“This is not about me, Fran.” Teressa bemoaned, “It’s about keeping you safe.”

“England is whom I am besotted with. I care not of it,” Francesca brandished a hand violently. “I care not if you think I won’t make it there without harm! You believe that I shall be assailed, I understand, but you must let me go.”

Teressa said naught for a beat before a bitter chuckle escaped her. She wove a hand through her virgin ashen grey tresses, a defeated scowl befalling her brows. “You are folly, I say. Folly just as your own father.”

That quite done it.

Fran bit down upon the border of the chair with both hands, the wood whining beneath her fingers. “My father was a good man.” She drawled.

“He is lost!” Teressa bellowed roughly, lips quivering, “Voyaging the High Seas in search of artefacts obscured by man! Pray, do you want the same fate as him?”

Ire clawed through Fran’s bones. She gritted her teeth, attempting to mute the insidious tempest devouring her. “I am not my father,” She growled, “And you have not the right to condemn and confine me within a land I wish to depart.”

“Do be careful out there, then,” Teressa mumbled, her countenance dissolving with woe. “I shall pray for you.”