Shadows and Light

long-standing.”
    “Of course,” Nolan said, bustling over to one of the shelves.
    Liam followed, aware that the blue-eyed stranger had turned to watch them.
    “This one is excellent,” Nolan said, pulling a book off the shelf.
    His back to the stranger, Liam made a face. He recognized the author, had tried to get through one of the man’s books once before. Prosy old bore. Well, it wouldn’t keep him up late. He’d be asleep ten minutes after he opened the book.
    “And this one,” Nolan said, going over to the far-too-empty shelves and selecting another book. ‘This one has been recently published. A book of instructional essays. Very popular. I’m told that it’s one of the few books most heads of families consider suitable material for the females in their families and have consented to permit the ladies to read.“
    Consented to permit the ladies to read? Liam could imagine what Elinore—or even Brooke—would say if he tried to dictate what they could or couldn’t read.
    Which made him wonder what happened to women in the eastern part of Sylvalan who did express such opinions.
    Feeling numb, Liam paid for the books and waited while Nolan carefully wrapped them in brown paper and string.
    As he turned to leave the store, he noticed the stranger was still watching him.
    There was no reason for the animosity he felt toward a man he didn’t know and hadn’t even seen before.
    But the feeling was there, and he wasn’t going to dismiss it.
    He spent the rest of the day wandering, feeling oddly off balance. The streets of Durham were familiar, and he recognized the buildings. But it felt as if he kept turning down familiar streets and finding himself in a strange place. The women in the shopping district were all dressed in plain gowns with high necks and long sleeves. Drab clothing— grays, browns, dark greens and blues. Not the kind of garment worn to catch a man’s eye. They wouldn’t look at him, wouldn’t even acknowledge his “good day” when he passed them.
    He stopped at a shop where he’d often picked up a new shawl for his mother. The woman who owned the shop stood behind her counter. When he asked about shawls, she laid out a selection on the counter, offering none of the assistance she used to give him in order to make the right choice. Every move said plainly she no longer cared if anyone bought anything at her shop, which made him wonder how she expected to remain in business.
    His last stop in the afternoon was an art gallery. By then, his mind was prepared for what he’d find. His heart wasn’t.
    The empty places on the walls seemed like a terrible accusation. All the paintings by female artists were gone. When he asked the owner, he was told that women were capable of creating pleasing little sketches for the amusement of their families, but they weren’t capable of creating art. Never mind that the women whose work no longer hung on the walls had been hailed, just a few months ago, as some of the finest artists of their generation.
    Feeling unsettled and a little sick, Liam passed a group of men his age standing before a painting, loudly proclaiming its brilliance. He stopped for a moment to look at the painting, then shook his head and left the gallery. If his stable hands had slung soiled straw at a white sheet and then framed the result, it wouldn
    ’t have looked much different from the “brilliant” painting.
    When he returned to the family town house, he ate the evening meal because his body needed food, and because he couldn’t afford any physical weakness when he sat at his place in the barons’ council tomorrow.

    Maybe there was an explanation for all of this. Maybe.
    And maybe there was another explanation for the straight bruises on the shop owner’s cheeks. Faint bruises. Faint enough that, at first, he’d thought it was a trick of the light. But when he closed his eyes, he could see the straps of the scold’s bridle that Elinore had flung between them when she’d given him the ultimatum of accepting the witches as her kin or losing his family. Straight straps that could bruise tender skin if they were cinched too tight.
    Alone in his room, too uneasy to even try to sleep, he unwrapped the books he’d bought. He set the prosy old bore aside, then opened the other book. Perhaps having some knowledge of what was now considered suitable reading material for females would prepare him for whatever he was going to face in the barons’ council in the