Shadows and Light

father was going to make the same decree, forbidding girls to receive more than three years of formal education. He was also going to follow the example of some of the eastern barons and forbid women of any age to read anything that wasn’t approved of by the male head of the household.
    And he was quite pleased to inform me that the barons were considering a new decree that would prevent a woman from owning property in her own name, or running a business, or even having an independent income.”
    “But that would mean—”
    “That your father would have had control over my income. He could have spent it as he pleased, and I wouldn’t have seen another copper from it except what he chose to dole out to me.”
    Liam shook his head. His father had made some dark hints about changes in the wind, but this?
    “Even if he wasn’t just baiting you for some cruel reason,” Liam said slowly, “it still has nothing to do with the witches.”
    “It has everything to do with them!” Elinore’s hands clenched. “Don’t you see? These troubles all have the same root. The witches were the first to be destroyed in the east. Once they were gone, other things began happening to the rest of the women. It’s not that far a step from killing one kind of woman to enslaving the rest.”
    “That’s nonsense, and you know it!” Liam shouted. “Why are you pushing this?”
    “Because I’m afraid!” Elinore’s breath hitched. It took several seconds for her to regain control. “I’m afraid for myself, but I’m more afraid for Brooke because I don’t want her to live in fear that any thought she has, any comment she makes, anything she does might give a man an excuse to brutalize her. If these decrees are passed, fear and pain are the only things she’ll know.”

    “You’re jumping at shadows, Mother, and I’ve heard quite enough of this.” Realizing he still held the glass of whiskey, he drank it.
    Spinning around, Elinore rushed to the work basket next to the chair near the windows. She pushed aside the needlework, pulled something out of the bottom of the basket, strode back to the sofa, and tossed two objects on the cushions.
    Liam studied the strips of leather that had brass buckles and were connected to what looked like a leather tongue.
    Harness of some kind, but, for the life of him, he couldn’t figure out what animal a harness like that would fit.
    “It’s a scold’s bridle,” Elinore said, her voice deliberate and cold. “A tool and a punishment to teach females never to speak unless their words are pleasing to a man’s ears. You don’t like what you’ve heard? You don’t like the feelings and opinions I’ve expressed? That’s your answer, Baron Liam. You’
    re bigger than I am, and you’re stronger. Will you force me down to the floor and shove that leather tongue into my mouth and buckle that bridle around my head? Will you use your fists to subdue me when I fight you so that when you order me to open my mouth to be bridled I’m too frightened and hurt too much to do anything but obey?”
    Liam swallowed hard to keep down the whiskey that threatened to rise up in his throat. “He did that to you? He did that?” He suddenly understood the days, a few months ago, when his mother had barely spoken, had moved so carefully, had denied there was anything wrong. The whiskey glass slipped from his fingers, hit the carpet, but didn’t break. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
    “If I’d said anything, he would have hurt Brooke.”
    Liam looked at the second, smaller bridle. “Did he—? Did he ever—?”
    “No,” Elinore said. “If he had, he wouldn’t have lived long enough to choke at his mistress’s table. I would have cut the bastard’s heart out before then.”
    A long, uneasy silence hung between them.
    “You have a choice to make, Liam. You can give me your word that you’ll do whatever you can to protect the witches in the Old Place.”
    “And if I don’t give you my word?” he asked hoarsely.
    “Then I will pack my things, take my daughter, and go live with my kinswomen.”
    If she’d pulled a bow and arrow from beneath the sofa and aimed it at his heart, she couldn’t have shocked—or hurt— him more.
    “You’d leave me? You’d walk away from your son to live with them ?”
    “I wouldn’t be walking away from my son since I would already have lost him. I’d be walking away from the Baron of Willowsbrook and any control he might have over my