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The foot of my stocking was wet and sandy. I eased the stocking off and peered closely at my ankle. The redness had spread alarmingly across the top of my foot, and it hurt simply to look at it.

The bite needs more than salt water,
Eli with the blue-green eyes had said. The blue-green eyes and the hair black as a crow. I was beginning to think he was right.

Where were my uncle and aunt? On this, my first day, one would have thought they would have stayed with me or at least informed me of their plans. But they had not. I felt a rush of self-pity and pushed it away. There was no need to be childish.

When I went back down, the sitting room was still empty, save for the dog, who appeared oblivious to me. There must be something I could find to dull this pulsating pain. Some salve or unguent. My uncle had been an apothecary, after all. He still was. Wouldn’t he have brought some of his medicines with him?

Lamb lifted his head and watched me.

The sharpened quill in my pocket did not reassure me. But there was a knife on the draining board. I moved it to where I could easily reach it, should the need arise.

When I looked at him again, he had closed his eyes. I breathed more easily.

Shelves were stacked in the kitchen corner. On them were bags of flour and sugar, a drum of salt, cornstarch, treacle, a round of butter sitting in a bowl of water. There was potato bread tied up in a cloth. Carrots and parsnips in a gaping sack underneath.

No salves or balms there.

I took a triangle of potato bread to ease my hunger.

There was one last cupboard, small and undistinguished. It was high above the shelving, out of my reach. I hopped to the nearest chair, one foot raised. It was the chair my aunt Minnie had sat on last night.

Across from me, too close, Lamb moved, and I froze. But he had only stretched sleepily and put his head down again.

It was hard to drag the chair and place it underneath the small, high cupboard. I struggled and got it in place, then hiked my dress up and tucked it into my pantaloons so it would not trip me. I clambered onto the chair, uncertain still if I could reach the cupboard.

A large Toby Jug depicting a scowling pirate with a dagger in his teeth watched me from the high shelf, as if forbidding me to proceed. I looked away from him and stretched up my arms, my fingers touching a lock.

There was a sudden growl behind me.

I stiffened, arms raised, too afraid to lower them and turn around. I moved my head cautiously and saw Lamb. He was right beneath me, and I stifled a scream as he put both front paws on the chair and stood upright, his mouth no more than a few inches from my bare foot. Standing like this, he was massively tall and terrifying. I could see every little bristling hair on him, each one silver tipped, shading to gold. I could see his teeth and the glistening saliva on his tongue. I had never fainted in my life, and I told myself I was not going to now. I had to be strong.

“Lamb?” I murmured. I tried to speak softly, kindly, but the dryness in my mouth and throat produced only a croak. “It’s Josie. Remember? Minnie is my aunt. She likes me.”

The low growl was louder now.

I dared not move even slightly. I dared not speak again.

Why had he changed? A few moments ago, he’d been quiet, lazy, not threatening.

When the knock came on the door, my heart soared. Someone! Did I have the courage to shout for help?

I didn’t have to.

The door opened, and I saw Eli Stuart.

And at the same time, something inexplicable happened.

Lamb’s paws slid down from the chair where I stood numbed with fear, and he slunk, belly down, whimpering instead of growling, and squeezed himself into the corner by the hearth.

I was so stupefied that I swayed and grasped the back of the chair for support.

Eli came toward me.

“You can come down now,” he said. “I am here.”

I was not about to faint, but I might have been about to cry. Relief flooded me.

He stood by my chair. “Take my hand.”

I turned slightly to look at Lamb. He was watching Eli, drooling. Long drips of saliva hung from his bottom lip. And he was whining.

“Are you sure it is safe?” I asked.

“Yes. Lamb knows me.”

I was still doubtful.

“Come!”

I reached out my hand, and he took it and helped me to sit and then stand, wavering a little. I kept Eli between me and the dog. His hand was rough and warm and reassuring. I clung to it, all reservations gone.

“Thank you,” I said. “Lamb was permissive with me and then he threatened me. I do not know why.”

“Perhaps he has been told not to let anyone touch that high cupboard,” Eli said.

“What could be in there that needs to be so protected?” I asked.

He released my hand, then took hold of my arm.

There was no point in decorum. I let him guide me to another chair.

He set the one I’d stood on back in its place by the table.

“I was searching for a salve or a balm to soothe the bite,” I said. “I am afraid it is contaminated.” I cast another nervous look at Lamb, who lay motionless, making strange groaning noises in his throat.

“That is why I came in search of you,” Eli said. “I went to my grandmother’s house and talked with her. She says you must have the bite seen to at once. I do not wish to frighten you. But she told me of a disease called lockjaw.”

“What is that?”

“It is what it sounds like. And it is fatal. You cannot wait for your uncle to return. He and your aunt are out on the Sisters, where they go each day at low tide. They will not come back till much later.”

“The Sisters? What are they?” I did not wait for an answer and did not care. I was talking because, now that I was safe from Lamb, I had other worries.

Lockjaw?

“The reef that is uncovered at low tide is called the Sisters.” He cupped my foot in his hand and bent over it. “I am instructed by my grandmother to convince you to come to her. At this moment, she is mixing herbs and other potions to spread on the bite and draw out the poison. I have told her I cannot make you come if you resist. But I can advise you.”

I retrieved my bare foot. Unthinkable that he had taken hold of it like that. I struggled for a minute between propriety and alarm.

“I will go with you. But I will need to get another stocking and my shoe,” I said.

There was that smile again, that dazzle that seemed to me filled with amusement.

“Of course you must go alone,” he said. “It would never do for you to be improper.”

Was he making mock of me?

“I do not like the tone of your voice,” I said, and did not add,
Or the ridicule in your smile,
though I thought it.

“You must excuse me,” he said. “I do not have a gentleman’s manners. But I will get the stocking for you if you tell me where to find it.”

“No. I will fetch it myself.” To have this stranger opening one of the drawers where my intimate clothes lay would be embarrassing. And I had no wish to remain in this room, on my own, with Lamb.

He shrugged. “As you wish.”

“May I ask why Lamb appears to fear you?” I asked.

Eli moved across the room to where the dog lay, and petted him. He looked up at me. “He senses that I am more formidable than he is.”

CHAPTER SIX

I
STRUGGLED UP THE NARROW STAIRS.
My stockings were in a drawer with my pantaloons and shifts and the stays that I hoped never to wear while I was here. I chose my only black stockings and found that I could, albeit with extreme discomfort, maneuver one of them over my right foot. My decision to go with Eli, however humiliating, was the correct one. It was strange how he described himself as formidable, though Lamb appeared to agree.

I went back downstairs without my shoe, looking first at Lamb and then at Eli. The dog lay curled in a ball, his paws shielding his eyes.

“What is it that ails him?” I asked. “He looks ill. He cannot still be fearful!”

“He will recover,” Eli said.

“I am ready now to go with you,” I told him.

We left Raven’s Roost and walked side by side through the coarse grass. A nettle, tall and poisonous, stung my hand.

I blew on my skin where a red rash was already beginning.

“Here.” Eli pulled a leaf from the plant beside it, raised my hand, and rubbed the leaf on the blisters. I felt relief almost immediately.

“Usually the dock leaf and the nettle grow together,” he said. “The harm one does, the other eases.”

His face was close to mine. His gaze unnerved me. I forced myself to concentrate on the sting, though it was no longer troubling me.

I seemed to be short of breath.

He released his hold on me.

“You are very pale,” he said. “I had wished my grandmother could come to you, but she told me she had to be by her own fire and have her own ingredients to hand.”

“It is very kind of her to see me at all,” I said.

I was having trouble walking. It was humpity underfoot, and the holes in the grass caught my shoe, jerking me enough one time to make me yelp.

“May I carry you again?”

I looked for that mockery and ridicule in his voice but did not hear it. I stopped, facing him, feeling the dampness of sweat on my forehead.

“It would be easier on me,” I said. “But I fear the unseemliness of it would distress me. Think me foolish, if you will. But I will persevere.”

He shrugged.

“I will, however, hold on to your arm again,” I added.

Without another word, he proffered his arm, his bare arm, sun-warmed and smooth, and I clasped it, wondering briefly what Mrs. Chandler would have to say if she could see me.

We spoke little on the way to his grandmother’s house. I was busy with my thoughts and with my attempt not to show the pain that came with each step I took.

Why had Lamb been afraid of Eli? I pondered this as we walked side by side across stubble and through the wild heather. Had Eli once ill-used the dog? Had he kicked him? Tormented him? Could that have been what he meant when he’d said he was “formidable”?

None of this seemed in keeping with what I had seen of Eli.

But who knew what could be hidden under a handsome exterior?

There was something else bothering me. Why was I so discomfited by his presence? Why did I feel heat rise in me when I allowed myself to glance up at him? Was I just a silly female, dithery in the presence of a comely young man? I must work on suppressing that at once.

“We are here,” he said.

The house was small, much smaller than Raven’s Roost, with only one story. Roses climbed around the lintel. Seashells lined the path that led to the door, and Eli let go of my hand, stooped, and righted one of the shells that had been moved out of place.

“I collected all these when I was a bairn,” he said. “I carried them in a wee red pail and arranged them.” He looked up at me and smiled. For a moment, I saw the little boy struggling up the hill with his red pail filled with shells for his grandmother, and my heartbeat quickened. I wished I had known him then.

“Excuse me,” he said and stepped ahead of me to open the door.

The room inside was filled with light from small open windows.

I don’t know what I expected Eli’s grandmother to be, but she was, to me, unexpected. Small and round with hair as black as her grandson’s and a cheerful expression. She looked so much more pleasant than my aunt Minnie or Mrs. Kitteridge.

She walked quickly toward me and said, “I am Eli’s grandmother, Doss Stuart. I am so glad you came. When Eli described the bite to me, I knew you must let me tend to it.”

She indicated a chair by a small table. “May I see your foot?”

The table held a large wooden bowl and several smaller ones in which I saw collections of different leaves and flowers. There were small bottles part filled with liquids.

“Thank you for your concern,” I said. “I trust this is not too much trouble?”

She smiled. “Not at all, my dear.”

Eli was hovering behind me. “I will be at my work,” he said. “Knock if you need me.”

I was glad he’d gone without my having to request it. But what work was he going to?

He strode out the door and closed it behind him.

“Do you want me to help you?” Doss Stuart knelt beside me, looking up at me with bright, dark eyes.

“I think I can manage.” I removed my garter and rolled down my stocking. The foot of it was stuck fast to the wound. I gritted my teeth, closed my eyes, and pulled it free.

“Oh, my, yes,” she said. “We need to take care of this. It was Lamb, was it not? He can be vicious. The punctures are deep. And see? You must have tried to pull away, because the skin is ripped.”

“I may have. I do not rightly remember.”

“I am not surprised. There is something pernicious in a dog’s saliva. You have heard of lockjaw?”

“Not until Eli made me aware of it.”

“The jaw is locked closed because of a spasm in the muscles. You would be unable to speak. Or eat. But we have started on treatment quickly. I do not believe you need to worry.”

“I thank you from the bottom of my heart,” I whispered, and Mrs. Stuart smiled. “No need, my dear. Healing is the gift I was given and that I am proud to share.”

She rose and stood by the table.

I breathed deeply, looking around at what I supposed was the whole of the house. There was a narrow bed against the far wall. There were other wooden chairs that had the appearance of being handmade. There was a fire in the hearth, a clock, and a hanging lantern. I had never seen a house this small, so unencumbered with belongings, so filled with light.

But Eli lived there too. How could there be only one bed?

His grandmother’s concentration was on the leaves. She was studying, choosing, transferring some into the large bowl. She held up a small green bunch. “Sorrel,” she muttered. Another: “Yellow archangel.” Another: “Coltsfoot, to reduce the swelling and inflammation.”

She chose, rejected.

All of the ones selected went together onto a board.

I watched as she chose one, studied it, muttered something, and dropped it back in its own small bowl. “Lady’s mantle,” she said. “It stanches bleeding. I do not think we have need of that.”