She closed it behind her and stood with her back to the wood, studying him the way she sometimes did when the household was quiet—measuring, not quite speaking.
"Do not walk the bunds yourself," she said.
"The sun will be hard by mid-morning. Give the orders to the head servant and sit in the shade of the workhouse. Let them carry the water and the complaints. You are not a fieldhand."
"Father expects the count."
"Father expects the fields to answer when the tax is reckoned. How you obtain the answer is your affair."
She adjusted the edge of her shawl.
The lamplight caught the fine lines at the corner of her mouth and the steady way she held herself, as if every word had already been weighed.
"Rest when you can. The western plots have a way of keeping a man longer than he intends."
She then moved towards him and held his face, her nose twitched slightly as her expression changed for a second. She smiled again.
But Jeran noticed.
