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he’s not seen Charlotte.’
    ‘Has he asked you to write to him?’ Sarah quizzed.
    ‘No,’ Charlotte replied, but she was expecting him to.
    ‘If he does, say no,’ Isobel advised definitely as she put away the last of the breakfast dishes in the crockery cupboard.
    Sarah interrupted her pinning to toss her an impatient look. ‘I can’t think why Charlotte would want to say no, Isobel. Richard would be an ideal match for her.’
    ‘Ideal match?’ Isobel made a scoffing sound in the back of her throat. ‘Marry a man who’d always be away at sea? That doesn’t strike me as being particularly ideal. What’s the point in her marrying a man she’d never see from one month to the next? She might as well stay a spinster and not have the bother of children.’
    Sarah tightened her mouth and reached for another pin. ‘Somepeople look upon children as a blessing.’
    ‘I’ll remind you of that when you’re in labour,’ Isobel said. Plucking a tea towel from the airing rack, she walked over to Charlotte, picked up one of the pans lying on the wooden drainer, and began to dry it. ‘Where is Captain Steele bound this time?’
    Charlotte continued scrubbing. ‘England.’
    ‘When will he be visiting again?’
    ‘I don’t know.’
    ‘D’you have strong feelings for him?’
    ‘I barely know him, Aunt.’ She carried on scrubbing.
    Isobel shook her head. ‘Find yourself a man who’ll cherish you. I’m devilled if I can see how a man can promise to cherish a woman then spend the best part of the year away from her.’
    Charlotte made no comment. She’d already made her mind up what she was going to do if Richard did ask her to write to him, and as it happened she’d reached the same conclusion as her aunt. She liked Richard very much, but the trouble was there was no future with him. Isobel was right: Richard was always at sea.
    ‘John’s calling you, Isobel,’ Sarah said. ‘He must be ready to leave.’
    Charlotte breathed a quiet sigh of relief as Isobel, in a rustle of black silk, hurried off to put on her bonnet and coat. John had agreed to take her to the Drews’ farm, which lay about fifteen miles to the south. Mrs Drew was a supporter of the ‘cause for women’ and Isobel wanted to pass on to her the latest correspondence. Charlotte shuddered to think what Mr Drew would say if he ever found out that his quiet wife, who’d raised ten children and never said boo to a goose, secretly held such radical views. John wouldn’t be very pleased either, if it ever came out what was really in the parcels, neatly done up with brown paper and string, that he periodically delivered to Mrs Drew. He was under the impression they contained books, whichwas in part true, but that wasn’t all they contained.
    ‘I hope Arthur and Matthew behave themselves,’ Sarah said dubiously. Setting down her mending, she pushed herself to her feet and walked over to the kitchen window, rubbing the small of her back with her knuckles. Pulling the curtain aside, she tapped on the glass and waved to them.
    ‘It was thoughtful of Father to suggest they should go along too,’ Charlotte remarked.
    ‘It was,’ Sarah agreed. Smiling, she let the curtain fall back, returned to the table, and picked up her mending again. ‘Charlotte,’ she said after a moment.
    ‘Yes,’ Charlotte said, reaching for the tea towel.
    ‘If Richard asks you to write to him, I think you ought to.’
    ‘Why? What point is there?’ Charlotte asked.
    Sarah looked up from her mending and frowned. ‘You’re surely not going to take Isobel’s silly advice? I thought you liked Richard. Lorisd knows, you’ve spent enough time with him since he’s been here.’
    ‘I do like him,’ she said. ‘I like him very much. But I don’t want to marry him so there’s no point in my writing to him. I don’t want, and I won’t have, a husband who’s at sea for eleven months out of twelve. I want a husband who’s at home, like Edwin. I know some women