Chapters (9)
‘Oh, I’m sorry, Rob.’
‘Sorry? Why are you sorry?’
‘Well, aren’t you . . .? I mean, weren’t you and her going out together?’
There was a moment’s silence, then he threw back his head and let out a guffaw of laughter into the still night air. ‘Me and Janice? You’ve gotta be joking.’
‘But – but you used to take her out on your bike . . .’
His arm round her shoulders tightened and his voice was husky as, close against her ear, he said, ‘Only ’cos I couldn’t take you, Ella Hilton. Didn’t you know that?’
‘No – no, I didn’t.’ Inside her chest her heart felt as if it were turning somersaults.
Rob cleared his throat and somehow his voice didn’t sound quite steady now as he asked, ‘Could you use a little help with the ploughing tomorrow, then?’
‘Yes,’ she said simply. ‘I’d like that very much.’
‘Right, I’ll be here first thing,’ he said, but he made no move to let her go.
Tomorrow, she thought as she slipped her arm around his waist and rested her head against his shoulder, together, they would plough the first furrow of the rest of their lives.
Reap the Harvest
Born in Gainsborough, Lincolnshire, Margaret Dickinson moved to the coast at the age of seven and so began her love for the sea and the Lincolnshire landscape.
Her ambition to be a writer began early and she had her first novel published at the age of twenty-five. This was followed by twenty-three further titles including Plough the Furrow, Sow the Seed and Reap the Harvest, which make up her Lincolnshire Fleethaven trilogy. Many of her novels are set in the heart of her home county, but in Tangled Threads and Twisted Strands the stories included not only Lincolnshire but also the framework knitting and lace industries of Nottingham. The Workhouse Museum at Southwell in Nottinghamshire inspired Without Sin, and the beautiful countryside of Derbyshire and the fascinating town of Macclesfield in Cheshire formed the backdrop for the story of Pauper’s Gold. In Suffragette Girl, the story took the central character to London and even to France and Belgium in the First World War, and Sons and Daughters is, once again, firmly based in Lincolnshire on the fertile marshland near the east coast.
ALSO BY MARGARET DICKINSON
Plough the Furrow
Sow the Seed
The Miller’s Daughter
Chaff upon the Wind
The Fisher Lass
The Tulip Girl
The River Folk
Tangled Threads
Twisted Strands
Red Sky in the Morning
Without Sin
Without Sin
Pauper’s Gold
Wish Me Luck
Sing as We Go
Suffragette Girl
Sons and Daughters
This book is a work of fiction and is entirely a product of the author’s imagination. Although specific settings have been used in the interests of authenticity for a regional saga, and duly acknowledged, all the characters are entirely fictitious and any similarity to real persons is purely coincidental.