I knew I should not allow it. I knew he had promised me, in what seemed another lifetime, hundreds of years ago, that he would never never gamble again. But I had no will to match against his imploring blue eyes.

‘Please Sarah,’ he said.

I blinked, and he took that for assent and I heard the chink of gold coins and then the soft closing of the door behind him as he left me.

The doctor came again and again. Then one day, when I felt so weary and so sick that I half wished they would all leave me, leave me and let me die in peace, I saw him nod to Lady Clara and tell her there was nothing he could do. They would have to wait and see. I realized, only dimly, that they were talking about my death.

‘Her mother died of childbed fever,’ Lady Clara said.

The doctor nodded. ‘But it’s strong stock,’ he said. ‘Squires, the backbone of the country.’

Lady Clara nodded. I knew she would be thinking that I had not been reared as a squire’s child, with nothing but the best to eat and drink.

‘She is very strong,’ she said hopefully. ‘Wiry.’

The doctor inclined an inquisitive eyebrow. ‘What of the estate if she goes?’

Lady Clara looked bleak. ‘Back to the Laceys,’ she said. ‘All the contracts depend on marriage between Perry and her. Betrothal is not enough.’

The doctor nodded ‘You must be worried,’ he offered.

Lady Clara gave a little moan and turned towards the window where the winter sky was greying into darkness. ‘Perry will be ruined if he cannot get his hands on his capital soon,’ she said. ‘And I was counting on the revenues of the Wideacre estate. It is a gold mine, that place. My income depends on the Havering estate remaining strong. And if Perry does not marry at all…’ she trailed off but the desolation in her voice echoed in my head. She was thinking of the tumbled Dower House, and the Havering kin who would take her place.

Doctor Player glanced towards the bed and his look at me gleamed. I had my eyes shut and they thought I was sleeping. Indeed, I was only half conscious. I drifted in and out of awareness as they spoke. Sometimes I heard it all, sometimes I heard nothing.

‘Special licence…marriage,’ I heard him say, and I heard Lady Clara’s swiftly indrawn breath.

‘Would it be legal?’ she demanded.

‘Her guardian has already given his consent,’ Doctor Player said judiciously. ‘If she herself wished it…’

Lady Clara came swiftly to the bed and, forgetting her fear of the typhus, put her hand on my hot forehead.

‘Would she agree? Is she fit to consent?’ she asked. ‘She can scarcely speak.’