“I heard that each town was burnt to the ground.” Mary, the housemaid, told Evelyn the lady maid that had come over with Tess’ parents. Mary and Evelyn were both young women of a rather plain stature. There was nothing remarkable about either, but like many other girls their ages, they loved to gossip and fantasize. “Such barbaric brutes. I could not imagine what it is like to be taken prisoner by their type?”
“I do not know the way her Ladyship mopes around her chambers all day you would think she misses being with them.” Evelyn pointed out, taking a seat at the wooden table in the kitchen to eat the bread she had been offered. “She looks ever so sad.”
“She probably mourns her good reputation, which was in ruins the moment those heathens took her prisoner for so
