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brought the painting down the stairs, the artist’s name glittered under the light of the chandelier. Hesitantly, Mary reached out and touched it, running her fingertips over the slightly raised surface of the paint.
    Richard Warrender.
    Very briefly she closed her eyes. Some memories were too painful for her to recall, even now.

FOUR
    ‘A puppy for John, is it, or more like a sweetener to win the favour of young Ellie?’ William Pride laughed as he watched his young helper button the collie pup he had brought with him from the borders inside his jacket.
    ‘You’re wasting your time there, my lad,’ William told Gideon, shaking his head. ‘She’s a fine-looking girl, I’ll grant you that. Got her mother’s looks and her fancy airs and graces as well. Lyddy will never allow any daughter of hers to get sweet on a working lad like you. Thinks too much of herself for that, she does.’
    ‘Mr Pride has always made me very welcome in his home,’ Gideon said stiffly.
    ‘Oh aye, our Robert – Mr Pride – he will, but we’re talking about Mrs Pride now, lad, ’er as was “a Barclay” before she wed our Robert. I remember how it was when they first met. Let us know that she thought herself well above us, she did, allus talking about her father the solicitor inthat posh voice of hers. Of course, our Robert was well fixated on her. Daft as a tuppence-halfpenny wristwatch he was – dafter! I could never see the sense in it m’sel’. Never catch me allowing any woman to rule my life. Good enough in their right place, women is, but only that place!’ He winked meaningfully at Gideon. ‘What tha’ wants, lad, is some willing wench – but make sure she’s clean, mind. I don’t mind telling you I had my problems in that way when I was a young green ’un. Don’t you make the mistake of settling for one before you’ve sampled a few like I did, either. Naught wrong with our Gertie, mind, but a bit of choice isn’t a bad thing, if you know what I mean.’ He grinned, tapping the side of his nose.
    Grimly, Gideon forced himself not to object. He knew exactly what his employer meant, and he knew too that once they had parted company William would make his way first to the pub, where he would garner the current gossip, and then to the home of the woman who was his ‘wife’ whenever he was in the town, and by whom he had three tow-headed sons.
    Gideon wasn’t finding it as easy to get work as he had hoped – but William Pride paid a fair wage to his men, even though the work itself wasn’t what Gideon really wanted to do.
    Every time they visited Preston, as well as calling at Friargate, ostensibly to update John on the progress of his pup, Gideon combed the town’s streets, looking for somewhere to set up his business.
    So far his search had been disappointing. Those townspeople rich enough to employ a cabinet-maker, instead of buying ready-manufactured furniture, automatically looked to tradesmen they knew and believed they could trust, many often going as far afield as Gideon’s own ex-master in Lancaster.
    He had had one small but potentially lucrative job, which had set his hopes soaring – the restoration of a carved banister in a tumbling-down manor house in Lancashire, which had been bought by a newly rich railway shareholder, but the man had refused to pay Gideon the full amount they had agreed, and he had been lucky to cover his costs for the job, never mind make a profit.
    He was not about to give up, though. The struggle he was having now would make his eventual success very sweet, and even sweeter if he were able to have Ellie to share it with him.
    Ellie. How she teased and tantalised him, giving him bold, tormenting looks one minute, and the next blushing a softly delicious pink just because he had happened to comment on her mother’s pregnancy.
    Gideon frowned as he thought about Lydia Pride. There was a very different atmosphere in the Pride household now, in April, than there had been when