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“You’ll need wire fencing, too. Lumber to make a coop. Grain to feed them.” Gran lay back and closed her eyes. “You should spend the money in my sock.”

“Sock money is for medicine and emergencies,” Evaine said firmly. “I have my book on foraging. We’re coming into chestnut season. I ought to be able to collect a good store of sweet chestnuts if I can find any growing on the property.” She made a thin porridge, barely sweetened with a dab of sugar, and poured it into two bowls, eyeing their dwindling supply of oats with dismay. “You might be sick of roasted chestnuts by spring, but we’ll get by.”

“I could never tire of roasted chestnuts,” Gran said wistfully. “I always loved them at Christmas.”

“So do I.” With her rumbling stomach somewhat quieted, Evaine tucked her tattered copy of A Guide to Foraging in Yorkshire into a wicker basket, wrapped her warm red cloak around her shoulders, and set out into the crisp autumn morning to try to find enough food to survive another day. It wasn’t as though they could pop into the village and get supplies whenever they needed them. Out here, they were reliant upon Mr. Cogswell, the duke’s elderly groundskeeper, and his equally aged wife, Bess, for any trips into the closest village, ten miles away. She had not yet met Mrs. Cogswell. Only heard her husband mention the existence of a wife when she and Gran had arrived. She had gotten the distinct impression that the couple preferred to be left alone.

Evaine first checked her snares. Two were empty. The third had been triggered, but whatever unlucky animal had been caught had been carried off by another predator.

“Must feel nice to have a full belly,” she grumbled, crouching to reset it. “I could have used that rabbit, or whatever it was.”

She had never disliked foxes until she’d come to Wolfhaven. This was her fourth day of trying to catch game, and her rare successes had been snatched by the crafty red thieves that she was quickly coming to despise.

“Let the aristocrats shoot them all,” she muttered darkly as she strode deeper into the woods, though she didn’t truly mean it. Fox hunting was a horrible sport.

But she would make an exception for the one that had stolen her food.

Today she took a shortcut down a deer path that skirted the Wolfhaven mansion’s garden and led to the orchard beyond. Even if the apples were worm-eaten, she could cut around the rotten bits and salvage something. Gran knew how to preserve fruits and vegetables. They had cleared a patch of garden and planted potatoes, beets, carrots, and onions that would overwinter.

All they had to do was get through the cold season. In the spring she could look for work in Cornwall, or Brighton, where the sea air might help Gran’s lungs.

Evaine’s ankle turned suddenly when she stepped on a solid green object. The hem of her red cloak fluttered as she windmilled her arms trying to keep her balance. Bending, she picked up the offending nut, prepared to give it a piece of her mind. Instead, a smile crept across her face.

“Got you,” she grinned, finding hundreds more of them scattered across the ground. “Chestnuts. Just what I was hoping to find.” At last, something was going right. She bent and quickly filled her basket with the hard green husks. When it was groaning with the weight, she turned back the way she came, shifting the basket from arm to arm as her muscles quickly tired. Halfway back, she set it down and shook out her sore arms.

“Shouldn’t have been so greedy,” she scolded herself. “It’s not as if they’re going anywhere. I can come back for more once I drop these off at the cottage.”

Not home. That wretched hovel would never be home. But at least it was shelter. Evaine squeezed her eyes shut against a wave of homesickness for the city she had been forced to leave.

She sat at the base of a tree to rest her arms for a few minutes. Her back and arms ached from all the chopping and crouching she had been doing lately. Idly, she pulled out her book and flipped to the page on chestnuts.

Sweet chestnuts have hairy, prickly spines and hold 2-3 small nuts. Do not confuse them with horse chestnuts, which are a different species entirely and toxic to eat. Horse chestnuts have thick, warty casings with a single large, round nut.

Evaine glared at the basket full of warty green seed cases.

“Ugh!” she yelled. “You frauds!” She pushed to her feet and grabbed one, lobbing it at a nearby tree. “All that work, for nothing!”

She would not allow her grandmother to see her frustration, but out here, alone, she could scream and rage all she wished. There was no one around for miles, except the Cogswells, and the groundskeeper had told her they mostly kept near the main house. She threw nut after nut until the basket was empty, blindly throwing them at tree trunks to break open their hard cases.

Hoofbeats reached her ears a split second after she let one last chestnut fly.

Evaine could credibly claim to have a strong arm and good aim. She hadn’t meant to strike the man—she hadn’t realized he was there—but his horse reared and he went tumbling to the ground regardless of her intentions.

The whole thing happened so quickly she hardly had time to react.

“Oh no,” she breathed, torn between the instinct to run away lest she be held responsible for his injuries, and the nobler impulse to rush to his aid. Her conscience won out. Evaine ran to his prone form, but before she could check whether he was still breathing, she had to secure his agitated horse. Catching the animal was no easy feat. It danced alarmingly close to its fallen rider’s prone form. She couldn’t let it trample the man. Finally, she caught its reins and tied it to a tree branch at a safe distance. The horse blew out an irritated breath and bent its head to rip a clump of greenery from the ground.

“Are you alright?” she asked, bending over the fallen man. He was lying half on his side with blood streaming from a gash near his temple. Definitely not alright, then, but at least he was breathing. With effort, she rolled him onto his back.

And gasped. A wicked scar bisected his left brow and puckered his cheek all the way to his chin. Clearly, this was not the first accident this unlucky man had endured.

“I suppose I should find you some help,” she said, glancing around the forest with a sinking feeling in her gut. But where? The closest place to take him was to the cottage, but even that distance was impossible to traverse unless she could somehow get him back onto his horse. Unlikely. He was substantially larger than she, well-muscled and heavy. She guessed him to be around thirty. Six or seven years older than herself.

“Well, I suppose all I can do is wait here until you wake up,” she said to no one. “I could leave you here, but I don’t think you’d thank me for running off.”

Having a conscience was truly a burden at times.

A more selfish woman would have told her grandmother to rely on charity while she finished her schooling. But Evaine was not the kind of woman to abandon people she loved.