How Bright He Burns
Oh, all wild things long to be free, don’t they?
You might think me mad that I never asked to see his true face. What proper woman would act in such a way when a strange man comes to her bedchamber past midnight?
The servants had warned me of the odd things that happened on the moors in the build-up to a full moon, but I didn’t think a wyldling would ever come for me, a governess with barely a coin to her name. Lady Farthing, Lord Farthing, and little Abigail had welcomed me into their home: what more could I ever want? If I wanted to, I could simply exist with the knowledge I was giving Abby a good education until she too became a lady — and then perhaps I could retire to some convent in the north. It wouldn’t have been a bad life.
And, again, what would any wyldlings have wanted with me? I had no magic in my bloodline. My mother had once fancied herself a witch, but my father had stamped that out of her well enough. I still heard her screams in my dreams. Perhaps that was why I went away as soon as I came of age and knew I would have to make a life for myself on my own. No lord was going to show up with a fortune and tell me my fate would be decided by his whims. No, I would not want that life anyway. It would remind me too much of the way my father had cloistered my mother away as if she were no more than a doll to play…
