Page 35

“Bloody machine!” She bent to look at the spot where the wheel used to be.

The axle had completely shorn through leaving nowhere for her to reattach to the wheel.

She’d need to find some way to fix it, or they’d be seriously delayed.

The familiar whirl of nerves began in her stomach; she hated making mistakes, hated the way shame crept in at the corners, insinuating itself until it was the only voice she heard.

She made herself think about the night with Samson, made herself remember Silas’s face in the lantern light, his steady encouragement, Mrs. Darling’s words—forgiving, kind—which she remembered so often, Hannah and Bess’s helpful hands.

Even Mr. Bone, present and neighbourly. She didn’t need to do this alone.

Wasn’t in fact, alone. Had only ask for help, and it would be given.

Nodding her head, as if in agreement, she unhitched both horses, leaving the seed drill listing in the middle of the field, and headed for the farm, Samson and Delilah in tow.

Hannah appeared from the barn doorway when she clattered into the yard and agreed that mostly likely the axle had worn through, the metal exhausted to the point of collapse.

“S’no good for today, I’m afraid. We’ll need the blacksmith to weld a new piece or replace the axle all together. Either way, we’ve lost today,” she said.

“Damn,” Ophelia said and tried not to worry that she hadn’t cared for the machinery as well as she should have.

“Don’t go blaming yourself, Ophelia. ’Tis not something that’s happened in the time since you were here, likely it’s been working against itself for a few seasons now.”

“I just wish I’d ... I should have noticed earlier, and then we’d not be caught out like this.”

“I’ve not been farming much longer than you have,” said Hannah, coming over to sling an arm around Ophelia’s shoulders, “but I’ve come to see there’s no end of things to go wrong, and only so many hours in every day.

Don’t be hard on yourself. We’ll get it to town and hope to have it back in a day or two. Let’s go tell Mrs. Darling.”

They found the farmer in the kitchen garden tying up the floppy pea shoots.

She stood, dirt-caked hands on hips, and listened as Ophelia described the wheel-less seed drill.

Her mouth thinned, and Ophelia’s heart kicked wildly in her chest. Having to give Mrs. Darling bad news that affected the future of the farm reminded Ophelia of the stakes of her work here, made her think of having to tell her father something that would displease him, and her stomach clenched with nerves.

“Well, that’s a bloody shame, isn’t it?” Mrs. Darling said after a long pause.

Ophelia opened her mouth to begin apologising and offering to make it right however she could.

“Ah, my girl, don’t get to babbling about your mistake, eh?

’Twas nothing you could have done differently that would have made that wheel stay on a minute longer.

” She swept the straw hat from her head and swiped the back of her hand across her forehead.

“Farming’s a son of a bitch, if you’ll pardon my language.

Everything would just as soon go wrong as right, and there’s not a thing you can do about it.

Remember what I said to ye the other night, eh? ”

Hannah squeezed Ophelia to her side, and Ophelia felt herself sag into her friend, relief flooding her body. She smiled weakly at Mrs. Darling, grateful for the woman’s sanguine approach to things.

“There now, you look as ruffled as a wet hen ... there’s no need to tie yourself in knots.

Get the wheel to Stevens at the smithy and see what he says.

We’ll get the wheat in the ground one way or another.

” She paused in the act of putting her hat back on her head.

“P’raps we might all attend the May Day celebrations the day after next, as we’ll be waiting on the drill anyways. What do you say, girls?”

Hannah whooped. “Let’s tell Bess!”

Ophelia let herself be pulled away to find Bess over in the Bone dairy.

She turned back to smile at Mrs. Darling who waved her off with a fond smile before turning back to her legumes.

The rest of the day was spent in a whirlwind of activity getting every other chore completed so that the holiday might be spent entirely in leisure.

Ophelia helped Mrs. Darling weed and tidy up in the kitchen garden, currycombed the horses, picked their stalls, and prepared their grain for the next morning.

Hannah, finished with her forage duties, hung out the washing on the line and set the bread to rise for the evening meal; Bess headed back over to Mr. Bone’s to finish the dairying tasks for the day.

Silas, on his way to the village to see about having the wheel repaired, had called to Ophelia in the garden to see if she might ride in the wagon with him.

“Happened to overhear some of your conversation with your friends today,” he said with a grin once they had left the farm and were some ways down the road.

Ophelia felt herself colour and she batted his arm. “Silas Larke! Were you eavesdropping on me?”

“No, ma’am.” He shook his head. “Just took an opportunity to listen to what women say when they’re amongst themselves.”

Ophelia waited for him to continue. Delilah’s rump moved steadily between the traces of the cart, the long swish of her tail scattering flies.

“Do you agree with Hannah? That marriage is only a trap for women? I wasn’t sure if that’s what you were trying to say at the creek, but hearing you all discussing it, I suppose I understand why you feel that way.”

“I suppose I do ... only it’s not only about marriage.

I know there are plenty of women who are part of the cause and are married.

” She sucked in a breath, trying to speak through her nerves.

“I am afraid of losing myself, of being lost in someone else when I’ve only just started to find out who I am. ”

“Perhaps it needn’t be complicated, Fee?”

“For you, perhaps,” she said. “For me, it feels like potentially giving up everything I’ve accomplished since leaving the estate.

Being tied to a man’s decisions just as my mother was, just as Mrs. Darling was.

I am free for the first time in my life, Silas.

Free to earn money, to use my time as I choose, to work with my hands and body.

I don’t want to lose that ... I’m ...

I’m afraid of losing it.” She picked at the seam of her tunic, focusing on a loose thread, trying to find the words to explain what she wanted, what she could only now dream of for her future.

“I wish that people could be what they wished to each other, not posessions or subjects, but equals.”

“I’m not opposed to it on principle, but I’m not sure how it would work, Fee,” Silas said. His eyebrows pulled together in a furrow, his green eyes searched hers, troubled and cloudy, before turning back to the reins.

Ophelia nodded. Despite how much she wanted Silas, she was also having trouble figuring out the particulars.

Perhaps Hannah was wrong, and love and independence were mutually exclusive, as she had feared.

She sighed, and Silas moved one hand from the reins to take her hand in his.

They travelled the rest of the way to town in silence, save for the steady clop of Delilah’s hooves and the creak of the cart.

By the end of the day, they all slumped around the dinner table, exhausted and quiet.

They moved through the ritual of cleaning up after the meal and each taking a cup of tea, made to trundle off to bed.

Ophelia turned to hand Silas his cup and saucer and found that they were alone in the kitchen.

Was it just her imagination or were the others always making themselves scarce around she and Silas?

She was too tired to give it much thought at the moment, so she just kept stirring in the milk and honey.

“You remember how I take my tea,” he said softly, surprise and delight in his voice.

“Oh,” said Ophelia, not sure whether she had always remembered or just since they had been together on the farm. “It’s nothing, I know how Hannah takes her tea, too.”

She tried to make it into a joke, but he took a sip from the cup, then placed it on the table. He lifted her hand and held it gently between his two larger ones, his fingers hypnotically stroking the underside of her wrist.

“It’s not nothing to me, Fee,” he said, seriously. He looked up from their hands, his mossy eyes darkening. “Everything you do is something to me.”

He stroked once more over the pulse at her wrist, then letting her hands go gently, he raised a one of his own and skated it along her jaw, cupping her head with a large, warm palm.

She felt herself sink into the pressure of his fingertips against her skull, her breath ghosting over her lips.

He leaned closer, his eyes on hers, lips parted.

Then he pulled her gently to him, letting his hand stroke down her spine to settle on her hip.

She pressed into him and fitted her mouth to his just as he leaned into her.

She felt his fingers flex on her hip, his mouth sliding open to admit her seeking tongue.

The suction of his mouth on her tongue drew a whimper from her even as she widened her stance, notching herself closer to Silas.

He sucked harder on her tongue and smoothed his hand down over her behind, hitching her tight to his thigh.

The darkness of his mouth tasted of warm tea, a surprising tang when his tongue slid against hers.

She felt herself getting wet, the heat pooling between her legs, and she moved against his thigh to ease the ache.

Silas returned the movement and then pulling back, his teeth scraping her lips as he withdrew, he whispered, “I forget myself when I’m with you,” against her mouth.

Ophelia nodded, belatedly releasing the grip she had taken on his biceps. She murmured a hasty apology and brushed the wrinkled linen of his shirt down smooth, stepping back from the warmth of his body. “So do I.”

Good God, but she didn’t want to stop, wanted to push herself closer into his arms, wanted his mouth on her neck, her breasts, anywhere she could think of.

Instead, she smoothed her own tunic and picked up her abandoned teacup.

It shook very slightly as she lifted it to her lips, the tinny music of china on china loud in the small kitchen.

He leaned back against the edge of the Welsh cupboard and crossed his feet at the ankles.

The movement gave the impression of relaxation, but Ophelia could tell he felt nothing like casual; his body vibrated with their kiss, just as hers did.

He looked at her with a strange, dreamy quirk on his lips.

“I should say good night, Silas,” she said sheepishly.

“Sleep well, Fee,” he said, nodding and straightening from his place against the cupboard. “Sweet dreams.”

He chuckled as he made his way down the hall. Sweet dreams indeed.