I’m still a little unnerved. Daniel had not told me the housemaid would be there when we met this evening and I stepped back when I saw her, my belly tightening. Still, she did not look unfriendly, a woman of rolling roundness, apple-cheeked and ample-stomached, holding a bundle of cloth.

She eyed me up and down and turned to Daniel with an exasperated expression. ‘Not here. I can’t just give them to her, would you know how to place a coif without help?’

‘Well, what then?’ he asked.

This conversing about me as though I was a sick beast on the farm was new, unwelcome. ‘Tell me what’s happening,’ I said, loudly, and they both turned to me at once. ‘Do not speak and concoct plans without my knowing, I am not one of your horses, I will have some sway over my own life. Why do I need a coif? What have you both decided is happening to me?’ I glared at them, and then added as an afterthought, ‘And Mam has worn such things, we were not always as you see us now.’

Bett raised her eyebrows. ‘Picked a fiery one.’

‘Sorry,’ Daniel said. ‘I – I’m a fool.’

‘As we’ve already agreed,’ I said, and caught sight of Bett hiding a smile.

‘The farm is in need of a dairymaid and I thought, you have a natural ability with animals and I can teach you the right skills, I will present you to Father in this part and it will begin your work as farmer’s wife.’ He flashed a look at Bett as she turned sharply to stare at him, blushed.

‘But – will your father have me?’ I met his eye, challenged him to be truthful. This was no time for stories.

He did not fail me. ‘If you are dressed as any other girl, and if I say you were found at the mop, then yes. He will not have the curiosity to question. I am certain. Yes.’

‘All right,’ I said, hiding my excitement, not wishing him to think he had triumphed completely, riled as I was that he planned it so without me.

I stood as tall as I could, trying to show myself to be more than my ragged outer to this housemaid woman. ‘Then I thank you for these,’ I said, indicating the bundle. ‘And as I shall soon be earning a wage, I’ll pay you what I owe for them when I can.’

‘As you wish,’ she said, sparing my dignity.

Daniel turned to me, pleased with himself, and I could not help but give him the smile he craved. Bett coughed and looked away. Under the hedge something shuffled, and I glanced quick to see a hare, no doubt this time, bounding away, and I wondered if it was Dew-Springer, running back to tell all to Mam.