woman’s,” Selina bit. “That’s what you mean, isn’t it?”
Agnes’s sigh sounded as though it came from her soul.
“The world isn’t fair or kind, Selina. Not to people like me. Certainly not to people like you.”
Selina knew all of this. Just as she knew Agnes was only looking out for her.
With a sigh of her own, she took the seat opposite.
“I know, Agnes. And I promise, I’m only interested in the boy and helping him.”
Agnes gazed at her for an age.
“You’re too bonny for your own good. That’s the problem. A man would do a lot to take a beauty such as you. It’s what he’d leave you with is my worry.”
Selina reached over and kissed the old lady’s cheek.
“I’ll keep my wits about me like I always do,” she assured Agnes before moving away and picking up her basket. “But that child needs my help. Staying away isn’t something I can do.”
“I know. You’ve been blessed with a kind heart as well as everything else.”
Selina moved to the door but before she stepped outside, Agnes’s voice halted her.
“What is it ails the lad?”
An ominous shiver cut through Selina.
“I don’t know as yet,” she answered. “But whatever it is, it’s not of this world, and it’s more than the boy can bare.”
“Then let’s hope you can help.”
Selina shut the door quietly behind her and set out through the woods to the manor house.
She wouldn’t receive a warm welcome, of that there was no doubt.
The servants at the house were no different to anyone else. They despised her and everything about her.
Especially the oul trout that ran the place.
It had only been a few months since her son and his cronies had come upon her on the road one night. She’d been out walking in the moonlight on the edge of her forest.
The night didn’t scare her, after all. And the trees were her home.
Nay, the only thing that scared her were the people who professed to be better than she because they lived within the confines of the restrictions they placed on themselves.
To be free was a sin in their world.
To live according to one’s own set of rules, and not ones laid down by others. That was unforgiveable.
Yet real sins. Truly bad deeds. They seemed rampant in the society they deemed superior.
Which was why Seán Óg Leary and his band of followers had thought they could do to her whatever they chose, use her and abuse her with no consequences.
They’d have been right, too.
Nobody would care if a gypsy girl, a supposed witch, was attacked. No punishment would be issued. No justice would be sought.
And so, Selina had taken care of herself, as she had since she’d been a young girl.
She’d fought him off and sent him and his pack scurrying back to town with a swift kick to the nether regions and tales of witchcraft and sorcery spewing from their drunken mouths.
Their lies hadn’t bothered her. But their actions had scared her. The event had made her realise that Agnes had been right all these years. Men wouldn’t ever have to like her, respect her, or even care about her for them to try to bed her.
It didn’t stop her from living her life however she pleased, though.
She still walked the roads at night. She still wandered through the forest.
And now, despite Agnes’s concern, she would still call at Everwood Manor.
She was going to help the boy. That was all.
She wouldn’t leave him suffering if there was a chance to help. It wasn’t the lad’s fault that his father was handsome as the devil. Nor was it his fault that Selina felt drawn to them both, intrigued by the torment she saw in both of their eyes.
She would offer advice that mightn’t be taken and a sleeping draught that mightn’t be trusted.
And then she’d turn and walk away.
Agnes had once told her that men couldn’t, or wouldn’t, control their urges.
Well, Selina could.
And if when she arrived she felt an inexplicable desire to reach out a hand to the smooth, powerful jaw of Lord Breton, or press her lips against his own, she’d would ignore that and flee.
It wouldn’t be difficult. She didn’t even know the man.
Philip darted up the stairs, past startled servants, and into Timothy’s nursery.
The maid who’d been assigned to act as a nanny stood with her hands clasped over her ears in the playroom, leaving Timothy alone in the bedchamber.