Emily watched as her sister took a seat at the long table and waited for Clifton Bradshaw, who had excused himself to wash his face and to dress properly. Emily had never been prouder or more in awe of the woman who was little baby Anne no longer. Though she had known her all her life, and was familiar with Anne’s steadfast determination and her iron will, she would never have guessed at the fire within if she had not just witnessed it with her own eyes. Here was a woman who would never let a tyrant or a bully win, a woman who would always stand up for those weaker than she, and today that person had been Emily.

Of course Emily was almost certain that if she had been the first in the path of Clifton Bradshaw’s fury, she would have knocked him out flat with one of the big hearth stones. However, she had not been, and it was probably all to the good, since Anne’s approach was just as impressive and slightly less likely to end in some kind of prosecution.

Anne had shown that, of the two of them, she was the one to talk to Clifton Bradshaw, and Emily was glad—content, even—to let her do so. Instead she stepped away from the table and joined Bess at the fire, taking a seat on a stool as Bess stirred and stirred away at something that had been cooking so long there must have been nothing recognisable left in the pot, while Molly, slight and silent, busied herself making a new batch of bread.

“They say the mistress is grievous poorly,” Bess muttered to herself. “Won’t see out the summer, they say. And I say it’s a real shame, for it ain’t the typhoid that killed her but him, and he knows it. He knows what he’s done. For the Lord shall smite down the evil, Zerubabbel, son of Salathiel, stranger of Babylon, builder of temples, he who witnessed the night of my lady’s passing. We’ll all have tea.”

“Be calm now, Bess,” Molly said in a light singsong voice. “All is well with the world.”

“Nothing’s right with the mistress ailing, as you should know,” Bess said sourly.

Emily leaned a little closer to Bess. It was clear that within her mind the old lady was far away, stirring her pot on another long-ago afternoon. To whom she thought she was talking could only be guessed at, but still Emily listened lest some nugget of truth be hidden in all that babble.

“My, but it’s hot, ain’t it?” Bess said. “If this drought don’t break soon, the crops will be lost and folk’ll starve. And that’ll be him, bringing blight on us all with his curse.”

“Don’t fret, Bess,” Molly said. “Look out of the window. Winter is here, and soon it will be Christmas.”