The bottle smashed on one end when Alice hit the ground. She did not respond to Ropati.

"Alice!" Ben shouted, now more anxious than confusing. He rushed over and with some heavy breaths, picked her up in his arms, leaving the smashed bottle on the ground. He looked at the stranger suspiciously, as if this was all his fault. "We don't need any help, ser," he said.

Ropati cast a judgmental look to the older man who was, in one way or another, apparently responsible for this distraught young woman. The possessive man who gave her child? The father who left her to cry in the streets?

He hoped he had no children who yearned in his absence.

Ropati knelt to collect Alice's broken pieces into his crate.

"You don't need to need help to accept it, sir," he answered with a strained smile as wine stained his right white glove.

Alice was vaguely aware of being picked up. But she was too frightened to resist. When she heard the other man speak, she briefly considered calling out for help. She knew that if father took her home now, she was going to marry Tobias. But she remembered what he had said before she had run away. If she didn't work along, she'd become a burden to her siblings. How could she even begin to fight against that? And so she stayed still in her father's arms as if she was unconscious. It made little difference.

"Thank you, but we're fine, really," she heard her father say, and she felt herself being carried away.