Page 97 of Bound

He asked it so calmly. As if her reaction was expected, even the depth of her objections. Which only served to infuriate her more. Hadn’t he been listening, before? Hadn’t he understood?

“You should know why,” she insisted.

He hummed, low in his throat. “What I know, is that if it was another man in front of you. A scoundrel and a cad and as vile a seducer as ever lived, then you should be afraid of being indebted to him.”

She flinched. Maybe he did understand.

“But I know I am not a scoundrel and a cad, and if there is any seduction, it will be to win the favour of your hesper. Perhaps even your grimble-keep, should I be brave enough to attempt it.”

She swallowed thickly, and he took a measured step forward. “I know that my mate’s fence needs oiling. And so I lie awake at night, knowing it needs doing, knowing she has plenty of other tasks to hold her attention, and that I might offer this one, small gesture to make her day a little easier. Now, does that sound so frightening?”

Yes.

No.

He reached for her braid, pulling it gently from her grasp before she could begin tugging. Which she wasn’t. Or hadn’t been. Even if her fingers twitched at the loss as he pushed it over her shoulder and gave it a pat, as if promising her hair it might be safe from her abuses there.

She wanted to huff. Wanted to banish him.

Her head ached. The skin between her wings itched. She was supposed to argue with him, hold her ground so that he did not coax her into yet another concession.

And it would be easy to simply thank him. To go back into the house and set an order to her day. Remove some of the spent plants from the garden. Organise her seeds. Plot out what she intended to do for winter.

Just give in, a little bit. Take him at his word and wait for him to ask too much, to disappoint her, to betray her...

She groaned.

Turned.

She had chores to do. Ones that did not include oil and fencing and spending her day among the hesper, being nudged at and bothered from her work.

Let him tend it, if it would please him so much.

“No objection?” Braum asked in some surprise.

“I’ve plenty,” Wren answered without bothering to pause. “But none I intend to share today.”

When she felt better. When she’d slept more and felt more sure of herself.

She went back to the house. Into the cupboard, the jar at the far back that held a portion of her coins. Not all of them. Mama said that was foolish to keep them all in one place—as if robbers frequently roamed the fields looking for fortunes kept in kitchen jars. But it was a habit she’d kept, and she poured out a portion, frowning down at the pile. It seemed too meagre, but it was a gesture. A reminder that she had not agreed to his proposal.

She slipped it into a pouch, one that would have been filled with fragrant herbs and sold, but now would be given to the stubborn man out in her pasture. She cinched it tightly and placed it on the kitchen table.

It could wait there for his supper. Labour bought and paid for, even if the rate was heavily discounted.

She did not like that part, but there was little she could do about it. Not if she wanted to keep oil in the lamps and grain in the feed-buckets, and meat to supplement for Merryweather and Thorn and their hunting.

No one would go hungry from her pride.

Wren went to the garden. Better to work then to stare out the window and worry herself sick.

???

He did not want her coins.

That much was more than obvious from the way his mouth twisted. He did not open the pouch, but from the weight alone he must have known that the amount was far less than it had been before.

She’d invited him in.