She had refused all those handsome young men. She had been dutiful, and pure, and everything a daughter should be. She had her mother’s long yellow hair; skin like milk that had never known a hard day in the sun. Her eyes were the color of cornflowers—by far her best feature, so her mother told her. She had her grandmother’s eyes—again, so she was told. Her grandmother had been a great beauty in her day, but sadly stubborn. Elinore was even named after that lost ancestress. She’d always been very unlike the dead grandmother. She had been pliable, and look where all that good behavior had gotten her.

The Earl of Chillswoth—“Call me Donald”—leered down the table at her. He was sitting by her father, not because he had the highest rank, but because he was the highest in favor at the distant court of the king. She did not wish to call him Donald, and she did not wish to have her father announce to all that she would be the earl’s fourth wife. Or was it fifth? Two of them had been as young as Elinore, and they had not lived to see twenty-five. One had died in childbirth, but no one wanted to talk about what happened to the last one. She’d heard whispers that the old man was becoming unable to perform, and so his desire of the flesh had turned to harder things. She did not understand everything that was meant by that sentence, but she understood enough to know that she did not want to be the earl’s fourth, or fifth, wife.

Elinore would rather have lived as an old maid, done her sewing, overseen the cooking, and done what a good wife does. Their keep was small enough, and the time hard enough, that she could actually cook, and sew, and do all the things that made a woman’s world. Many noble girls were fairly useless. Elinore liked to be busy, and because her desires were all women’s work, no one had ever objected.



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