‘Come with me, Daisy. We were meant to be together.’

The inclination to throw everything away and the desire to be with him was almost overwhelming, but she knew in her heart that it could never be. No matter what the temptation, she could not betray the trust of the people who had loved and looked after her for most of her life. She was on the brink of entering a profession where she could do some good and she could not simply walk away from her old life.

‘No, not like this, Jay.’ She backed away, keeping him at a safe distance. ‘It would end in disaster for both of us.’

‘I love you, Daisy, and you feel something for me, I know you do.’

‘Of course I do, but …’

‘But not enough to take a chance with me.’

‘I don’t want to live like a criminal on the run from the law, Jay. I think you ought to stay and face up to the past. If you go now you’ll have allowed the squire to ruin your life as well as those of your mother and Lemuel.’

His eyes darkened. ‘What would you do if you were me?’

She met his bleak look with an attempt at a smile. ‘I’d do my best to prove that I was the heir to the Tattersall estate and fortune. Think what a difference the money would make to your family.’

‘You’re forgetting that I was born out of wedlock. I’m a bastard and there’s an end to it.’

‘Now you’re wallowing in self-pity,’ Daisy said angrily.

‘You have no notion of what my life has been like, Daisy. You have a loving family and you haven’t experienced the harsh reality of being poor.’

The surge of passion she had felt for him turned to ice in her veins. She wanted to shake some sense into him, but part of her longed to throw her arms around him and comfort him as if he were a small child. She knew she must not weaken. ‘Go then,’ she said angrily. ‘Run away to sea like a spoilt little boy. Break your mother’s heart and make your sisters and your brother unhappy. I don’t care what you do.’

She seized the horse’s bridle and led the sweating animal to the edge of the wood, where she used a fallen tree trunk as a mounting block. The desire to get away overcame her fear as a novice rider. She clicked her tongue and flicked the reins. ‘Walk on.’

Despite her anger she could not resist glancing over her shoulder and she saw Jay standing in the shallows, staring after her. She rode on, struggling with a feeling of failure and disappointment, but it was for Jay that she suffered and not herself. He was playing into the squire’s hands and committing himself to the life of an outlaw. Despite Lemuel’s treatment of him, Daisy could not believe that he really hated his stepson. Jay was the innocent victim in all this, and he seemed hell-bent on destroying himself. She sighed and guided the horse in the direction of Creek Hall. Billy could take care of the animal when he arrived back at the stables, and it was up to Squire Tattersall to have his horse collected. She had no intention of facing him again.