The mood was infectious, and Rose bundled up Kenna while Briana washed her hands, and they all trekked off into the village.

"Oh, look," Rose said, pointing at the brightly painted wagon and makeshift stage. Seamus ran ahead, pushing into a place out front, and not to be outdone by her brother, Kenna let go of her mother's hand and ran after him.

"Mind your manners!" Briana called. "Don't be pushin' folks."

Rose had a difficult time bringing herself to discipline Seamus. She loved him so much and he was just… high-spirited.

"Briana! Rose!" Miriam Boyd called to them. "Come and find a place here with us."

The air crackled with the excitement, almost like a festival, or at least an event outside the daily routine.

A vendor who traveled with the troupe was working at a cart near the stage, selling questionable-looking meat pies, and some of the villagers were buying them as fast as he could take their coins.

"Don't let the children eat any of those," Rose said with a slight frown.

"Of course not," Briana said, trying to see over the crowd. "I wish I was as tall as you."

The crowd fell silent as the stage's makeshift curtain parted. A woman in a long blond wig and wearing a pale blue gown lay sleeping on a bed. Othello stepped out into view, tall and impressive with his blackened face and leather armor and fur robes.

But he nearly tripped, as if his boot caught on a board. His eyes were glassy, and a feeling of unease began building inside Rose.

"It is the cause, it is the cause, my soul." The actor's voice rang loud and deep, reaching the very back of the crowd. "Let me not name it to you, you chaste stars!"

He took another step and faltered again. "It is the cause. Yet I'll not shed her blood. Nor scar that whiter skin of hers than snow, and smooth as monumental alabaster."

He unsheathed his sword and dropped it. The audience was en raptured, but Rose spotted a few lines in his makeup. She focused her eyes, trying to see his face more clearly, and she realized he was sweating in the cold day.

Her feeling of unease grew stronger.

"Yet she must die, else she'll betray more men." Othello's voice rang out. He wavered during the next line. "Put out the light, and then put out the light."

He collapsed onto the stage, his head hitting the floor with a thudding sound.

For the span of a few breaths, the audience remained quiet, thinking this part of the show, but then the woman on the couch rose up and cried, "Henry?"

She ran to him, and the crowd began to murmur in confusion. Seamus was at the edge of the stage, his face concerned, and he grabbed the side to swing himself up.

Rose's feeling of unease exploded into fear as she remembered his earlier words at the house.

All the way from London.

"Seamus!" she shouted, shoving her way toward the stage. "Don't touch him!"

Rose was strong, and she reached the stage in seconds, but Seamus was already kneeling beside the sweating, unconscious actor.

"Don't touch him," she repeated. "Get back."

"What is it?" Briana asked, rushing up behind and grabbing Kenna, lifting her off the ground.

"Fever," Rose answered.

Two days later, the actor died.

Four days after that, Seamus fell ill, along with others in the village. Soon after, half the town was moaning and sweating. In the de Spenser house, only Rose did not contract the sickness. She worked day and night to care for her family.

In a matter of weeks, a quarter of Loam Village was dead. Nearly everyone had lost family members, but the de Spenser house was hardest hit. Gregor, Briana, and Kenna all passed over, leaving Rose and Seamus too shocked to even mourn.

Worse, Seamus blamed himself.

Rose had survived the untimely death of her father, but this was almost too much to bear, and at the same time she was forced into dealing with business matters-as there was no one else. Seamus was too young to take over his father's profession, and yet he inherited the house and his father's money. Old Quentin, one of the village elders, helped Rose to sort these matters, and she was surprised to learn the size of her brother's wealth. She and Seamus would want for nothing… except for their lost family.

Sometimes, later, looking back, Rose did not know how she and Seamus survived the cold, empty sorrow of those first few years together. She loved him, but she was not his mother. She was not even the mothering kind.

Still, she did her best.

They were both comfortable that he never called her «Mother» or even "Auntie," and he always called her "Rose."

She went on working as a midwife, and he took over some of the household tasks. She continued teaching him his numbers and reading and writing-as his mother had. Day by day, they slowly created a life together.

In his early teens, he talked her into going to a horse fair, and she let him buy two half-wild colts. He brought them home and put countless hours into training them, and then sold them to a young lord in Inverness for a decent profit.

He had stumbled upon his own path, as a horse trader.

One morning, Rose woke up and made their tea and walked out to watch him patiently training his newest acquisition, a lovely dappled gray. She smiled.

"I'll get breakfast," she called.

Two hours after washing the dishes, she had her first conscious painful thought that day of Gregor, Briana, and Kenna. But then she realized this was the first morning since their deaths that half the morning had passed before such pain hit her.

The next day, she did not suffer their loss until midafternoon.

And she knew she would recover.

At seventeen, Seamus had grown taller than Rose. He was strong and honest and sure of himself. Between his house and his inheritance and his growing reputation as a horse trader, he was considered by far to be the best «catch» in the village, and several families approached Rose with possible offers.

But she heard none of it.

If Seamus wished to hook himself to a girl, that was his choice, not hers.

As of yet, he'd shown no interest in taking a wife.

Perhaps he was like her, and he never would marry.

Staring into the looking glass one night, Rose wondered what had become of the girl who felt such joy at bringing him into the world, holding his squirming warm body to her breast. At the age of thirty-four, her face showed no lines, but her long, brown hair held streaks of silver.

Just as when she was a child, she knew some of the villagers were beginning to view her as strange. A peculiar spinster, obsessed with new babies, but wanting none of her own.

Why had she never married?

Perhaps because no man ever stirred her.

That all changed one night after supper when Seamus suddenly announced he felt like going to the pub.

"The pub?" she asked. "When did you ever feel like going to the pub?"

"Tonight." He smiled. "Come with me."

She picked up his plate. "There must be some crowd from the horse fairs visiting?" she ventured, teasing him. "Some men you want to buy a colt from cheap? Or maybe it's a girl you're chasing?"

He shrugged. "A few men from the horse fairs. I see nothing wrong with sharing a pint and starting a conversation."

She laughed and got her cloak. In truth, a pint and a little company appealed to her tonight. Spring was just around the corner, and the gray days of winter would soon be past.

She did not remember what she and Seamus chatted about that night as they walked into the village proper and down the main path toward the Black Bull-one of only two pubs in Loam. She remembered going inside, feeling the welcome warmth, closing the door while removing her cloak… and then hearing a voice from somewhere across the room behind her.

"This ale is first rate tonight, Gareth. What did you do, wash out the mug first?"