A/N: Dear Guest Reviewer – I'm glad you like Lavender. She's fun to write since she's one of the more together characters, though she doesn't appear as much as I was initially planning. Thank you as always for your kind support.

Make the fires, clean the smial, wake the family, dress Old Mrs Grubb, help make breakfast, serve the family, clean the dining room, check on Old Mrs Grubb, do the washing, serve the tea, check on Old Mrs Grubb again…

And so it continued for the rest of the day. Clover wasn't sure how anyone managed to stay in service for years at a time. She'd only been there a few months and the monotony was already making her feel like a mill wheel; always moving and never getting anywhere. And with the diminishing opportunities for diversion available outside of work (thanks to Lotho)… she needed to get out. Her world was getting smaller just as it should have been growing. No one else was going to open it out for her, so she needed to do it herself.

Since the posting of the Rules, Clover had found herself possessed by a spirit that wouldn't let her rest. Every minute that wasn't spent serving the Grubbs was spent bent over her dresser, which she had appropriated as a desk. She was painstakingly going over the letters in a book lent to her by Dalgo, going over it word by word and carefully copying it onto a fresh sheet. Writing was easier than reading; making something new in the flurry of the moment was easier than trying to make sense of something made by someone else.

She didn't expect anyone to take notice, but she was so absorbed in her work that it didn't strike her as odd when someone knocked on the door. "Enter," she said, not looking up.

Dalgo entered sheepishly, looking comically oversized in Clover's small room. He folded his hands behind his back as he leaned against the doorframe. "I hadn't expected such a formal invitation. Quite the lady." He laughed nervously.

"It's improper for a member of the family to enter the servant's quarters," she said, not looking up from her work.

"My apologies, only I'm concerned for your welfare. Am I allowed in here as a friend?"

Clover murmured noncommittally.

"Why don't you go outside?" he said.

"What for?"

"You've been doing that all evening. And last evening. I think you need a break."

"Going outside won't do me any good. I need to get better at reading and writing so I can become a clerk and make more money. You can't do anything without money."

"That's not true."

"You only say that 'cus you've always had it. You don't know what it's like to be without. You think I could do what Lotho's done with as little as I have now?"

"Clerks don't, in fact, make that much."

"Well I'm guessing they make more than me!" Clover snapped. In her agitation she spilt the ink bottle over and, swearing, attempted to mop it up. She realised she'd gone too far with her little tirade and looked apologetically up at Dalgo. "I'm sorry," she said. "You pay me handsomely but… I don't think I'm made for service."

"No."

She rested her chin on her folded hands and stared at the wall. Dalgo watched her from across the room like a statue.

"Would anyone hire a lass as a clerk?" Clover said eventually.

"Some might."

"Might?"

"I won't give you false promises."

"No." She paced up and down the room, frantically twirling a pencil in her fingers. "You try and try to do better for yourself but you never get anywhere."

"That's not true."

She sat on the bedside table. "What can I do? What am I allowed to do?"

"You're allowed to improve yourself."

"But to what end?"

"Does it need an end?"

"Yes! I don't have the time to spend on things without one." She sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose. "This ain't appropriate, I'm sorry."

"Is this about clerking or is it about something else?"

Clover thought for a while. "I'm worried about where it's all going," she said.

"What do you mean?"

"The inns have been closed to keep order. And now there are Rules for more order. And how many more Rules will he need to make before he has as much control as he's satisfied with?" Lotho had become such a universal presence in their lives she didn't need to elaborate on who 'he' was. "I can't even keep the one's he's already got. How am I supposed to know if it's passed curfew?"

There was a full silence, then Dalgo drew something from his pocket. It was a watch, with a case covered in swirling leaf patterns of silver. He held it out to her, dangling it by the chain. She let the tiny, artificial moon rest in her cupped hands, still sticky with ink and sweat. Her reflection was distorted and unrecognisable on the moulding of the case.

"You can borrow this," he said. "Do you know how to read it?"

"I learned from the clock on the mantelpiece," Clover murmured. She opened the case and was greeted by an almost-white enamel face. Her reflection was clearer now, tinged in gold.

"Now you'll always have a way to know if you're breaking the curfew," Dalgo said. "You don't have to be afraid."

Until you decide to take it back, Clover thought. Or until they decide that lasses owning watches is against the Rules.

The delicate second-hand made its journey around the face of the watch. Moving and always ending up where it started.

"Will you come outside now?" Dalgo said.

"Will you come with me?"

He wordlessly moved to open the back door for her. It was dark all about. They could only be next to each other when it was dark. Clover had to admit to herself that going outside was a good idea. The cold was cleansing, like waking up after a long sleep.

She could allow herself this rest bite, as it was still work in its way. Every little interaction with the Grubbs was a transaction – if I give you this, what will I get out of it later?

The back garden was long but relatively narrow. There was a crude wooden bench near the back door, which Clover settled herself down on. It was too late to safely go beyond the boarder of the property.

"It's too cold to sit," Dalgo said.

"I can warm you up."

"Don't be vulgar."

"I was only inviting you to sit with me."

Dalgo hesitated a moment. Then something seemed to shift in his head and he came to sit next to her. He smiled nervously, like a tween walking out with a lass for the first time.

"I don't come out here enough," he said, avoiding looking at her.

"You always struggled to see the things you have. You're too much of a one for brooding on the past."

"Charming. To think I called you a friend just now."

"You need friends who can point out your flaws, you won't grow otherwise." Clover sighed and rested her jaw in her hand. "I wish I had a pipe."

"I didn't know you smoked."

"I didn't really, just sometimes with my brothers. But I reckon I could do with a bit of leaf about now. Ain't you scared?"

"Of Lotho?" he inhaled deeply. "I don't know. There's not anything I can do so I'm not sure what there is to be scared of. There's no point." He cast her an aside glance. "It's not as though you can actually write your way out of it."

Clover scowled as her hackles were raised. What was she supposed to do if not write her way out of it? She had no other resources. She couldn't just sit and wait. How could Dalgo be so complacent? Wasn't he concerned about what would happen to him if Lotho took against him? Maybe that was because he didn't need to worry as much. Lotho was family to him, even if it was only distantly.

Sometimes Dalgo seemed so similar to her, but other times…

"I thought friends needed to criticise each other's follies," Dalgo said. He was grinning, far too pleased with himself. It was infuriating, the way he could trap her in her own net. He wasn't supposed to be able to do that. Almost as annoying as the way his spectacles had slid too far down his nose.

"Ambition ain't a flaw," Clover said.

"That would depend on how you pursue it."

This was a little close to the quick. He didn't know. He couldn't know. This was work, even if it didn't involve putting words on the page. How to push through?

"You balance me out well," she said. "I get too stuck in my head."

"Me too."

"I know." She held the arms of his spectacles to push them back up his nose into their proper place. "I balance you out too."

He was startled by this, but not offended. She put her hands on his shoulders and looked meaningfully into his eyes, Do you want this?

The back door opened. Clover jumped back from Dalgo as Monno emerged from the smial. He didn't stop. He was intent on whatever journey he was embarking on, and wouldn't have seen them if Dalgo hadn't called out, "So this is how you sneak away."

Monno started and whirled around to see them. Clover pressed her back against the wall of the smial. Maybe she would be sucked through and wouldn't have to be here for this.

"I wasn't sneaking, I was taking the air." His gaze flitted from Dalgo to Clover and back again. "What are you doing?"

"The same as you," Dalgo said, without the decency to look embarrassed. He wasn't used to having to behave with humility. "But unlike you we're staying in the smial. The curfew's passed hasn't it?"

This last comment was directed at Clover, who suddenly became very aware of the pocket watch's weight in her lap.

"I think so," she said without looking at the face, hoping Monno wouldn't notice it.

But he must have perceived something that gave away her troubled state of mind, because his eyes flitted downwards.

"Why does she have Father's watch?" Monno said.

"Don't talk over Clover like that," Dalgo said.

"Answer the bloody question!"

"I think I hear the mistress calling," Clover said getting up to return to the smial.

"You stay here!" Monno said. He looked ready to knock someone over. Clover hadn't believed he was capable of such overt anger.

"Sorry, sir, but I need to attend to her," she said, untangling herself from the situation. Once she was inside their voices rose sharply, now unhindered by whatever restraint her presence had given them. Clover shut the door to muffle them from the rest of the family and then went to her room to hide the watch. Monno couldn't take what he couldn't find.

What had Dalgo been thinking, just calling to him like that? She should have shown him that he needed to be quiet. She wasn't sure how. You couldn't trust people. Even when they weren't trying to, they always found ways to ruin things.

"What's a fish like?" Old Mrs Grubb said from her chair.

Clover ran the feather duster over a bookshelf as she considered what answer would most amuse the old lady.

This was at least better than the majority of the day had been. It was the morning following the gifting of the watch, and serving tea and admitting clients to Monno's study had been nerve-scratching. Monno was too polite to easily read and that made him the most dangerous member of the family. He could do anything. There was no way to know if he was already planning something. So far no one else seemed to know about the watch, but he was being colder than usual towards her. When serving breakfast to the family she had spent the entire time worrying that one of the other Grubbs would question him about his unusual demeanour, and then it would be an excuse to tell them all about the watch and whatever the relationship was between her and Dalgo. So far nothing had happened, but the sensation was like being on a rotten wooden bridge, not being quite sure when it would break.

She thought of a suitable answer for Old Mrs Grubb.

"Like someone deep in their cups, mistress: unable to walk and gasping for a drink."

"And what's a tree like?"

Clover repressed an urge to sigh as she started dusting the next shelf up. "Like an old gaffer: rooted to the spot and always getting thicker round the middle."

Cackling laughter rose up from her wheelchair, making Dalgo flinch in his chair in the corner. Playing the jester was tiresome but at least it kept Clover in Old Mrs Grubb's favour. She stood on her toes as she struggled to reach the next shelf up.

"Let me," Dalgo said, setting his book aside. He took the duster and reached up to the next few shelves with ease.

"Thank you, sir."

"You shouldn't do that," Old Mrs Grubb said as Dalgo returned the duster to Clover and settled back in his chair. "You'll make her lazy."

Clover tried to ignore this comment as she lifted one of the candlesticks on the mantelpiece to dust beneath it.

"What's a cat like?" Old Mrs Grubb said.

Clover clamped her jaw shut for a moment to stop herself from sighing. "Like you, mistress."

"How so?"

"Because once you get your claws into something amusing you won't let it go."

Old Mrs Grubb's laugh pierced the air again, setting Clover's nerves on edge.

"I like this game," she said breathlessly when her cackles had run dry.

"I can tell."

Dalgo was pretending not to listen to the word game. His book was still held in place before his eyes, but those dark pupils were not studying the words. He was glancing continuously at Clover, the curve of his lips giving away his amusement.

He likes it. Keep going.

But Old Mrs Grubb seemed to lose interest in the game. She asked Dalgo to read to her, which he did until she started nodding, and eventually fell into a gentle sleep. Her chin rested on her chest, as though she was studying some deeply engaging text.

Dalgo closed the book slowly. "She never used to sleep in the day," he said.

"If you can't have a nap at her age, when can you?" Clover said.

"I suppose so. But she's always been here, and I know she's lived longer than most, but…" He cleared his throat. "Thank you for humouring her."

Clover shrugged. "I like to talk and I like being listened to."

"Something you both have in common."

"And you."

"I don't talk as much as you."

"But you do like being listened to."

"Fair."

Finished with the dusting, Clover grinned and spun on her heel to face him properly. "And since you like being listened to, and since I value your opinion so highly, I wondered if I might see you after I've finished. I'd like to discuss my last book with you and I need recommendations for what I should read next."

"I'll give what little wisdom I can."

"How modest you are."

"That's not something I've ever been accused of before."

Clover laughed. "I'm not going to comment on that. Will Mr Monno be all right with me seeing you tonight?"

"Don't worry about him."

"He was upset yesterday."

"He's harmless."

"He's your brother."

"Younger brother, and he knows better than to challenge the master of the smial." He frowned in worry. "I can speak to him for you."

Clover winced. "Please don't."

"I don't want you to be worried."

"I'm not scared of him."

Dalgo snorted. "I know that. I'm not sure you've ever been afraid of anyone."

Clover started to move slowly as her mind whirred for an appropriate response.

"That might actually be true…" she said. How was he able to decipher something in her that she was oblivious of herself? She stared at him. How did he do that? He wasn't supposed to be able to do that.

Dalgo looked back at her over the top of his spectacles. What did he see?

Abelia entered the parlour and suddenly everything snapped back to how it was before. Dalgo re-opened his book and Clover turned away and pretended to dust the mantle again. But Abelia seemed to understand that there was something wrong. She froze in the doorway, glancing from Dalgo to Clover.

"Mother wanted your help in the kitchen, Clover," she said eventually.

"I'll go to her now. I've finished in here," Clover said, leaving the room as quickly as she could. She could feel Abelia watching her as she went. Without meaning to, resentment crept in. While Clover knew that Abelia had no idea what was going on, she was still angry that she had lost a chance to flatter and wheedle Dalgo, through no fault of her own. At least she had been able to arrange a meeting with Dalgo that evening. She would need to take full advantage of what time she had, and hope they weren't interrupted again.

Clover worked to get all of her tasks finished before helping Old Mrs Grubb into bed that night. Young Mrs Grubb had ensconced herself in a chair in the parlour, staring into the meagre fire in the grate and picking at the corner of her needlepoint.

"Mistress Victoria is abed now, mistress," Clover said, stood attentive and neat in the doorway. "Is there aught else I can do for you?"

"No, thank you. You're dismissed for the evening. Go and… do whatever it is you do."

Clover did her best not to grin like a fool as she left the parlour, but was pulled short when she met Abelia in the corridor. The lass was hanging back, as though nervous to approach.

"Can I help you, miss?" Clover said.

"It's more like the other way around, really," Abelia said. "I realised we hadn't had any reading lessons recently. You should have reminded me."

"I didn't want to burden you, miss."

"We could have one now." She stepped forward earnestly. "I have time."

"I won't trouble you," Clover said, moving towards her bedroom door to try and signal that the conversation was ending. "I've been getting along well enough on my own."

"I don't mind."

"I'm a tad weary this evening, miss," Clover said, grabbing the doorknob. She needed to keep her appointment with Dalgo. What did she have to do to get Abelia to go away? "What about tomorrow evening? Does that suit you, miss?"

Abelia's expression drooped in obvious disappointment. "Yes. If you want to."

"Thank you, miss. Sorry, miss."

Clover disappeared into her room, but stayed by the closed door to listen for Abelia's steps. There was silence; silence for so long that Clover wondered if Abelia had managed to leave without making any noise. Then there was the sound of footfall, followed by the shutting of a door. From where the noise was in relation to Clover's room, it was the sound of Abelia's door. Clover took the pocket watch out from her bedside table, and waited. After an excruciating 10 minutes she left her room, book in hand, satisfied that she wouldn't attract any suspicion from Abelia.

Dalgo's study was empty now, and he had retired to his bedroom. It was a more intimate setting than Clover liked but it would have to do. Dalgo wasn't dangerous. He didn't seem to really know what to do with lasses.

She knocked and then entered without waiting for the answer.

"I didn't realise you lived here," Dalgo said. He was sat over his writing desk, and didn't bother looking up at her as she entered.

"I do live here. In a way."

"It's not your smial."

"It's not yours either, it belongs to your grandmother." Clover sat on a settee that backed onto the bottom of the bed.

"Remind me which book you've just finished."

"An Oath to the Thane."

"And what did you think?"

"I liked it better than The Gallant Swineherd, but it was a tad more difficult. I'd like to learn more about Bree-land."

"There are some over there," he said, gesturing to a thin bookshelf wedged between the bedside table and the wall.

"Could you help me with it?"

"If you like."

She was leaning back on the settee like it was her own, an act so brazen that any other employer would have upbraided her. But Dalgo sat beside her like they were ordinary friends. She read it out page by page. Dalgo sat with one arm draped over the back of the settee, using his height to follow where she was up to, and gently correcting her where she went wrong. She made more stumbles than she had intended, underestimating how much harder it was to read out loud. She had wanted to appear intelligent and sophisticated and her frustration led to more mistakes.

"You've nothing to be upset about," said Dalgo. "You're doing well."

Clover flinched, unnerved that he had read her so well. She thought she had done a good job of hiding her embarrassment. "I need to be better."

"Why?"

"So I can get further. I need to be good enough now."

"Unfortunately that's not how it works."

"And I thought you were so hard to satisfy," she said. "Don't you always expect the best?"

"I hope I'm not so unreasonable that I expect people to excel in skills they've not had the time to perfect."

Dalgo was more at ease than usual. He was reclining back, his arms flopped lazily aside. Clover mirrored his informality, shifting so her back was supported by the arm of the settee and lifting her feet to rest on Dalgo's lap. One of his eyebrows twitched momentarily, but he otherwise gave no sign that this was unusual.

"But can anyone ever really perfect anything?" she said. "You can't know when you've reached your full potential. It's not like pouring water into a jug where you can see how much space you've got left."

Dalgo shrugged. "It's irrelevant anyway because no one has enough time, stamina or patience to exclusively apply themselves to one endeavour."

"Patience?"

"People should be entitled to their leisure time."

"What do you do for leisure?" said Clover, resting the side of her head on her hand. "Besides reading and brooding on your faults."

"I thought you would understand by now that I'm a terrible bore," he said, pushing her legs off his lap.

"Are you?"

"Yes."

"I don't believe you."

"That's your choice," he said. There was a flicker of a mischievous smile at the corner of his mouth.

Clover handed her book back to him. "I've read to you so now it's your turn to read to me. That's what friends do, isn't it?"

Both of their arms were laid along the back of the settee and their fingertips brushed. Clover turned her hand upwards, slipping her fingers underneath his. Dalgo traced his index finger in a circle over her palm with a feather-light touch. His skin was velvet smooth. He withdrew his hand and hung it limply over the settee back. "What would you like?"

"Something that makes you happy."

His eyes flickered downwards, not looking at anything that Clover could see. His expression became so empty that she regretted making her suggestion. Just as she opened her mouth to propose something else, Dalgo moved across the room to his desk, where his father's journals were piled in messy order, reverently kept free of dust.

"I read these most evenings," he said. "Though I'm not sure 'happy' is quite the right term for what I feel when I do."

"He must have been a good father for you to care so deeply for him. I'd like to have met him," she lied.

"He was the best of fathers," Dalgo said, re-joining her on the settee. "Even when he knew he was dying he never let things slide. He knew how everything should be. Reading these are the closest thing to speaking to him now." He became increasingly animated as he continued. His eyes were wide and each had a small point of light from the candles, like faraway stars.

"It's odd to read his experiences in his own words, in a place he could speak so freely. I felt so guilty reading them at first, like I was intruding on his private thoughts. But after he was gone I needed to talk to him so badly. Mother thought the journals would help. It was like we could still have conversations and I could still learn new things about him even though he was gone." He froze. The muscles in his face tensed as he realised how loud he had been speaking. Clover had only seen Dalgo this joyful a handful of times. The realest things he could engage with were the dusty journals of a long-dead father. And her.

"Apologies," he said, drawing himself into his usual dower composure. "It's just… this is the last way I have to connect with him."

Slowly enough not to shock him, Clover put one of her hands over his. Looking steadily into his eyes she said, "I want to connect."

He smiled and withdrew his hand to open the journal. "I'll read then."

Over the months, Clover had formed an idea of the late Mr Grubb based on how his three children regarded him, and how they each carried the marks of his parenting. What she received from the journals gave her few contradictions. There was a fixation on perceived imperfections that were of no consequence. He was so convinced that all of his own opinions were correct that he was forced to rationalise the opposition of others as being entirely their fault. The reason Monno didn't respond to Mr Grubb's perfectly reasonable teaching methods was that he was too dispassionate, which made him unable to apply himself. Abelia was too difficult, too loud, too frivolous. It was her fault half their conversations ended in a row. If she just tried to be more like Dalgo then he would be able to have more patience with her. Like Dalgo, the late Mr Grubb never called her 'Abbie'.

Simultaneously, though, he would constantly reiterate his love for his children.

He would recount his attempts to correct their behaviour and describe his indignant confusion when they didn't respond as he wanted them to. He would wonder why they didn't understand how much he loved them, with no awareness that his actions bore no semblance of love as Clover understood it.

Clover's childhood hadn't been easy – empty stomachs and thin clothes and field work that left her muscles aching so badly she usually cried herself to sleep – but one comfort her parents had never let her be without was the certainty that she was wanted and loved. It was the only comfort they could give her, so they had given it freely.

Mr Grubb's disconnect between the way he treated his children and how they behaved towards him was unnerving. Dalgo's obliviousness was almost as strange. He was never picked apart in the way his siblings were but this seemed to be beyond his notice. He only saw the father he loved and who he was convinced was everything a father should have been.

Clover didn't say any of this. This was too close to Dalgo. Giving her true opinions on his adored father who she had never met was not something he would appreciate, no matter how much he thought he liked her candid nature. Instead she allowed herself to relax, lolling to one side to rest her head against his shoulder. He tensed momentarily, surprised at this sign of affection, before his muscles melted and he leaned into the contact.

Clover shut her eyes, willing the fears and strains of the day to swirl away on the sound of Dalgo's voice. She wasn't really listening anymore. Dalgo eventually stopped reading. He stayed silent for a while, not moving.

"Finished?" she said.

"I thought you were asleep."

"Not yet."

He carefully closed the battered leather cover of the journal. "He would have approved of you. He liked people who were certain of things."

"He had good judgement."

There was a soft, breathy laugh. "Impeccable." Relaxing further, he leaned his head against hers. Clover struggled not to tense with excitement.

"I don't know what I did before we met. I've always been alone, more or less. I don't know how I'd go back to being alone again."

"Glad you gave me that job then?"

"I'm frequently glad that I know you," he said softly.

His eyes turned to hers and she was struck by the sensation of looking into the heart of someone like her. Someone who wanted. It was awful.

Clover leaned forward and brushed her lips against his. He didn't lean in, but he didn't pull away either. His lips parted and she felt him shudder with longing.

Then he closed his mouth. Swallowed. "Um…" He drew away and got up. He was shaking slightly and was more visibly flustered than Clover had ever seen before. His entire face and neck had flushed and he looked lost in his own chamber.

"It must be quite late," he said. His hand patted his breast pocket for the watch that was no longer there. "I've got two weddings to officiate tomorrow, you know. Long day. Of course you'll have a long day too. Best go about our evenings."

Clover sat back into a normal sitting position, trying to look as casual as possible. "We don't have to."

"I'm afraid we do," he said, walking across the room towards the door. He opened it for her and looked back at her expectantly like a foothobbit. "Good night, Miss Delver."

Awkwardly she got to her feet and started to walk towards the door, her mind whirring with things she could say to make him let her stay. She wouldn't let anything go too far; she wouldn't end up in Meg's position with a babe on the way and a lad who couldn't be relied on to marry her. She just needed to make him want her enough.

"You won't be lonely, will you?" she said.

"Don't mind about me," he said, smiling uncharacteristically and unconvincingly. "I trust you'll sleep well."

"Yes, Dalgo."

The door was closed on her. Clover covered her face with her hands and drew in a hefty sigh. What was she doing? It was like trying to beguile a crow. Her father would be furious if he knew. So would Dalgo's for that matter, no matter what Dalgo himself thought.

There was the dull thump of a door being pushed into place. Not Dalgo's door. Glancing down the sleeping corridor, Clover noticed a faint light under Abelia's door, flickering with the movement of the person within.

Clover retreated to her box room to avoid being seen by anyone else. She had made an irreversible decision, and the worst part was she wouldn't know what the damage was until the following morning. She was starting to feel like she and Dalgo were the real fools.

Clover was still seething at herself and Dalgo the following day. What more did she have to do to get him? She hadn't seen him yet today. He had been out early to officiate a wedding, that much had been true. She also suspected he was avoiding her.

Her arms were sticky with sweat and straggles of hair stuck to her forehead as she scrubbed the kitchen floor. What was the point of this when it would only become dirty again? She had lost count of how many times she had cleaned the floor since arriving at the Grubbs' smial. There wasn't any time for this.

It was a squeaky, artificial cough that drew Clover's attention to the doorway. Abelia was there, her lips straight and tight.

"Mother's given me a list of what we need from the market. She wanted me to read it out to you but I know you don't need that," she said, slapping the note down on the kitchen table and turning to leave again.

"Miss?" Clover said, surprised by this show of hostility.

"What?" Abelia said, turning to face Clover again in a flurry of petticoats.

"Nothing. Sorry. You just seemed a bit upset."

"Nothing's wrong. I'm perfectly fine," Abelia said. But instead of leaving she just stood there, arms folded, scowling down at Clover. She wanted Clover to insist that there must be something wrong, to implore her for what could be the matter.

She could play that game if she wanted, but Clover wouldn't humour her. She raised herself with her tired limbs and walked to the table to get the shopping list. She pretended to read it while watching Abelia from the corner of her eye, allowing the silence to go on until the younger Hobbit realised that nothing was going to happen.

"You were supposed to be my friend!" Abelia said eventually. "Not his!"

Clover looked at her coolly, folding the list in half and running her thumb nail along the crease to make it sharp. "How'd you mean?"

"I mean that I was the one who gave you reading lessons. I was the one that liked you first. You know Dalgo's horrible to me, why would you take his side?"

"I'm a servant, miss, I don't take sides."

"Well to me it looks like you're on Dalgo's. And you used to look like you were on mine."

"You've been fair to me. Fairer than you need to be, and I'm grateful for all you've done. But Mr Dalgo is also a member of this family and I must show him the respect he's due."

"Don't pretend to me," she said. "I know that's not all. Just because you both think I'm stupid that doesn't make it true." Her voice was wobbling on the verge of tears.

Clover was surprised by how genuinely upset Abelia was. Part of her regretted the hurt she had caused, but a larger part of her realised how dangerous this could make the situation. "I'm sorry if anything I've done's vexed you, miss. I do think of you as a friend, and I don't want you to be sad." She reached for Abelia's wrist but it was pulled away from her.

"Don't feel sorry for me. I'm not your friend," Abelia said, storming from the room. "You're only a servant anyway."

Clover stayed where she was for a moment, trying to digest what had happened and what the consequences would be. Then she quietly returned to scrubbing the floor, washed the lye off her hands and prepared to leave. She tried not to worry about Abelia, and failed.

The Hobbits had been told that the new Gathering and Sharing system was in place to prevent the shortages that had become a depressingly normal part of life in the Shire. The official story was that the shortages were down to wastage caused by the Hobbit farmers. In order to stop this, Men had started confiscating crops and storing them in tar-coated grain houses so that they could be properly distributed later.

The new system to ensure no one took more than their assigned Sharings involved a lot of paperwork, and as a result lines for the baker's had grown to extend all the way down the market street. If you wanted to get anything you needed to be there early.

It hadn't made any difference to the shortages yet. There had been no hard explanation as to why food was scarcer than previous years, given the good harvest and that wastage had never been a problem before. There was also no explanation given for the Man-driven wagons, fully laden with sacks and barrels, that still made regular trips south.

By the time Clover arrived at the baker's, the queue was already considerable.

Dalgo's pocket watch had given her the freedom to know when she was breaking the curfew, but it had also given her a greater awareness of how finite her time was. She was carrying a device that measured the diminishing length of her life. And she was wasting it standing in line for bread and scrubbing floors. She wasn't sure if she was grateful for time to think outside of the smial or if she found being forced to stand still frustrating. She wanted to knock everyone out of the way and ask, 'why are you all just standing here?' But she couldn't do that. So instead she thought.

Monno had been suspicious of her for some time, but his knowledge of the watch and Dalgo's fondness gave him enough material proof to have her thrown from the smial. She had lost Abelia, her first true ally, and could no longer rely on her defence if Monno moved against her. Young Mrs Grubb was a kind mistress, but efficient, and wouldn't hesitate to dismiss Clover permanently if she knew half of what was going on. Old Mrs Grubb was another ally, but still viewed Clover as a servant first and would be horrified if she knew Clover had been fraternising with her grandchildren. And, of course, Dalgo: the only reason she still had her position. Even her influence with him seemed to have reached its limit. The situation had become too dangerous.

The Grubbs had given her all they could. It was time to move on.

The watch told Clover she had spent an hour in the queue, and she returned to the Grubb's smial with half a hard loaf of bread. When she went to the kitchen she found Dalgo sat at the central table, sipping tea and staring into space. He was so engrossed in whatever he was thinking that he didn't notice her in the doorway.

"Hello," she said.

Dalgo started, swore with surprising precision, and spilt his tea over the table.

He pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and started hurriedly trying to mop it up. Clover set her basket aside and joined him. His frantic air relaxed to match her calmer demeanour. He left his soaked-through handkerchief aside and stood back, holding his arms out awkwardly away from his body. The tea had stained all along the sleeves of his jacket.

"Here," Clover said, standing behind him and helping him off with the jacket.

He mumbled his thanks, examining his shirtsleeves. Clover flung the jacket on the back of a chair and walked around to Dalgo's front to get a better look at the sleeves. She held one of his cuffs, where the tea stain, still warm, had blotched the white cotton.

"That'll be hard to get out," she said, and glanced up at him. "I'll do my best."

"You usually do." He was looking at her like he wasn't sure what she would do; half apprehensive, half eager. He tugged the cuff out of her hand.

"Can we talk about what happened last evening?" Clover said.

Dalgo winced. "I'd rather not, but I suspect you already know that. I also know you won't leave it until we do."

"I didn't mean to offend you."

"You didn't," he said quickly. "It was my fault. I've been spending more time with you than is proper and I apologise for that. I'll no longer involve myself in your personal business."

He turned to go and Clover stepped forward, desperate to keep him. "It was my fault. I shouldn't've put you in that position."

He ruefully looked over his shoulder at her. "I'm your employer."

"Technically your grandma's my employer."

"I earn the money for the smial."

"You and Mr Monno," she said, clasping her hands and leaning against the wall with a casual ease that should only be used by someone who owned the smial. "You're not as important as you think you are."

A smile tugged reluctantly at the corner of his mouth. "I do wish you would be more candid."

"Don't try and be funny."

"You're simplifying."

"You're complicating."

He sighed and sunk back into the chair. "I wish I could have easy conversations with you. I sometimes wonder what normal people talk about."

"I don't care," Clover said, toying with a stone pestle on the kitchen dresser. It was heavy, solid and shiny. "There's no one like us. Why should I care what other people do?" She sighed and put the pestle back in the mortar. "I'm sorry I made you uncomfortable. I misread your feelings. I won't do anything like that again but I'd be sad to lose your good opinion."

"You would know it if you had."

"I'm not sure I would. You're an odd creature, Dalgo, you don't show yourself easily." She hesitated, realising just how forward she had been. She hadn't yet adjusted to the shift in their relationship. "Do you want me to stop using your first name?"

There was silence as he thought it over; his mind moving like a glacier. "I'll leave that decision in your hands," he said eventually. Dalgo lifted himself from the chair with more energy than he'd sat down with. "Regardless of my opinion, I cannot spend any further time with you outside of your work hours. I'm sorry."

Clover couldn't stand it and cast her eyes down, hoping it would make her look demure. Dalgo inhaled and brought a hand over his eyes, cursing softly as he turned away from her.

"I'd best give you this back," she said, putting her hand in the pocket and drawing out the watch.

He looked down at it achingly. "I wanted you to have it," he said.

"You can't do half-and-half, where I'm your friend but also not."

"I don't want you to be disadvantaged because I made this decision."

"I'll miss you," she said.

"It seems all I do is hurt people," he said.

Clover entwined the watch chain around her fingers. "What if I was a clerk?"

"What?"

"You said people might not want to hire a lass as a clerk, but if I had a good reference from you: a distinguished gentlehobbit from an old family, I'd be able to get a job then, wouldn't I? You could use your connections. And then there'd be nothing improper. Or… it wouldn't be quite as improper as now, at any rate."

This suggestion seemed to upset him more. "You want to leave?"

"Did you think I'd be a maid here forever?"

Clover thought he would leave then, but instead he stopped and brushed his hand against hers. His thumb pressed against her palm and he ran his fingers in a circle over the back of her hand. The suggestion of holding her without actually doing it. It took her by surprise.

"I'll do whatever you need of me," he said, and left. He hadn't taken the watch.

Clover curled her fingers around it and put it back in her pocket. It was hers for now. This place had been hers. He was hers. Whatever happened next, it had all been hers, however briefly.

Dalgo would give her the reference, he was too fond of her and too ashamed of himself to keep her. In a few short months she had gone from farmhand to house servant to clerk. She could be anywhere by the time she was thirty-three. Finally, finally, things were as they should be. Even if this wasn't quite as she had planned it, she would always find a way to get. You just had to hold on tight, even if it made your hands bleed.

One day she would have clocks and books and a smial that didn't get damp in the winter, ones that she wouldn't have to give back to anyone. She would decide what was proper, and other people would pay respect to her. She could do it.

Even if the rest of the Shire was falling, she would rise.

Dalgo had been acting strangely the last few days. One minute he was smiling to himself and behaving with uncharacteristic good humour. Then he would be found later, pale and staring into space, chewing his knuckles with a look of paralysed fear on his face. He took to shutting himself away in his chamber. Every time Clover went near, she could hear him pacing inside.

She had tried asking him once what was wrong, but he had made a strange noise and locked himself in his study. So she had let him be, with the hope he would come out of himself when he was ready. She had dropped hints about the clerking job but so far he hadn't given her anything.

And now he was out late into the evening, and his mother was worried.

"I hope he's all right," Young Mrs Grubb said, looking out of the dark window. "He leaves the smial so little and never this late in the evening. I don't know what's wrong with him, he's been so odd of late."

"He's always been odd," Old Mrs Grubb muttered as Clover combed out her white curls.

"No," Young Mrs Grubb said firmly, glaring at her mother-in-law.

"I suppose he was cheerful as a boy," Old Mrs Grubb said reflectively. "I wonder what went wrong."

"There isn't anything wrong with him," Young Mrs Grubb said, moving to the end of her bed. "He's just… himself."

"Perhaps there's a young lady."

Clover did her best not to make eye-contact with herself in the mirror while she twisted Old Mrs Grubb's hair into a braid.

"I didn't think he was interested in young ladies," Young Mrs Grubb murmured.

"What did you think he was interested in?"

Young Mrs Grubb sighed and cast her spectacles to one side. "I don't know. No one, I suppose."

"At least he's doing things young people are supposed to do. I'd like some great-grandchildren."

Clover helped Old Mrs Grubb out of her chair and walked her to her bed.

"I'm worried about him," Young Mrs Grubb said. "What if he's attacked by one of the Men? It's nearly curfew."

"I could stay up for him if you want," Clover said as she pulled Old Mrs Grubb's legs up onto the bed. "I could wake you if he's not back by a particular time."

"Would you?" Young Mrs Grubb said, looking vulnerable. "Are you sure?"

"I only wish to serve your family, mistress."

Young Mrs Grubb sighed. "You are good. I'm glad you came to us. You'll be paid extra, of course."

"Yes, mistress."

Clover agreed to wake Mistress Campanula at midnight or when Dalgo arrived home, whichever came first. She lit a single candle in the parlour window so he would know someone was there and set to finding an occupation for herself.

She was writing by candlelight when she heard the front door open and close. Dalgo. She expected him to go straight to his chamber and jumped when the door to the parlour was flung open. The fresh smell of the cold night filled the room along with him.

"I knew it would be you," he said. "None of the others would bother. It had to be you." He was talking with a kind of manic energy

"Is that right?" Clover said, forcing herself to appear calm.

"I've been thinking about everything," he said. "Trying to think of how to make it all work, you know, because we couldn't carry on like this but we couldn't go back to what it was like before so I wasn't sure what to do."

He was walking up and down the room while he talked. Clover slowly reached behind her to grip a candlestick. She'd never seen him like this before and was considering that he might have actually gone mad.

"But then I worked it all out!" he said, smiling like a lunatic. "It's so simple, I didn't know why I didn't think of it before." He might have realised how unnerving he was being because he stopped pacing and took a moment to compose himself. He closed his eyes and started breathing heavily.

"Clover," he said, sending a chill down her spine. "I've never found it easy to form connections with others, but I forget that when I'm in your company. It's like I fit, like I'm a cog in a watch and I'm precisely where I'm meant to be, doing precisely what I'm supposed to be doing. I can't remember meeting someone who experiences things the way I do; who I can have real conversations with, who can build ideas in their head like I can and see things with clarity. Like we look at the world with the same eyes. Um…"

With uncharacteristic nervousness he lowered himself onto his knees. Clover's heart started palpitating. "I know we've only been acquainted for a little time, but I also know there isn't anyone else I could be content with. So," with shaking hands he fumbled in his jacket pocket and held out a single white clover blossom, "I need to ask if you could consent to being my wife."

There was silence and the ticking clock.