CRADLE OF THORNS by JOSEPHINE COX

An alternate cover edition can be found here . When Nell becomes pregnant, she is forced to leave behind her life and travel across the Bedfordshire countryside of 1890. On her journey she meets Kit, a ten-year-old orphan. She takes him under her wing, both of them aware there must be a reckoning. Paperback , 448 pages Published August 7th 1997 by Headline (first published 1997)