All wrong too.

And so wrong that I could not tell who I was nor what I should be doing.

I struggled awake with that, and reached out in the darkness for the lemonade. It was night then, night and going on for dawn. Someone had brought me a drink while I slept. Someone had made up the fire again. Some time in the night I had reached out for the glass and drained it for it was empty and the jug half full. In the cold grey light of the early morning before sun-up I was able to see enough to sit up in my bed and pour the drink.

It was icy. It made me shiver as if a finger of snow had passed down my throat into my very belly. I gulped it down to sate my thirst and then I huddled back down under the covers again. I was cold, chilled and cold. But when I put my hand to my forehead I found I was burning hot.

I knew I was ill then, and I knew that the dream of her, of seeing her as a fool and a cruel fool at that, was part of my illness. I had to hold to the things I knew. I had to remember her as she had been, my beloved. I had to hold on to Perry as I knew he could be, a careless youth who would grow into a good man. I had to remember that Will Tyacke was an angry, vindictive working man who had done very well out of my land and was now taking himself off in a rage, and good riddance to him.

I shivered in the grey coldness of the early morning. I had to hold on to those things or I did not know what would happen. If I opened my mind just a little crack, to the doubts and uncertainties, I would lose my memory of her and my love for her, I would lose my certain future.

‘I want to be Lady Havering,’ I croaked into the still cold air of the room. ‘I want to farm Havering and Wideacre together. I want to be the greatest landowner in the county. I want everyone to know who I am.’

The thought of being known by name to everyone for hundreds of miles around was a comforting one. I slid down on the pillows a little deeper. And I slept again.

I woke in the morning hot and blinded with my eyelids so red and swollen I could hardly open them. I was wakened by a squawk when my maid, coming to my bedside, caught sight of me and dashed for the door. I opened my eyes slightly and shut them again quickly. Even with the window curtains closed the room seemed far too bright and the flicker of the newly lit fire was so loud it made my head ache. I was burning up with fever and my throat was so sore that I could not have spoken even if I had wanted to.