Daniel remembered Gabriel arriving at the farm as a boy, asking for work of any kind, and they had grown together almost as brothers, albeit disjoined ones. Father had brought him in one summer to help with the hay mowing and been impressed with his strength and determination to earn a living to take home. Claiming this boy of twelve could carry out the work of two grown men and so save him wages, Father took him on permanently. Daniel knew he only made the decision after learning of the family’s plight, though.

Gabriel shrugged. ‘No one else to do it.’

Father nodded. In silence, they made their way to church.

Father still revelled in the words of the King’s Bible, marvelling at their beauty and clarity, but it was all Daniel had known, and was this day delivered in an especially flat tone by the parson. Impossible to concentrate. He had glimpsed Phyllis Ross as he entered, hanging her head as the crowd nudged and whispered. Only Bett and Nathaniel stopped to speak with her. Sam Finch limped in, aided by his wife, suffering with the injuries Sarah’s brother had inflicted on him but days before. And Molly, sitting with her parents across the aisle.

His mind churned, and not with the pure thoughts appropriate for church. The musty scent of damp and candle wax, the light splintered into rainbows by the window, served to shame but not calm him. Daniel could distract himself with thoughts of Molly’s soft-bread skin pressing into his, for sure. But every time he did, that sense of Sarah’s presence returned, and with it the feeling that there was something in him only she recognised.

She was a girl like no other, whose hair danced untamed while all others’ lay demurely hidden under a coif or cloth, whose eyes raged bright. One he knew he should not crave. A girl who loved her sister with the ferocity of a vixen over cubs. Who saw in him a man, with the skill to tame wildness from any creature and the courage to mark out his own path.

It was an easy life offered by Molly, if only that would satisfy. But he must have the storm. A path not just difficult. Impossible. He might as well tell Father he wished to court the mare. But he must have the eyes that truly saw him.

Resolve landed in Daniel, complete and entirely fixed, a recklessness that would once have left him afraid but today gave strength. The sermon, hymns and prayers a meaningless hum, no longer for him. He would halt this course of events. He must speak with Molly now.

Freed, the crowds spilled out across the churchyard like mice shaken from a sack. Just as Daniel spied her, Parson Walsh called them back.

‘There is an announcement to be made, on a subject I would not sully God’s house by mentioning in church.’