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“You said we needed to leave at daybreak.”
She scrambled out of the covering and grabbed her satchel. Alex did the same. They walked in silence toward the small stream. Clara moved behind a thicket of bushes, and when she emerged, she was fully dressed as a squire once more. But when she moved to the riverbed to begin her ministrations—the careful masking of her face—Alex held out a hand to stop her.
“Don’t.”
She looked at him, eyebrows drawn together.
“There’s no need to disguise yourself, Clara.”
“No need? There is every need. I’ve been doing so every day for—”
“You do not wish to remain yourself instead?”
She stood, clearly agitated.
“I wish for nothing more, every single day. But ’tis not possible. Gilbert—”
“Is not here,” he said gently. “But I am. And I will protect you, Clara. There’s no need to disguise yourself for our journey. The path we take is not a common one, and I don’t expect to meet anyone along the way, with the exception of at the inn.”
“And if we do? And I’m recognized?”
“Recognized by whom? Is your face so well-known?”
“Nay, but—”
“The reivers who roam this land are more interested in looting than—”
“Raping women? Would I not be safer as a boy?”
Had she been raped? “Has someone—”
“Nay, but Gilbert said—”
“Clara, by all that is holy, I won’t let anyone close enough to touch you or even dream of touching you.”
“And if something happens to you?”
“I would not be so careless with my life. I know this area well and can assure you that nothing will happen to me. I won’t allow it.”
She began to soften.
“You won’t allow it?”
Even though her lips were turned up in the slightest grin, Alex remained serious. “I will not.”
Clara looked down at her satchel and then back up at him.
“You are not marring Gilbert’s memory by disobeying his orders. He was your protector, but you have a new one now. Nothing will happen to you.”
Whether it was the conviction in his voice or her desire to let Alfred rest for the moment, Alex wasn’t sure, but he was grateful when she slung the satchel over her shoulder without opening it.
“Alfred can make an appearance at The Anvil Inn,” he said.
“Aye, he must. But in the meantime, I will very much enjoy being Clara.”
“You are free to unwrap yourself as well.”
She glanced down at her flattened chest and looked back at him with a smile.
