Adam held tightly to the horse’s mane and then threw his left leg over the sturdy little mount, which flinched not an inch. ‘Now then, let’s see – if I give pressure with my knees and a bit of encouragement from my heels, we should go where I want to go, and not where you want to go.’ He grinned as the horse started to step out up the steep hillside to the moor. He patted it on its neck and pulled on one of its ears, as it made its way higher up the hillside. ‘I never did like saddles. I always rode bareback when I was a lad and now, thirty years on, I’m back doing it. My father will be laughing, if he can see me, and thinking what an idiot I’ve been, wasting my life in other men’s service when this could have been mine all along,’ Adam whispered, and then halted the mare as they reached the top of the moor. He would never tire of the view from his land; it was his home, the place he loved, but it had taken him half his life to realize it. What an idiot he had been.
Lucy swept the hearth tidy and then went into the dairy to skim the cream off the top of the day’s milk, before putting it into the butter churn. She filled the large glass jar halfway up, then screwed the lid on it. The lid was attached to a handle and gears, which turned two large wooden paddles that hung down in the creamy milk; when the handle was turned, it agitated the milk, making it separate into butter and buttermilk after a good length of time.
However, today it took no time at all, in Lucy’s eyes. She was too busy wondering who Ivy Thwaite was, and what had she to do with Adam Brooksbank. Were they just good friends or more than that? Perhaps they were lovers? Was Ivy beautiful or a plain, ordinary woman? Whoever she was, Lucy hoped that she would never visit, because another woman in the house would only bring worry, in her view. She enjoyed running the house at Black Moss and she didn’t want any interventions in her perfect position of maid and companion to Adam Brooksbank, especially if it came from another woman. She was beginning to look at her master in a different light. He was kind, witty and, for a man his age, quite attractive. What’s more, he was a man of means, and Lucy found herself wanting his company when she was not at Black Moss, even though she only worked for him.
Lucy looked at herself in the wardrobe mirror in her bedroom. She viewed herself from all sides and pinched her cheeks to give them a little colour. If she was to be made to go to church, then she might as well have something to enjoy doing, rather than listening to the vicar bestow his views of religion on one and all. Dressed in her finest blue dress edged with lace, and with her hair tied back and plaited, she aimed to catch the eye of Alex Braithwaite and flirt with him over the pews to alleviate the boredom of the church service.
She smiled as she looked at herself. If Alex could resist her advances, then he was better than half the local lads, who were forever yelling their comments at her, and whom she usually looked upon with disdain. She had higher ideas about who she was going to marry, and it wasn’t going to be any Tom, Dick or Harry with hardly a penny to his name. It had to be someone who offered her security, and at the moment she wasn’t showing commitment to anyone. She was simply going to enjoy herself and flirt with them all.
Sitting in church with her mother and siblings, Lucy looked across the pews at the blond-haired, red-cheeked Alex Braithwaite. He was sitting in his family pew and his father kept looking sternly at him, as Alex kept turning his head to look at her.
‘Stop it, our Lucy – behave yourself! You are in the Lord’s house now, so stop your flirting with Alex Braithwaite,’ Dorothy whispered to her daughter. But secretly she smiled to herself. She knew that her daughter took many a man’s eye, and secretly hoped that Lucy would end up with the quarry owner’s son.
‘Sorry, Mother, but he keeps looking at me, and what am I to do?’ Lucy smirked and put her head down to avoid Alex’s gaze.
‘You can ignore him until we are out of the church,’ her mother whispered. ‘He should have more respect – just like you.’
Lucy looked up and blushed as Alex winked at her, and the vicar stared from his pulpit at the flirting that was undermining his service. She hoped that she would be able to talk to Alex, but she knew his father would have other plans once the service was over, and that his carriage would be waiting to take them back home to celebrate Easter Sunday in his luxurious home at Rockfield Hall. She would never be good enough for the owner of the quarry, who expected his son to marry into money, and not a
