‘Good luck then, Sarah,’ he said. ‘You can always walk away from them all, you know.’

I didn’t pull away from his touch. I closed my eyes and let him do as he would with me. It made no difference at all. I put my hands up and closed my fingers around his wrists and held him, held his hands against my cheeks and looked into his eyes.

‘I wish to God I was dead,’ I said to him.

We stood there for a moment, in silence. Then Sea shifted restlessly and our grip broke. The lad at Sea’s head reached up for me and jumped me down from the saddle. Will stayed unmoving on his horse, watched me walk across the yard, the water trough shining like ice in the moonlight, watched the yellow lamplight from the house spill out in a square on the cobbles as I opened the back door, and then watched me close the door behind me and heard me shoot the bolts.

The next day we left for London, so Lady Clara’s spies had not time to tell her of the show, and of the young lady who looked like me, but who answered to another name.

We travelled heavy. I thought of the old days, of one wagon carrying everything a family of five would need. Of the first season when we travelled with bedding for four, costume changes, saddlery and a scenery backdrop all loaded in two wagons. Lady Clara and I travelled in the Havering carriage, Lord Peregrine rode alongside for his own amusement. Behind us came the baggage coach with all our clothes and with Lord Peregrine’s valet and two maids. Behind that came a wagon with various essentials necessary to Lady Clara’s comfort: everything from sheets to the door-knocker, and either side of this little cavalcade ranged outriders – stable lads and footmen, armed for this journey with blunderbuss and bludgeon in case highwaymen might stop us and rob us. By the end of the first hour, bored and restless, I heartily hoped they would.

I was a bad travelling companion for Lady Clara. She had a book to read but I was still unable to read anything but the simplest of stories and the jogging of the chaise meant I could not put my finger under a line and follow it. I had with me some of the accounts of Wideacre in the days of my mama Julia, but I could not read her copperplate script and Lady Clara would not trouble herself to help me. And to my surprise, and then increasing discomfort, I found I was sickly with the movement of the carriage.