea? No. It couldn’t be. It simply couldn’t.

She knew what marriage meant. She knew what men expected from their wives. She would have to bear children, heirs to the family name. Boys, naturally, girls couldn’t inherit anything. She would be little more than a broodmare to her husband until she could no longer bear children.

And then? What would she be then? Only darkness followed that question, darkness and blankness. Because she had no idea what would come after her childbearing years were over. She had no experience to draw from and no older woman in her life to provide guidance.

Not everything would have to be so bad, she reasoned in an attempt to soothe herself.

It would be nice to have servants about, wouldn’t it? She might be able to sleep in the morning, rather than living at the mercy of the rooster and his incessant crowing. The skin of her hands would no longer feel so rough. She might be able to eat enough food that her body would fill out a bit, instead of its current scrawniness.

At what cost, however? Marriage to man nearly old enough to be her father? One who she had never held in high personal regard and who hadn’t given her a good feeling when they’d met on the road? There was something… empty about him. Hollow. Cold.

She stretched, her sore muscles protesting after a night of tossing and turning, then settled back into the pillow with a sigh. It wasn’t dawn yet. She might get up, but to what purpose outside of tending the animals? They didn’t expect her yet.

Memories of Margery teased at the corners of her mind. Oh, the many adventures the two of them had dreamed up for themselves. How silly it seemed in hindsight. How childish.

Like any young girls, they had spent hours giggling late at night over the sort of men they would marry one day. They had been too young and untested to understand how unlikely it was that they’d ever find the men they dreamed of, or any men at all. They hadn’t understood what it took to find a husband, more than just knowing a man. It took money from a father. Something to bring to the marriage.

Such as land.

There was no such thing as romance for girls such as they, poor girls with no living father to provide for them or even ensure they made a good match with a decent man.

To think, she had once feared living the rest of her life alone. Going to bed alone every night until she died. Never knowing love, never hearing the laughter of children as she went about her housework.

She hadn’t considered the existence of something much sadder. Darker. Lonelier.

Of course, once she had children, she wouldn’t have to be alone. She would have them.

Yes, and then what? She wouldn’t make them responsible for her happiness, that was one lesson she’d learned from her mother. One of the few things she would carry with her out of the many warnings Mama had passed on. It wasn’t fair to a child, having to carry the burden of an unhappy parent’s misery.

And that was what she’d done for so long. She and Margery, both.

It seemed that no amount of thinking would help her. No matter how many times she went back and forth, she never reached a satisfactory conclusion.

Getting out of bed seemed the logical thing to do, though her heart wasn’t in it. Facing the day meant facing her fate.

Even so, she went through it, just as she’d likely go through with the marriage.

What would Margery think? What if she were alive out there, somewhere, planning on sending for her? What if she was on her way home? What if she expected her home to be intact, still in her name?

It would break her heart to know that they’d lost their farm, even though it had become little more than an anchor weighing on them. Beatrice knew her sister all too well; she would blame herself for not having succeeded in establishing them elsewhere.

She dragged her heavy feet across the room, splashing her face with cool water out of habit and drying it on the back of her arm. What did it matter? The water did soothe her sore eyes, though, after so much crying. She was certain there were no more tears in her. She had cried enough to fill a lake.

Like the lake on Lord Randall’s property.

Perhaps she would drown herself in that lake one day…

“No.” She stood by the window, looking out over the still-dark farm. “No, I won’t. I won’t do anything of the sort.” Not only was it a sin, but it would be tantamount to giving up. She didn’t give up. She never had, never once in her life.

Even if she had to marry the man—she held out hope otherwise, but it was always a possibility—she would find a way to be happy. She owed it to herself.

Didn’t she?

It wasn’t until the sky began to lighten that she turned away from the window, dressing quickly and with much greater purpose than she’d felt since the visit from the deacon. There had to be something she could do.

And she thought she might have an idea as to what it might be.

If she could find someone in the village interested in purchasing the land, anyone at all, she might be able to get around Lord Randall’s demands. Let whoever bought the land argue with him over a good price.

She hardly cared anymore. It was a matter of desperation at this point. While she didn’t much enjoy the feeling that she was trapped in a corner, she was reasonable enough to do what needed to be done without much regret.

Bess would be waiting for her milking. Beatrice was lost in thought as she stepped outside. She knew she would have to get to the village early, as soon as she had the chores finished. The time couldn’t come soon enough.

It wasn’t until the three riders were nearly close enough for her to make out the color of their eyes that she even noticed their presence on the road. Rough looking men, large and muscled.

All of them looking at the house, the farm.

They weren’t merely passing through. Her instincts screamed at her to run, to throw herself on Cecil’s back and take off in the other direction. To take sanctuary in the church and throw herself at the deacon’s mercy, to beg for his protection.

But they would catch her, for certain. Their horses were large, young, unlike the old farm horse who could barely make it to the market and back. She felt sorry for even forcing him to make the trip. How could she hope to outrun them all the way to the church?

Instead, she dashed inside the house and did the only other thing she could think to do. In the bedroom which had once belonged to her parents, in the trunk at the foot of the little bed they’d shared before her mother had taken it over and made it her sanctuary for years.

Beatrice’s hands shook as she worked the old lock, but she managed to open it on the third attempt and withdrew the sword her father had carried as a member of King Henry III’s army. It was heavy, requiring both of her hands just to heft it from the chest and carry it to the front door.

The horses were approaching, their riders dismounting. She saw them through the window, only peering out at them with one eye to keep the rest of herself hidden. Just the sight of them would’ve frightened her in any circumstance—watching as they walked from the front gate to the door left her uncertain as to whether she could hold her water.

Had Lord Randall sent them? Would they forcibly remove her from the house and take her to his manor? Would he force her…?

The very thought of such a thing sent fire racing through her, the fire of rage and desperation and a determination not to be his possession, his thing to do with as he wished. It was enough to make her fling the door open and take the sword’s hilt in both hands.

“You’re on my land, whoever you are,” she announced, throwing her head back. “I would leave it if I were you, unless you’ve a mind to feel my sword slicing into you.”