He made a show of looking up and down the street. The broad leaves of oak and sycamore spread overhead, a green canopy. Harriet had noticed nature regaining her hold on the banks of the Loxley, grasses and wildflowers laying a carpet over the scarred ground.

Silas moved closer. ‘This secret. I need to whisper it.’

‘Oh Silas,’ she said, laughing, ‘what are you up to?’ But when his lip brushed her earlobe, a butterfly’s touch, it sent shock waves through her body. She let out an involuntary gasp.

He hissed in her ear, ‘Pss pss pss,’ and stepped back, laughing.

Harriet pulled a face. ‘You’re such a child.’

Silas reached up to snap off a twig.

‘An olive branch,’ he said, passing it to her.

‘That’s not a branch and that’s not an olive tree.’ But she could not keep the smile from her face.

‘Why do you have that stick?’

The question caught her off guard, but she decided to answer in the same blunt fashion.

‘I have a clubfoot.’

‘Oh aye, I remember it. I saw it on the night of the flood, when tha were in thee nightie.’ He laughed and grabbed for her hand, but Harriet snatched it away.

‘Silas! Somebody might see.’

‘What care I?’ He skipped ahead so that he was facing her, walking backwards. He tossed his cap in the air and caught it deftly. ‘Does it pain thee much, tha foot?’

‘It’s tolerable.’ She smiled. ‘Turn around, Silas, or you shall fall over.’

He fell into step beside her and they walked on in silence for a few seconds, smiling at passers-by, in and out of the dappled light between the trees.

Silas crooked his elbow and she took his arm. He patted her hand. ‘This is how we perambulate, my dear, arm in arm. Are you quite warm enough, my dear?’

‘My, you are quite the young gentleman.’

He dropped the act as quickly as he’d adopted it. ‘I love to walk beside thee, Harriet. Even if tha does hobble a bit.’

‘The cheek!’ Harriet laughed. ‘Do you ride, Silas? When I’m on a horse I can forget about my foot.’

‘I’ve never learned, never had need to.’

‘I’ll teach you.’

This reminded her that she had promised Alice a ride on a pony, and now she was thinking about Walter, about how he had taken to sleeping in Alice’s room so his coughing would not disturb Polly. How that cough was worsening to the point where he was becoming bed-bound, and how she had overheard the doctor telling Walter that his lungs were filling up with poison.

As spring gave way to summer, Harriet explored the town with Silas, happy to act as guide to such an enthusiastic companion. She knew she ought to examine her own feelings about Silas, but his company was so enjoyable it was possible to forget the half a decade difference in age, the disparity in status, and to simply bask in the time she spent with him. She recognised it as an escape from the growing oppressiveness of her home life. She was skimming the surface of things, gadding about like a mayfly.