Beth Hanley was standing over her. ‘Matthew tried his tricks on you, then?’

Esther looked up. ‘He tried, but he got nowhere,’ she said tartly.

Beth seemed to reflect for a moment as if unable to decide whether or not she believed Esther’s claim. ‘Funny, he’s not one to give up.’

Esther looked up and then slowly rose to her feet to meet Beth’s gaze on a level. ‘You don’t mean you let him . . . ?’

Beth shrugged. ‘Why not? ’Tis natural.’

Esther’s lips curled, and she saw anger spark in Beth’s eyes.

‘Think you’re too good for the rest of us, do you, Esther? Matthew not good enough for you, eh?’

Esther shook her head. ‘That don’t come into it, Beth,’ she said quietly, but with candour. ‘I – I always vowed I’d be a virgin when I married – that’s all.’

For a moment a look of uncertainty crossed Beth’s face as if she were struggling with her conscience. Then her dark head came up defiantly. ‘Well, it’s a mite late for me now to have such high-minded principles. I’ll leave you to your lonely bed, Esther Everatt, and wish ya well on it.’ With that parting shot Beth tossed her long hair back and flounced away.

Esther, determined to have the last word, shouted after her, ‘You’re welcome to him.’

Beth disappeared out of the barn into the darkness to find Matthew.

Later that night, for the first time in her life, Esther lay awake with a strange feeling of restlessness. Matthew could be right, she thought sadly, maybe she’d never know what it was like to be really loved by someone kind and thoughtful. Perhaps no one decent would want to marry a girl with a name; ‘my sister’s bastard’ as Aunt Hannah had constantly reminded her.

All she had ever wanted, Esther told herself fiercely in the lonely darkness of the little attic room, was a place to belong. That was why she had left her aunt’s house and walked through the night. That was why she had forced herself upon the ailing Sam Brumby. He needed her youth and her strength. But Esther was honest enough to acknowledge that her need of Sam and his farm was even greater than the old man’s need of her.

She had no place in her scheme of things for rolling in the hay with the likes of Matthew Hilton!

With harvest time over, now came the preparation of the ground for next year’s crops. The work would continue as the weather allowed throughout the winter months, though Sam told Esther he liked to aim to get the ploughing done by December.

‘Ah dun’t always manage it,’ he told her ruefully, ‘and there’s the threshing to pull in an’ all.’

‘We’ll manage it, mester,’ Esther told him confidently. ‘Me an’ Matthew between us.’