water, folding them beneath the surface and moving closer only to grab the washboard before retreating hastily again.
She could only watch in mute horror as he began cleaning her white and maroon shift. At one point, much to her chagrin, Garin bent over to sniff at the water; her face paled when he nearly gagged.
“Excuse me—”
“Ogre.” His glare was brief but terrifying. Silently, he returned his attention back to the tub.
Taking that as her queue to retreat to the bed, Lilac pulled the top corner of the sheets down and slid in. Sighing in contentment, she wondered if her bed at home was as comfortable as this. She couldn’t quite remember.
“Was this your bed?” she asked, suddenly wondering if his memories of humanity were gratifying or painful.
An awkward silence fell between them, filled only by the trickling of water. The very magic of him still pulled at her like a foreboding thread, but it was the thought of a human Garin, years ago, that made her head spin.
“They may have changed the bedding in the century or so since I slept in it, but the wooden frame is the same. This, in fact, was my bedroom.”
Her eyes drifted from the gray mortar walls, up to the arch of the gabled wooden roof above them. The stairs had led straight into the room they were in, but the west and east wings must have expanded the home decently on the ground floor. “Here? In the attic?”
Garin spoke while moving on to the forest green dress. “Why is that so hard to believe?”
“Well, why not in any of the wings? There seems to be plenty of room.”
“Those timber extensions, you mean?”
Lilac nodded.
“Those didn’t exist when I lived here. Adelaide’s father built them.” He sat there a moment, a profound sadness painted upon his features. His eyebrows furrowed as he squeezed the water out of the green dress, twisting it this way and that while taking care not to damage the garment.
“So much material,” he muttered, spreading it out evenly. “I swear you could clothe an entire village with this much fabric. You women and your couture.”
She watched as he wrung out both dresses and spread them on a chair to dry. “You and your… English masculinity.”
His smile was soul-shattering. The firelight danced upon his profile, and Lilac’s breath caught in her throat.
How could a creature be so terrible, yet so magnificent all at once?
“Back in my childhood, there were other things the townsfolk here feared.” When he took a seat at the far end of the bed, her legs curled under the blanket—up and instinctively away from him. “During the War of Succession, French soldiers constantly stormed the outskirts of Paimpont in search of traitors—those who they believed actively supported England’s King Edward III. As you know, the war began when French royalty enlisted the aid of the Counts of Blois to attempt to take reign of Brittany.
“My parents left Cornwall in the summer of 1331, when the whisperings of a treacherous malady had begun to spread around London. Driven by fear, they managed to escape before the Black Death took ahold of England. They sailed here with one of the smaller migrant waves and chose Paimpont for its blossoming agriculture. I was born here some years later.
“When I was a young boy, the war was still in its early phase and hadn’t yet reached the forested parts of central Brittany. But that didn’t stop the French Cavalry from traipsing through our towns in a non-violent show of force.”
When he finished spreading her dresses neatly upon the chair backs, Garin ran a hand through his hair. “When Charles of Blois’ sentries began to swarm our area more heavily, my father burned all proof of their allegiance to King Edward. Cornish cookbooks, nearly every letter or parcel in English. He built that bed and ordered me to sleep up here instead of downstairs with them. I protested, but I think my father feared that one day, the French would find them out and come for us. He felt no one would think to check the attic.”
“I take it your family backed England.” Lilac gazed at her long fingers as they grazed the coarse linen blanket over her knees. Her own pedigree, like that of most Bretons, was equally complicated, muddled through a messy history of conquest and defeat. She was a descendant of the Celts and the Normans.
The image of French knights parading the narrow streets of Paimpont flashed vividly through her imagination—along