‘I’ll take it up,’ he said and Jennet followed him up the stairs with Bessie. It was time she was in bed anyway.

She’d put Peggy in their big bed so that Bessie didn’t have to share with her. She couldn’t risk them both being ill. She tucked the little one under the covers and then went into the front bedroom where Peggy had the cup clutched in both her hands and was eagerly gulping down the sweetened milk.

‘Go steady now,’ she said. ‘Drink it slowly.’

Titus was sitting on the edge of the bed and he took the cup when she was finished and reached out to stroke her hair. ‘Better now?’ he asked and she nodded, regarding him with affection. But she glared at Jennet, who she seemed to blame for her thirst.

‘I hope tha’s done the right thing,’ she whispered to Titus, wondering how she would ever forgive him this time if he’d hastened Peggy’s death with his stubbornness.

‘She’ll be right as rain by morning,’ he predicted as he tucked the blankets around her and kissed her. ‘Sleep now,’ he told her. ‘We’ll be up in a bit.’

He picked up the cup and went downstairs without so much as glancing at her other daughter. Heaven help Bessie if she lived and they lost Peggy, thought Jennet.

Chapter Fourteen

Mary stared at the rags in her drawer and tried to count how many weeks it had been since she’d last needed them. It was definitely more than four, probably nearer six. Or even longer. She closed the drawer again, not wanting to think about it. She didn’t feel much different. Her stomach was still as flat as it had always been, she thought as she patted it, trying not to imagine that a child might be growing inside her.

She picked up the boned corset that Mr Starkie had given her. He’d told her that all the ladies wore them under the new-style dresses to give some emphasis to the figure. She’d been hesitant at first. The thing made it so difficult to bend down and she refused to wear it when she was working, but now she thought that she would put it on. It was a fiddly thing. It really needed another person to do it up at the back. Which is why all the ladies had maids, she thought as she struggled to pull the laces through the eyelets so they would lie smoothly. She imagined that Hannah laced Mrs Feilden into something similar, but the thought of her friend made her feel resentful all over again. She would have loved that job.

She sat down on the chair and began to arrange her hair. She’d been experimenting with some of the modern styles where hair was piled up in a fancy knot on the top of the head. Mr Starkie had brought her some little yellow feathers and she wanted to wear them, but she was struggling to make it all stay in place no matter how many clips and grips she pushed into it. Still, she thought, it was good practice for when she managed to get back into service in a decent place.