Matthias asked himself that same question over and over again. He had hoped Adam would marry his constant companion, Jenna Tregurtha, but Adam wanted only food and bed without responsibility. Matthias longed to have someone else to come home to apart from his foul-mouthed father. But if he couldn’t overcome whatever it was that was blocking his courtship of Rosie, that would never happen, and if he didn’t do something about it soon he would probably lose her to another man anyway. There were plenty of young eligible men showing an interest in her and Matthias couldn’t bank on Clem’s attitude to ward them off indefinitely.

He rose from the desk and looked out of the window. His mood was black and he virtually hated the sight of every flower and shrub, every line of shells laid along the edge of the twisting narrow garden paths, and every post of the white-painted fencing that enclosed the flowerbeds that Jenna Tregurtha painstakingly tended in an attempt to lay a claim to belonging here.

Matthias was in pain. A deep, hollow, debilitating pain. He could have cried with sheer longing and frustration. Suddenly, he could bear it not a moment longer. He felt he would rather die than not know before the morning was over whether Rosie Trenchard would have him or not.

Matthias was distressed to find all the family out in the farmyard. Clem and Morley were making repairs to the barn roof. Kenver was in his wheeled chair chipping away at a piece of driftwood. Alice was sitting beside Kenver teaching Jessica how to spin. Philip was passing nails up for the barn while David played with Charity. They were all there except Rosie.

‘Hey!’ Clem called down to Matthias from his precarious perch after taking nails out of his mouth. ‘Anything up? Don’t usually see you this early in the day.’

Matthias blushed blood-red. ‘I… um… I think I left my Bible here last time… I… I need it for the class tonight.’

‘Your Bible, eh?’ Morley snorted on the ladder. ‘No one’s left a Bible here, have they, Alice?’

Alice hurried across the yard to Matthias’s rescue. ‘You’re welcome here anytime, Matthias, you know that. You can stay for the midday meal with us, I hope?’

‘Thank you, Alice,’ Matthias said, fussing with his hair, hoping he looked presentable after riding off in such an undignified rush.

‘She’s in the dairy,’ piped up Philip.

‘Who is, Philip?’ Matthias asked, then immediately regretted the question. He had left himself wide open to the awful humour a man is subjected to when he shows any sort of interest in the fairer sex.

‘Aunty Rosie, of course,’ Philip replied, huffing with deliberate impatience and giving his twin a pointed ‘come-and-join-in’ glance. ‘Can’t be anyone else, can it?’

‘Don’t be so rude, Philip,’ Alice ordered, giving her son’s head a light-handed swipe.