Free The Fleethaven Trilogy by Margaret Dickinson

off.’
    The autumn evening was soft and balmy under a clear starlit sky and merry laughter filled the night air as they approached Grange Farm. Lanterns had been festooned all around the edges of the barn which the squire left free for the Harvest Supper. Long trestle tables had been placed down the middle with squares of hay for the revellers to sit on. The tables were piled high with food and when Esther arrived with Sam, people were already helping themselves. There were hams and pickled tongues, pork pies and sausages and for dessert, junkets and cream cheese soufflés. Esther’s mouth watered.
    Matthew appeared suddenly at her side. ‘Come on, Esther, let’s get stuck in or it’ll all be gone.’
    She took a plate and, following his example, piled it high with food. She reached across the table to pick up a cooked sausage when her fingers touched someone else’s reaching from the opposite side. She looked up to find herself staring into Beth Hanley’s resentful eyes.
    ‘You with Matthew?’ Beth asked bluntly.
    Esther straightened up. ‘Well – sort of. Why?’
    There was hurt in Beth’s dark brown eyes. ‘Dun’t you know we’re walking out together?’
    ‘No – no, I didn’t. I’m sorry – if he’d said then . . .’
    Beth snorted. ‘Oh, him, he likes to think he’s fancy free. He’ll flirt with anything in skirts. I knows that.’
    ‘An’ doesn’t it bother you?’
    She didn’t answer directly, but stared Esther straight in the face and said, ‘He’ll come back to me and I’ll be waiting for him. You mark my words, Esther Everatt,
he’ll always come back to me!’
    For some inexplicable reason the vehement certainty in Beth’s tone sent a shiver down Esther’s back.
    The dark-haired girl turned away and was lost in the throng of people. Esther too turned away from the table and drew breath sharply for she found herself staring into the disapproving faces of Mrs Willoughby and her sister.
    ‘Well, really!’ was all Flo could muster.
    ‘And what, may I ask, are
you
doing here?’ demanded Martha Willoughby.
    Esther recovered her senses and smiled brightly. ‘Good evening, missus,’ she addressed Martha Willoughby. ‘And, er . . .’ she hesitated and then deliberately her gaze searched the left hand of the thin woman, whom she now knew to be Martha Willoughby’s sister. Seeing her ringless finger, she added with emphasis, ‘And miss.’
    Miss Flo gasped. The edge of sarcasm towards her spinster state was not lost on the middle-aged woman.
    ‘Oh, Martha, come away. I won’t be seen talking to this – this creature!’
    ‘Quite right, Flo dear. Really, I don’t know what the squire is thinking of.’
    They picked up their skirts and with one last glance made as if to turn away in a calculated snub. But in that last glance, Flo had looked Esther up and down properly. She gasped and gripped her sister’s arm.
    ‘Oh, Martha,’ she squeaked. ‘Do – do you
see
what she’s wearing? Oh, how could he? How could Sam let her wear one of poor, darling Katharine’s gowns?’ Flo fished in the sleeve of her blouse for a delicate lace handkerchief and held it to her lips, her eyes wide and staring above the frothy white lace. Martha was made of sterner stuff. She merely eyed the old-fashioned gown with distaste.
    ‘It’s absolutely . . .’ But exactly what, Esther was not to hear for at that moment Tom Willoughby came up behind them and put an arm about the shoulders of the two sisters. ‘Now, now, my dears, making friends. That’s the way,’ and he gave a great bellowing laugh so that his stomach wobbled and his whiskers shook.
    ‘Oh, really, Thomas. Friends, indeed!’ The two women turned away in disgust, but before he followed them, Tom gave Esther a broad grin and an exaggerated wink. ‘They’ll come around, m’dear, don’t you worry.’
    Esther stared after the three of them as they walked away. She wasn’t bothered one way or the other whether they ever ‘came