“Mmm.” He yawned gigantically. “For ale. But then we’d have to find a market for the harvest. It would be a good cash crop, but would the farmers have enough of their own to keep them through the winter?” She traced a circle on his breastbone, her touch almost tickling. He was waking up now as he thought about the problem. “It’s hard to introduce a new crop to the farmers. They’re set in their ways, don’t like innovations.”

“How would you convince them, then?”

He was silent a minute, considering, but she didn’t interrupt. He had never told anyone of this idea. “Sometimes I think that a grammar school in West Dikey would be a good idea.”

“Really?”

“Mmm. If the farmers or their children could read, were educated even a little, innovation might be easier. And then each generation would be more learned, and they in turn would be more open to new thoughts and ways of doing things. It would be an improvement measured in decades, not years, and it would affect not only the landowner’s income, but also the lives of the farmers themselves.” Harry was wide awake now, but his lady was silent. Perhaps she thought educating farmers a foolish idea.

Then she spoke. “We’d have to find a teacher. A gentleman who was patient with children.”

Her we warmed him. “Yes. Someone who likes the country and understands the seasons.”

“The seasons?” The hand on his chest had stilled.

He covered it with his own and rubbed the back of her hand with his thumb as he talked. “Spring, cold and wet, when the farmers must get the seed into the ground, but not too soon or it’ll frost, and the ewes are all lambing at once, or so it seems. Summer, long and hot, tending the sheep under the wide, blue skies and watching the grain grow. Fall, hoping for the sun to shine so the harvest will be good. If the sun shines, the people celebrate and there are festivals; if it doesn’t, they go about with thin, fearful faces. And winter, long and dreary, the farmers and their families sitting by a little fire in the cottages, telling tales and waiting for spring.” He stopped and squeezed her shoulder self-consciously. “The seasons.”

“You know so much,” she whispered.

“Only what goes on in this part of Yorkshire. I’m sure you could find many who would think that little enough.”

She shook her head, her springy hair brushing against his shoulder. “But you’re aware. You know how the people around you think. What they’re feeling. I don’t.”

“What do you mean?” He tried to see her face, but her head was tilted down against his chest.