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jagged spikes. Just as she
reached out towards Smokey’s halter, a gust of wind caught her
skirts and set them flapping. Smokey whinnied in alarm and tried to
rear, then let out a horsey scream of pain as the end of the wire
bit into his leg.
    ‘What the hell are you doing?’ came a shout
behind Amy. ‘Get away from my horse!’
    Amy turned to see Charlie running towards
her. ‘He’s caught in some wire—I was trying to get him out of
it.’
    ‘Trying to cripple him, more like. Get down
off there.’ He yanked at Amy, pulling her off the fence. She heard
her skirt rip as the split in the wood caught it. Charlie pushed
her away from him. She lost her balance and fell to the ground.
    Charlie made soothing noises to the horse,
caught him by the halter, and tethered it to the fence with some
twine from his pocket. He soon had the wire safely away from
Smokey’s leg. He threw it over the fence, climbed back to Amy’s
side, and untied the halter. Smokey moved off with only a slight
limp.
    Amy picked herself up and raised her eyes to
meet Charlie’s. She winced at the anger she saw there. ‘I’m sorry,’
she said in a small voice. ‘I was only trying to help Smokey.’
    She cried out as Charlie smacked the back of
his hand against her cheek. ‘You had no business interfering with
my horse! You keep away from my animals, you stupid bitch! The
kitchen’s your place. You could have lamed him!’ He caught her
another blow, this time across the side of her head, making Amy’s
ears ring, then took hold of her bodice and shook her. ‘I’ll teach
you your place!’ He slapped her hard on both cheeks, still gripping
her bodice with one hand, while Amy sobbed with pain. When he let
go she sank to her knees and cradled her face between her
hands.
    ‘I’m sorry,’ her voice came out
indistinctly. ‘I’m sorry, Charlie.’
    He snarled a curse at her and stalked away,
bumping against Amy’s bucket of water and knocking it flying as he
went.
    Amy crouched on the ground until the roaring
in her ears stopped, then fumbled for her now-empty bucket. I’ve
done the wrong thing again. I’m going to have another bruise
now . I hope it’s gone before Lizzie’s wedding .
     
     

4
     
    April 1885
    On the day before his wedding Frank managed
to persuade his brother to take the milk to the factory, giving
Frank a valuable hour or two alone. It was best that Ben did not
see what Frank was about to do.
    When Ben returned he wandered into the
kitchen, then stood and looked aghast at the scene. All the dishes
had been washed and stacked, the table and bench wiped down, and
Frank was attacking the stubborn dried mud on the floor with a
stiff broom.
    ‘I thought you said that woman of yours was
going to do the work,’ Ben said indignantly.
    ‘She is—of course she is,’ Frank assured
him. ‘She’ll keep the place really nice. But it’s not fair to
expect her to clean up all this mess, is it?’
    ‘Why not?’
    ‘Well… it’s just not. It’s really old dirt,
Ben. I can’t remember the last time we cleaned this kitchen.’
    ‘It was clean enough before.’ Ben shook his
head in disgust. ‘You make me sick, you know that? Mooning around
over the first lot of skirts you ever noticed.’
    ‘All right, shut up about it. You’ll like
Lizzie once you get to know her.’
    ‘I never thought you were that stupid.
You’re going to regret it one day, you know. You just remember, I
warned you not to bring a woman into the house.’
    ‘I won’t need to remember. You’ll keep
telling me.’
    ‘No I won’t,’ Ben said. ‘You’ll never hear
anything about it from me after tomorrow.’
    Frank found that hard to believe, but let it
pass. ‘Hey, Ben,’ he said cautiously, ‘I sort of wondered…’ He
stopped himself. Why on earth was he nervous about making a
perfectly reasonable request of his own brother, when a few days
before he had managed to ask his future father-in-law for the most
intimate advice possible?
    ‘I