He turned toward the open barn doors where the steward and yard foreman were within hearing. "From today, no cart assigned to textile work is reassigned without Miss Marsden's allocation, except to remove a man or animal from immediate danger. If another estate purpose requires one, the request comes to her."
The steward looked instinctively to Valentine for the final word.
Valentine said, "Miss Marsden confirms textile allocation. I do not."
Her eyes returned to the pouch. What tightened in her throat was not gratitude for the money. He had named the part of the injury that mattered more than the coins. He had treated her authority as something that vanished when his concern grew larger. Desmond had admired cloth she finished and dismissed the mind that arranged its making. Valentine had made a worse mistake because she had trusted him further, and now he was correcting the rule rather than asking her to forget the cost.
A gift she would have left untouched. A debt was different. She drew the pouch toward her. "Entered against the estate."
"Already entered."
"Good."
He did not ask whether the matter between them was mended. Ma turned instead to the stack of tallies she had been hoarding. She separated two bundles and handed them to Edwina's daughter when the young woman came in. "These go back to your mother. Tell her I have stopped stealing her work."
The girl grinned. "She will be relieved."
So unexpectedly was Ma.
The new rule was tested before the week ended. A foreman needed one textile wagon for half a day to move firewood before a freeze. Valentine stood three paces away with a ledger open in his hand. The foreman went to him first.
Valentine did not even look up. "Ask Miss Marsden."
The foreman turned. Ma moved one peg, counted the waiting yarn loads, and said, "Afternoon. Return it before 4. The blue batch goes by the smaller cart."
Then she looked at Edwina. "You will close that batch without me."
Edwina's eyebrows climbed. "Astonishing."
"I am capable of reform."
"Do not strain yourself."
Ma left the batch with her. The wagon came back before 4. The yarn arrived. No one asked Valentine to confirm any of it.
That evening, a message came from the village inn. Desmond Moberry had taken rooms there for the spring collections. Ma read the name once and folded the note. He had once praised the evenness of her cloth while treating every question of price, transport, or orders as a matter for men. When her family money disappeared, so had his engagement and the work he had promised to send her. She had spent months proving to herself that the loom had never needed his permission. Yet the knowledge that he would watch the spring dispatch make her want to check every peg, every cart, every cottage door herself.
That was impossible.
Valentine entered the barn after the last workers left. The great doors remained open to the yard. He saw the note in her hand and then the name on its outer fold. He said nothing about Desmond.
She studied the route board. Cloth was her work. Roads and men were not. She could not weave and guard every approach at once. "I will give you one lane," she said.
Valentine stood still. "Six carters until noon on dispatch day. Keep Moberry off the East Cottage Lane. No one changes a route after I set it. The looms, the prices, and the board remain mine."
His answer came without ornament. "Six. East lane. Your board done."
Maud should have checked the yard roster after him. She did not. Instead, she hung the chalk on its peg. The barn has become very quiet without the shuttles.
Valentine stood on the other side of the loom bench, close enough that she could see a streak of chalk dust on his cuff. His hand rested on the wood, not on the board, not on her work. Ma set her own hand beside his; their fingers brushed. Her pulse gave one hard, foolish beat. Trust had not made desire safer. It had only made the choice more real.
Valentine did not move closer. Ma let her fingers remain beside his for another breath. The attraction she had kept folded between tasks opened all at once. She wanted him to close the small distance between them. She wanted to know whether the discipline in his voice would survive a kiss.
She stepped back first and picked up the wooden shuttle. "After the spring dispatch is safe," she said.
Valentine's gaze held hers. Then he inclined his head and stepped back as well. After the carts. It was not a promise of rescue. It was an appointment they might earn.
Late March brought the dispatch. The Brighton collection wagons were due at sunrise.
Two hours before dawn, Maud carried a lantern to the route board in the yard and stopped. Three pegs had been reversed. Two chalk lines were smeared and redrawn. Down the lane came shouting. A wagon loaded with unfinished yarn was turning into the same narrow cottage track as a cart meant to collect finished bolts. Another collection cart was heading toward the damp lower store Ma had rejected on her first morning at Elmsworth.
For one violent instant, she wanted every tally back in her own hands. She could run to the first cottage, stop the second wagon, verify every bolt, and trust nobody until the Brighton men were gone.
That would take an hour she did not have.
Valentine came out of the house with his coat thrown over his shoulders. He took in the locked carts, the shouting men, and the altered board. "All carts," he began.
"No."
The word cut across the yard. Valentine stopped. Every carter who had automatically turned toward the Duke now looked between them. Ma loosened her grip on the board. "Edwina."
The widow was already coming across the yard. "Count every finished roll in the West Bay. Nothing leaves until you mark it ready."
Edwina took the tally sheet without asking whether Ma intended to follow.
Ma turned to Valentine. "Clear the east road. Hold the six carters at the gate. No route changes without my board."
He did not reach for the chalk. He faced the yard. "Cloth questions to Miss Marsden. Roads and horses to me. Move."
The conclusion split cleanly into two streams. Ma bent over the board.
A driver ran up before she could restore the first peg. "East bridge approach is too soft for the heavy finished cloth wagon, miss. We cannot take that load over it."