She stood staring down at him for a full minute, frozen with sick terror as she realized what she had done. But she hadn’t meant to kill him, she whimpered in her mind. She had just been trying to get him off her. Her stomach heaving, she fought against the nausea, the faintly metallic odour of blood mingled with stale sweat and alcohol making her giddy.

How had she come to be in this position? she asked herself frantically. Twenty months ago she’d been happy, content in her role of wife and mother and wanting nothing more out of life. She could go down the line for this and then what would become of Betsy? She had to do something, but what? What could she do?

Chapter Ten

It was morning. After shutting the door on her room the night before she had come downstairs and put the big black kettle on the range, heating enough water to fill the old tin bath whereupon she’d scrubbed herself raw, using the blue-veined soap to wash away every trace of the miller. Then she had made a pot of tea and when the tears came she hadn’t tried to stop them. Some while later when the shock and panic had diminished she’d been able to think more clearly. She had to make plans.

The mill was reasonably isolated but still had the occasional customer buying direct from Arthur, usually seconds from what he’d told her in the past. She never had any contact with these callers, and she hadn’t met Arthur’s assistant face to face, so she doubted if anyone could recognize her. Furthermore, she’d come to the house under her assumed name so even if Arthur had mentioned her it would be as Mary Shelton. How soon Arthur’s lad would be coming back to work she didn’t know, but one day in the near future he would turn up and she had to be long gone by then.

As a soft summer dawn stole across the sky she made some decisions, and by the time Betsy woke up at just after seven o’clock she knew exactly what she had to do.

She spent the day quietly with her daughter. Her neck was paining her so much she could barely look to left or right and she had multiple bruises on her arms and legs and a huge one on her cheekbone where the miller had hit her. It was the agony in her mind that was the worst thing though, and a minute-by-minute battle.