“Oh, wear it!” Alinor said. “But you’ll put your cape on when you’re going home in the wagon to Stoney Farm.”

“I will! I will!”

Rob came down the stair from the loft, wearing his new work jacket and the Christmas shoes.

“And how fine d’you look, lad?” Ned asked, slapping him on the back. “This is a proud day for the Ferrymans.”

The children did not mention their father’s name, and Alinor, tightening her cape around her broadening waist, thought that if she had not needed a name for her baby she might never have heard the words Zachary Reekie again.

“All right, Ma?” Rob asked gently.

She smiled at him. “I’m fine.”

“She’s missing Alys before we’re rid of her,” Ned advised, but Rob’s brown eyes were fixed on his mother’s pale face.

“Are you really all right?”

Alinor held her breath. From childhood, Rob had been able to see beyond the surface of things, to illness and sorrow. She wondered if he could see her heartbreak, she wondered if he could sense her baby, his half brother.

She shook her head and smiled. “It’s as your uncle says,” she lied. “I’m seeing you and Alys out the house, both of you, in the same week and I feel like a broody hen with all her eggs stolen.”

“I’ll be working at the mill with you tomorrow,” Alys pointed out. “You’ll see me at first light. And Rob’ll be home at Lady Day.”

“I know, I know,” Alinor said. “And I couldn’t be happier for both of you. Come along now, Rob, and eat some breakfast. Alys, have you had anything?”

“I can’t,” she said at once. “I’ve no appetite.”

“Don’t you go fainting away at the altar for hunger,” Ned warned her.

“Take some small ale and a little bread,” Alinor urged her. “And I have eggs as well.”

Alys sat at the table as she was ordered, her uncle on one hand and her brother on another, and smiled up at her mother. “My last breakfast here,” she said. “My last breakfast as Alys Reekie.”

“Stop it,” Ned advised swiftly. “Or you’ll set your mother off again.”

Mr. Stoney, his wife, and son in their wagon rang the chime for the ferry just as the family was finishing breakfast, and Ned went out to bring them across the high water. Once they were on the island side Alinor rolled out the barrels of wedding ale for them, and the two men loaded them into the wagon. Alinor had two big wheels of cheese and two loaves of bread baked in the big oven at the mill.

“And are you ready?” Mr. Stoney asked Alys. “All your little things packed up?”

“I’m ready, I’m ready!” she said breathlessly.

Richard jumped down from the back of the wagon, his face pink with cold and shyness. He took her hands and kissed each one, and then he kissed her on the lips.