‘Let ’em!’ Esther faced him squarely, her chin jutting forward. ‘It isn’t anyone else’s business. I’m not liked around here, except mebbe by the Harrises.’ She shrugged her shoulders. ‘So what’s it matter?’

‘It matters to me.’

‘Well, it shouldn’t. Besides,’ she added and was unable to stop the note of sarcasm creeping into her voice, ‘there’s nothing to know really, is there? For all your fine words, ya don’t show me ya love me!’

She turned away from him and with an abrupt ‘walk on’ to the horses, she moved away down the field leaving him staring after her. When she turned at the far end of the field, he had disappeared.

‘Will you stop that silly crying, Kate,’ Esther shouted.

The child’s weeping was quelled but she continued to hiccup uncontrollably. ‘Stop that noise, or I’ll give ya something to cry about.’

‘I (hic) can’t. Danny Eland pulled my hair ribbon off and wouldn’t give it back.’

Esther stiffened. Danny Eland! Her impatience at her daughter died. She was being so unfair to take her own irritability out on her child.

Where was Jonathan? Why had he gone off like that the previous afternoon and not come back? All the morning they had been together mucking out the stables and polishing the harness and then leading the horses out to the field.

‘You’ll have to show me what you want me to do to help with the sowing,’ he had grinned, and then she had made that stupid remark and off he’d gone. Why did she always have to open her mouth and let it say what it liked? she groaned inwardly.

All the evening she had watched for him. She had moved restlessly about the yard, going out to the field to do the milking instead of bringing the cows into the shed so that she could watch the lane. Any minute she expected to see his tall, slightly stooping frame appearing at her gate.

As darkness had fallen she had hustled Kate to bed and then she had stood most of the evening by the scullery window near the back door overlooking the yard and the lane.

He did not come.

Didn’t he love her any more? Had she driven him away so easily by her bluntness? Was he disgusted because she had hinted she wanted more from him – that she wanted him physically? She had not realized just how naïve and inexperienced in matters of love she was, even though she was a married woman and a mother. She didn’t know what was expected of her, how a man like Jonathan expected her to behave.

And there was no one she could ask. There was no one she could confide in. Not even Ma Harris and certainly not Will Benson – not this time.