She was unaware her breath had caught high up in her chest, closing her throat, all reflexes on hold. Had he already been in the water as she had walked down? Had he seen her enter here? Or had he slipped from his bed as she unearthed her new treasure? Either way, they must have missed each other by mere moments, surely? She felt that tension again, the ratchet tightening deep inside her, at the thought of having met him in the moonlight. Was it fate that they were both out of their beds in the dead of night? Or was it fate keeping them apart? Her in here and him out there?

She watched as he walked from the sea, back onto the grainy beach where his towel lay. He twisted it into a thick rope and vigorously rubbed himself dry, his gaze towards the village as he dried his back, pulling the towel diagonally between his shoulder blades. Then he stepped into his trousers and walked up the beach onto the grass, out of sight from the window at which she sat.

She felt a surge of panic, a need to keep him in her sights until the moment the factor’s door closed behind again. In haste, she ran outside, clutching the book close to her chest, and went to stand behind the corner of the featherstore; but to her surprise, he hadn’t borne right and headed for the factor’s house. He had gone straight ahead and walked almost all the way up Old Fin’s plot at number 8. It was right next to theirs, where her father’s shirts had flapped in the wind this afternoon, where he had jumped the wall and sauntered over to her. Effie watched as he stared at the cottage. Her cottage.

He had the towel draped in a twisted loop behind his neck, a hand at each end, elbows down. What . . . what was he doing? What was he thinking? If her father was to stir and get up, if anyone was to see him, the young lord, standing staring at their cottage in the moonlight . . . She didn’t stir. What would happen if he was to discover her watching him, watching her? What would he do? And what would she?

Eventually he turned, walking briskly back through the Street, past all the cottages without even turning his head, lost in thought. She watched until he slipped back into his home here and the factor’s door closed behind him.

She fell back against the wall, biting her lip as she tried to understand what she had just seen, and his secret sojourn. Mindlessly, she clutched the book tighter to her chest, already forgotten. It was no longer the most precious thing she had been given.

Chapter Five