"Not someone like me, in other words." He kisses her again to ease the pain of this memory. He can never possess her except in these brief tumbles in the hay. In years or perhaps even months her parents will find her a suitable husband and he'll lose her forever. "I love you," he says.
"Wendell, don't," she says. "You know we can't."
"Why not? We can run away from here."
"I couldn't do that to Mum and Daddy."
"You'd rather marry someone you don't love than hurt their feelings?" he said. He rolled her off him onto a bed of hay.
She starts to cry. "That's not fair. I don't want to lose them. I don't want to lose you either. Can't we just enjoy right now and let the future alone?"
He nods and takes her back in his arms. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said that. We don't have to decide anything."
They kiss again and then her hands reach for the buttons of his shirt. He fumbles with the ties of her dress to get it off. "Are you sure?" he asks.
"More sure than anything in my life," she says.
He finally gets the dress off her and for the first time sees her tiny breasts, not much more than nubs of flesh. They are still the most beautiful he's ever seen. He puts a nipple in his mouth. She moans with pleasure and then screams with terror. She rolls off him, burying herself in the hay.
"What in God's name are you doing up here?" her father shouts. "You filthy swine. My wife picks you up out of a ditch, feeds you, clothes you, treats you like her own and you try to defile my daughter? I'll split you from end to end."
He grabs a pitchfork and charges up the hayloft ladder before Wendell can even put on his shirt. Wendell scurries into a corner, putting up his hands. "You don't understand," Wendell says. "We love each other."
"You'll not lay a hand on my daughter again," her father says. "I'll make certain of that."
Wendell can do nothing, but curl into a fetal position and wait for the pitchfork to run him through. "Daddy, don't! I love him!" Fiona screams.
"You stay out of this. Go down and wait for me."
"No. I won't let you hurt him." She positions herself between Wendell and her father.
"Get out of the way, Fiona. This boy has bewitched you. I'll not have my daughter marrying one like him."
"We love each other. Can't you understand that?"
"I'm warning you one final time to get out of the way." He shoves her aside and then reaches back to jab the pitchfork into Wendell's chest. He sees her out of the corner of his eye and wants to shout a warning, but no sound will come from his throat. She grabs the pitchfork with both ends. Her father gives the weapon a furious shake that sends her reeling.