She rolls her eyes. “Take Meadowsweet. Germaine can bring her back for me later.”
John comes up behind us. “I’ll take you home on Universe, Beatie.”
“I’d truly rather walk,” I reply, but he has already gone round the side of the house to catch his horse in the meadow. Verity reaches down my cloak from a peg, and Mother Bain comes out of the kitchen to say goodbye.
“Goodbye, Mistress Bain.” I bend to kiss her cheek.
“Goodbye. God bless you, lass. Take care of yourself. I feel there is some darkness hanging over you.” Mother Bain tends to make these apocalyptic remarks in such a practical tone of voice that they take a moment to sink in. She has a reputation as a seer, and has issued accurate warnings before.
“What is it, Mistress Bain?” I rub my arms to take the gooseflesh away.
She frowns. Her thin hand trembles on my wrist. Then she shakes her head. “Nay. Nought. I know not.” She passes her hand back and forth across her eyes, and returns to the kitchen.
Verity drapes my cloak round my shoulders. “You know, Beatie, I think there’s a lot you don’t tell me. You know all my secrets now. Tell me some of yours. We’ve lost touch since I left Barrowbeck.”
For a moment I consider it. It would be such a relief to talk about Robert, but there would be no point. It would be an extra burden on Verity, having to keep the terrible secret that her sister sheltered the enemy. Just now she is quite burdened enough, and likely to be more so. I shrug. “I have no secrets,” I lie. “Except that before, I did not wish to become betrothed to Hugh, and now I do. It is the sensible thing. It isn’t as if I loved anyone else – not in the way that you love James. We’ll keep the farm in the family, and I’ll see more of you again once you’re married to James and living just down the valley.” I kiss her cheek. “Now that Cousin Gerald cannot marry you, he can marry whomsoever he likes, and everything will work out just as it should.”
Verity gives me a cynical look. “How tidy, dear sister. Why do I feel that life is not like that? Anyway, what about…”
She falls meaningfully silent as John reappears at the front door, leading Universe saddled and ready. “Shall we go?” he asks. “Do you mind riding astride? The sidesaddle won’t fit us both.”
I hesitate, transfixed at the thought of riding all the way to Barrowbeck in such close proximity to John Becker. He adds, “We could go the long, easy way, or quickly by the Old Corpse Road.”
“Oh… quickly by the Old Corpse Road. I have to get back for the milking.”
I climb up, using the stone water trough as a mounting block before he can lift me, as he had seemed about to. I am becoming more accustomed to the wobbly experience of riding astride, these past weeks, after a lifetime of riding comfortably seated in my sidesaddle. A life of treason does bring some startling new experiences. John swings up behind me. His left hand grips the reins and his right hand grips my waist. He walks the horse forward and I wave to Verity, who pulls a mad, swooning face at me behind John’s back.
On the outskirts of Wraithwaite the woman I saw earlier is pulling her washing off the line and dumping it in a big wicker basket. I call to her, “You were right about the rain, mistress.”
She stares at us with her hands full of washing. “Aye, Mistress Garth. Indeed I was.” She gives John and me a slow, interested look, then glances skywards. “Mebbe you could put in a word for me up there to get it stopped, eh mistress, if you’ve got the influence?”
I laugh. John halts his horse and asks her, “Do you want to go and hang all that in the parsonage barn, Mistress Thorpe?”
She scrapes her sodden cap off her forehead and answers, “Aye parson, I’d appreciate it. I’ll send Alice over. I thank you.” Alice, her maidservant, a ten-year-old orphan from a neighbouring village, comes out of the house with another empty washing basket. I notice she has two black eyes.
John says, “Good morrow, Alice,” and regards her for a moment, then adds, “I’ll call in on my way back, Mistress Thorpe, and have a word with you.”
I can feel the two of them watching us go. I glance over my shoulder at John as Universe quickens into a trot. “You do realise it’s going to be all over the district by evening, John, that the parson has been out riding with Beatrice Garth at daybreak in the pouring rain.”
He laughs, and rests his chin on the top of my head. “Well then, I daresay we shall both be ruined.”
There are more strangers about now, on the plateau and in the woods, armed men who would have marched on Scotland with my father, emerging from amongst the trees, where they have spent the night.
“They’ll all be at the tower later,” I tell John, “for a paying-off from Father before they go home.” We haven’t talked much during the journey. The full realisation of Verity’s news has been coming over me, and I am deeply apprehensive about my father’s reaction.
When we reach the rim of the rockface we both dismount. John says, “You go first. I’ll follow right behind with Universe. He dislikes this path. He’s a big baby about it. He may need a little coaxing.”
“Truly John, I can go on from here by myself. I don’t need you to come any further.”
He taps his whip against his thigh. “Not with all these moss-troopers about, heavens no. They may be harmless, but we don’t know them.”
I set off down the rough steps, holding up my skirts with one hand and supporting myself against the damp stone with the other. I turn to watch John pulling on the reins, and Universe’s big head stretching out reluctantly. John talks to his horse softly, asking in seductive tones why the animal is making such a fuss, and I feel like making a fuss myself, just to be spoken to in such a way. Universe’s round flanks graze the rock sides; he flicks his tail and snorts. Stones clatter down, hitting me. Finally, we all reach the bottom.
John pats his horse’s neck, and waits for the animal to calm down. He looks at me and says, “Well, Beatrice.” My heart jolts. I pull my hood further forward over my head, even though the rain is easing. John pushes his whip down his boot and scratches his leg. He asks, “Did you love him… your Scot?”
I shiver as a gust of wind is funnelled down through the rift in the rock. I don’t feel capable of talking about Robert out here in the woods, where his ghost shrieks at me from every tree.
“I cared about him,” I answer stiffly. “Care about him… But love? I think that is another matter. What are you asking me exactly? Whether Robert and I were lovers?”
“Robert? Ah, I never knew his name.”
“There’s no reason why you should have.”
“No, I wasn’t asking whether you were lovers. I couldn’t care less if you’d had every man in the valley.”
I give a snort of laughter, but he is being serious, and instantly I feel childish. I ask him, “How old are you, John?”
“Twenty-five.”
“I’m sixteen.”
“I know, but older than your years, I think. Look, we don’t have to talk about this now. I was going to wait for you to get over the Scot, but since you half-drowned, I’m so afraid of losing you…”
I interrupt him. “John, I shall always be grateful to you for saving me…”
“Don’t! I don’t want to hear that. I don’t want to trade on having fished you out of the ocean. There was something between us before that, wasn’t there?”
I