As the sun went down and a chill entered the air, Primrose moved closer to the fire and warmed her hands. She had never greeted the night outside unless with her father and brother. As the birds grew quiet and the light faded away, she was not sure she wanted to. There was a great deal to be said in favor of a roof, four walls, and a proper bed.
When Sir Bened returned to camp with a fat, dead rabbit, she decided there was also a big advantage to not actually seeing all the preparations for the meals she ate. She kept her gaze averted as he prepared the animal for roasting and put it on the clever spit he set up over the fire. When she heard him moving around, she forced herself not to look for she suspected he was cleaning up after those preparations needed to ready the animal for cooking.
“Squeamish?” he asked as he sat down across the fire from her.
“Not that I know of. I just did not want to see what you were doing.”
“You have spent your life in the country. Surely you have seen an animal butchered?”
Primrose had to think about that for a moment and was a little surprised when she had to say, “Actually, no, not that I can recall.”
“You were kept that sheltered?”
She frowned. “Not really. I know farm life, including things about breeding that many think no lady should ever know. Yet everyone was always very careful to never do any butchering where or when I might see it.” She bit her bottom lip for a moment. “That is a little odd, is it not?”
Bened had to nod in agreement. “It might be something your father thought no well-bred lady should be subjected to.”
“Yet no one hid that what I was eating was raised on Willow Hill land. There was a great pride in the fact that our farms supplied us and the people of Willow Hill so well. I can tell by how you spoke that it is a very odd thing for a countrywoman to have never seen it done so why would my father, country raised, care if I saw it?”
“Many women from the country know nothing of the breeding of stock because someone decided it was not something a well-bred lady should know despite how much of her comfort depended on the value of that stock. I have met gentry women who cannot read, were never taught, because their elders felt it would give them too much knowledge about the evil of the world or of indelicate matters.”
“I wonder how many soon worked to gain that skill and went on to read books that would turn their mother’s hair silver.”
Bened laughed. “No doubt there are many. The women in my family would certainly do that.”
“You have a very large family. I recall that much from the talk I have heard.”
And for a woman whose family had dwindled to two he suspected such a thing fascinated her, he thought with a pang of sympathy. “Very large and growing all the time. It is good to see after a lot of hard years when any one of us could find ourselves victims of witch hunts. The gossip might grow irritating at times but it is far less troublesome than knowing at any time you could find your home surrounded by superstitious people with torches.”
“Our branch of the Woottens is but a skinny twig. We always seemed to be on the wrong side of things. Catholic when Elizabeth was queen. Protestant when Mary took the throne. With the king when Cromwell came to power and with Cromwell when the throne was restored. By the time Papa was born, his father was all that was left and one of his two sons has bred no children. It is sad to think that one’s bloodline is vanishing.”
“There is still you and your brother.”
“True though I will not carry on the name if I marry and have children, nor can I ever inherit the barony. Of course, if dear Aunt Augusta has her way that will definitely mean the end of the Woottens of Willow Hill.”
Bened began to better understand her dogged pursuit of her brother. The unwanted marriage and fear for her brother’s life as well as the need to let him know he was now the baron were acceptable reasons for what appeared to be a very reckless act, but this went even deeper. He was certain she had been well versed over the years on the waning of her bloodline, imbued with the need to continue it. Although she might not see it herself, that also drove her to place her reputation and even her life at risk. She could carry on the bloodline herself but, as she said, not the name and the barony although a son of hers might be able to take it on if her brother bore no sons. Because of the man her uncle was, the barony and the name would really die with her brother if he was taken before he could marry and breed a son or two.