‘If it were up to me, I’d shoot the thing. Along with a few other things that are worth nowt around here.’ Rosie picked up her washing basket and walked over to him. She walked with a swagger, hoping to catch Ethan’s eye even more.

‘Now, Rosie Atkinson, you are not aiming your words at me, are you? There’s me come back specially to be with you, and I could be looking down two barrels, for all you care.’ Ethan opened the gate and leaned against it next to her. ‘How are you? How are things . . . you know?’ He nodded to Rosie’s stomach and looked worriedly at her.

‘You needn’t worry. In fact you need not have come back. I lost the baby, if indeed there was one there at all – I’m still not sure. Nobody knows, I managed to keep it to myself. I lost it through the night and cleaned myself up before anyone suspected anything.’ Rosie stumbled over her words. She’d needed him that morning; she’d needed Ethan’s arms to be put around her and tell her it was alright and that he loved her, but he hadn’t been there. She’d been alone with her loss and hadn’t even known where he was.

‘Rosie, I’m so sorry, I didn’t know. Are you alright? Did you not go to see the doctor? You should have told your mother.’ Ethan put his arm around her as she trembled, both with the cold and with the trauma of remembering the terrible night when she had lost her unformed baby.

‘What, and have to tell everybody that you were the father and that you had left me? What would that have achieved? We’d both have been cast out by our families. Remember what your father did when we went to Appleby; he’d have been even worse, once he’d found out the baby was yours.’ Rosie buried her head in Ethan’s shoulder and cried. His tweed jacket and strong arms comforted her as he held her close. She could smell the mountain air on his clothes and realized just how much she had missed him, and how much she loved her wild rambler.

‘I’ve only been living in the shooting hut below Moughton Scar. I had to have time to myself to think things through. To see what I thought about the future for both of us – for all of us.’ Ethan put a finger under Rosie’s chin and lifted her face up for her to look at him. ‘I didn’t leave you, Rosie, I just needed time to think. I do love you.’

‘But you left and didn’t say anything, so what was I to think?’ Rosie wiped her eyes clear of tears.