Gabriel brought his face in close. ‘If she was not lying under me in the woods, I was not done.’

A brutal image had entered Daniel’s mind and would not be gone, no matter how he pressed his eyelids together and concentrated on the drip of water through leaves.

‘Were she not such a innocent and you not such a whelp, I’d be thinking it was she you were tupping through the night.’

Daniel had forced out an unconvincing laugh. Breathed in the scent of air washed clean. ‘Enough trouble to manage one girl, and the talk of sweethearts and what’s to come, eh?’ He slapped Gabriel on the arm. ‘Couldn’t begin to take on another. Eh?’

The frown had lifted slowly from Gabriel’s features.

‘And, as you say,’ he ploughed on, rain seeping through his tunic, ‘she is not the kind to go lying in the woods with no promise made, I think.’

‘Not with the likes of you, anyhow,’ Gabriel said, shrugging. ‘Still, you took her from me. So if you’re wanting to know who I lay with last night, it was your little blacksmith girl. Split her like a gutted fish, and she was begging me not to stop.’

Daniel had stared, sickened.

He shook his head now, freeing himself of the memory. Calmly, carefully he took out a petticoat and apron from the trunk until he found the wedding gloves. Faded and smelling of dust and mildew, crisp and brittle so that he feared they might crumble in his fingers, he lifted them and worked on the knot in the ribbon. Wondered at the woman who had worn them, who had never held him as a babe or washed the dirt from his knees.

At last he freed the ring. A simple gold band. Tiny, so that he could barely make out the words engraved on the inside: Love me and leave me not. He brought to mind Sarah’s small hands, her narrow, chapped fingers; he was sure it would fit.

Trinket

I am breathless when I reach the house, having marched up the hill as fast as I can, preparing what to say to Mam. How she’ll respond I cannot guess – with kindness or anger, depending on her mood. I’ve no choice but to face either.

Bitter scent of henbane lingers as I step in. Seth has been, once again in need of Mam’s offerings. I pick my time well; he is gone when I arrive, Annie in the woods and John away, though when I ask where, Mam just shrugs and replies that he’s busy. I have not time for the flare of fear this would usually spark in me.

Her gaze alights on the ring glinting on my finger as soon as I step in, and she grabs my hand, examines it.

‘What’s this trinket?’ she asks.