‘My intentions? What? If they’re honourable or not?’ Gordon sniggers as he drags his thumb against the lighter’s wheel. Its flame burnishes his curved palm as he brings it to his cigarette. As the tip burns, he pushes back the flap of his side pocket and drops the lighter inside. He takes the cigarette from his mouth. ‘And what are you going to do if they’re not?’ he asks, his eyes narrowing at his smoke-laced words. ‘Challenge me to a duel for the lady’s honour? Pistols at dawn?’

‘I’m more of a fists man myself.’

For a moment Gordon has the good grace to look startled. Then he laughs, but his humour is short-lived. He takes a deliberate step in Jack’s direction. ‘Why don’t you mind your own bloody business?’

‘Speak to her father.’

‘I’m seeing Gwen, not her father,’ Gordon hisses. He turns on his heel and stalks back into the hall. He does not acknowledge Jack’s parting words.

‘A gentleman with good intentions does both.’

Chapter Eighteen

Gwen

May 1945

It takes all day for Gwen and Nora to sow Top Field. They complete the task just as the herd’s impatient bellows begin to drift across the valley. By the time they have finished milking, rolled the churns down to the stand and sluiced the parlour, Gwen is exhausted. She is relieved when Nora offers to take the cows back to the field.

She uses the lip of the back step to prise off her boots, knocking them against the outside wall to dislodge the worst of the muck, contemplating as she does so the work that needs to be done the following day.

As she pushes open the kitchen door, a flash of blue-grey catches her eye and she pauses to watch a nuthatch fly from the apple tree to the silver birch. Suddenly she finds herself thinking of the wooden bird, so carefully carved and painstakingly painted, that sits upon the mantelpiece in her room. It has become lost amongst the detritus that has gathered on the shelf over the years and reminded of it now she resolves to tidy away the items that detract from its beauty. It is a gift she has overlooked for too long.

She calls a greeting to Muriel, who is standing at the table mashing potatoes. Hearing her voice, Tom charges in from the sitting room and barrels into her legs, flinging his arms around them, pressing his cheek against her thigh. She laughs, rubbing his back. She has made him stay in with Muriel today, but in truth she has missed his company.

She is washing her hands at the sink when Nora comes in, Ted following behind. He sweeps off his flat cap and makes his greetings. Gwen feels his eyes settle upon her a little longer than the rest, but for some reason she is reluctant to meet them so she busies herself lathering her hands. With all the day’s labours, her impromptu invitation of the night before had completely slipped her mind, and now, as she rinses the suds from her fingers, she experiences a niggling regret that it was made at all.