Then I looked up and listened to Mr Fortescue.

‘I believe that you are the daughter of Julia and Richard Lacey, and the only heir to this estate,’ he said simply. ‘Your mother was in fever after your birth and she gave you away to the gypsies. Your father was killed by an escaped criminal who came back here seeking his revenge. Your mother died shortly after.’ He was silent for a moment. When he spoke again his voice was even. ‘She wrote to me before her death,’ he said. ‘She had no close relations and she entrusted to me the task of trying to find her daughter and to care for the estate until the child was of age.’

He looked at me. ‘I am sorry I failed you so badly, Miss Lacey,’ he said. ‘I did indeed try, for all these years I have had men looking for you. We traced the gypsy family and then much later your foster mother; but then the trail went cold. I never knew of the man you call your stepfather.’

I nodded, but I said nothing. If they had found the two of us before some of the beatings I had taken. If they had only found us before Da sold us to Robert Gower. Or if they had found us just yesterday, when we were a day’s ride away and she had been playing in the sea and her hair had tasted of salt when I kissed her.

I shrugged off the pain and took a deep breath. In a few moments the picture of her would be out of my mind and I would be able to hear Mr Fortescue’s voice again.

‘I’ve done better with the estate, I think,’ he said. ‘We restored it to the profit-sharing scheme started by your mother, and we have expanded. It is now quite famous as a village corporation – an experiment in communal planning and communal land-use. Will Tyacke here acts as foreman and keeps in touch with me in my offices in London or Bristol. I only supervise. All of the decisions are made here, by the people themselves.’

‘Is it a wealthy estate?’ I asked bluntly.

Mr Fortescue looked down at a little case he had by his chair. ‘Run as a corporation it does not make a profit,’ he said. ‘It pays you an annual share of some £10,000. If you were to withdraw an economic rent you would earn some £40,000. I have the figures here for you to see.’

He went to pick them up but I checked him.

‘I…I cannot read,’ I said awkwardly.

He nodded as if there were no reason to think that anyone could. ‘Of course,’ he said gently. ‘Then we can go over them together another time. But you may believe me that you have a good estate, run as a corporation, with the people who live here sharing in the wealth. It is showing substantial and steady profits.’