Evangeline was at once furious and profoundly grateful. She was not sure she could have shown the proper restraint, had the situation been entirely with-in her control. A decent and upright woman all her life, she had the feelings and thoughts of a harlot when it came to this one man, and it grieved her mightily that she could not act upon them.

She busied herself with garden plans—she’d found some unopened seed packets at the back of a pantry shelf—and trusted that they would grow, if planted. Saving the halves of eggshells, she filled those carefully with dirt and used them as tiny pots, to start turnips and corn and spinach. She had saved cuttings from potatoes throughout the winter, and they would be ready to set out as soon as the danger of frost was past.

Clearing the weeds and rocks from a patch of ground was hard, demanding work, but Evangeline figured she might have lost her sanity if she hadn’t had the task to occupy her time and thoughts. She hoed and cleared and planted for days, spurning Scully’s every offer of help. She wanted, needed, the job for herself, though she did allow Abigail to participate. Abigail, after all, would someday be running a house-hold of her own, and thus needed to know how to raise vegetables. Besides, it was comforting to have the child close by, the kitten, half-grown by then, always romping at her heels.

Abigail’s incessant chatter was indeed a blessing in those days, during which the earth grew warmer, degree by degree, and Evangeline’s heart, by contrast, grew wintry and brittle. For all her effort, of course, she was aware of Scully and his going away, on some level, every moment of the day and night, waking and sleeping, working and resting.

One day, around the middle of April, Scully suddenly announced that it was about time they went to Springwater. The date of the dance was coming up soon, but it wasn’t yet upon them. Still, Evangeline didn’t have to ask why he’d chosen that day. She knew. She did wonder how he knew that Big John was about to arrive, but she was just too stricken and too terrified to ask.

There was an old buckboard out in back of the barn, belonging to Big John, of course, like the house and half the vast tract of land surrounding them, just as she herself did, and Scully got the rig ready for the trip entirely too quickly. Before Evangeline knew what was happening, he’d hitched two of his now-docile mustang mares up to the wagon, done the chores, and herded both Evangeline and Abigail aboard. He’d tied the Appaloosa behind the rig, lest he need it, and intended to ride back later on to see to the stock, though he’d probably bring another horse.

The morning was briskly fresh and bright with sunshine, and Evangeline would have gloried in it if she hadn’t felt so much like a French aristocrat on her way to the guillotine. She was very aware of Abigail, snug in the bed of the wagon with their small bundle of clothing, the wooden horse and Hortense, and even more so of Scully, there on the hard seat beside her. Despite their efforts to avoid contact, the outsides of their thighs continued to touch, and that set an ache to grinding in Evangeline that was probably a danger to her immortal soul.