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the kiss deepened I felt the sharp, hard nip of his teeth and returned it.
    When we finally broke apart, both more than a little shaken by the intensity of the moment, he stepped back and raised a questioning eyebrow. With an effort, I remembered the question.
    ‘Well, yes,’ I said, a little breathlessly. ‘That was very reassuring indeed.’
    He smiled and leaned in for another kiss, a softer one this time, our lips barely brushing. ‘Good.’ Then he made a small sound of annoyance and glanced at his pocket watch. ‘Frank will be over in a moment. Quick, when can I see you again?’
    He peeked out from our hiding place to check both the stall and the imminent arrival of his employer, and I thought fast. ‘I ride alone when I can. Up behind Oaklands and towards the quarry. I try to go out on Sundays, usually as soon as I’ve changed after church, and stay out until teatime if the weather’s dry.’
    Will touched my cheek and I leaned into his hand. ‘Well, there’s a rare bit of luck; Sundays are my afternoons off. I’ll be waiting by the quarry after lunch.’ He frowned slightly, but it was a happy kind of puzzlement. ‘I know this is ridiculous, but I have the vague suspicion I might have fallen for you.’
    ‘Ridiculous,’ I agreed, but my eyes stayed on his and I felt the pull between us, impossible to ignore. I daren’t press my lips to his again, for fear we’d become lost in time, so I let them linger against his jaw instead. It was almost as hard to break away. ‘This has to be our secret, for a while at least.’
    He nodded. ‘It’s not that I’m ashamed of you,’ he said solemnly, ‘but, you know, a man of my social position has his reputation to consider.’ I cuffed his arm and he smiled. ‘Don’t worry, I won’t tell a soul.’
    ‘One day we’re going to be able to tell everyone and not think for one minute they wouldn’t approve,’ I said. ‘Things are definitely changing.’
    He studied me for a moment. ‘I hope you’re right, I honestly do. In the meantime, not a word, I promise.’
    ‘Not a word,’ I repeated, and he drew me close again, his hands locked in the small of my back, only the contented sigh stirring my hair telling me his happiness matched my own.
    Five months later he was holding me again, but neither of us was happy.

Chapter Four
    Breckenhall Quarry, January 1913.
    On New Year’s Eve, my worst fears about the Kalteng Star had come true. It had gone missing during the huge party mother had thrown, and although I’d fully believed in my own desire to be rid of it, the shock rippled through all of us. Mother was obviously distraught, although to others I knew she made a vast effort to appear coldly calm, and I felt the guilt lying over me like a terrible weight throughout the fruitless search.
    But in the end the blame had fallen squarely on Lizzy, and nothing we had been able to do had persuaded the jury otherwise. The so-called evidence had built and built, and I had watched even her fiery determination crumple in the face of it, until she stood, shaking and helpless while they delivered the verdict.
    Mary Deegan, who had formed a closeness with Lizzy from her first day, had defied etiquette and put her arm around me as the words fell like rocks into the silence, and Lizzy had looked back at us both as they’d taken her down. Her face was white and stunned, her eyes looked bigger and bluer than ever in contrast as she no doubt prayed for a last minute intervention, and then she was gone, to begin a ten-year prison sentence in Holloway Women’s Prison, London.
    We returned to Oaklands in silence. Mary was fighting tears but she wouldn’t let them fall in front of me. That was another way in which she and Lizzy were different; had it been the other way around I know Lizzy would have been unable to control her distress. But I could tell Mary wanted to be alone, and so, after a brief word of mutual comfort, and a heartfelt promise to do everything I could to