Will’s voice had risen to a shout, and he shook his head, as if to clear his thoughts and then he said tightly, ‘You’d be a damn fool to go further with this, Sarah, and you know it. Promise me now that you’ll go back and tell Lady Clara that he’s stolen from you and that you are withdrawing from the betrothal. Write to Mr Fortescue and tell him what’s to do, and then order out the carriage and come home. I’ll wait to escort you. Stay any longer in London and you’ll be robbed blind.’

I shook my head. ‘You don’t understand,’ I said. ‘You’ve never understood me.’

‘Don’t understand!’ Will was thunderingly angry now. ‘Do you think I’m blind or as stupid as your pretty lordling? I’ve seen the quarterly accounts, I’ve seen the allowance you have! I’ve seen the bills come in! And while we’re mending and making do on Wideacre with broken ploughshares spliced and used again, season after season, and while we have old carthorses pulling heavy loads and no new stock at all this year, you’re preening before a glass to go out dancing with a gamester!’

‘Nonsense!’ I said heatedly. ‘I’ve spent very little!’

But Will would not listen. ‘You’re a damned parasite!’ he said roundly. ‘And he’s a worse one. He’s not even bedded you and the pizzle has hold of your money while you sit up there, on your horse, and tell me you’re not coming home! By God if I could pull you off the horse and make you walk home I would!’

‘Don’t you threaten me, Will Tyacke!’ I said as angry as he. ‘I’m not one of your alehouse drabs. I didn’t come to you for help, I can manage my own affairs. I don’t overspend and I don’t listen to a bawling from any man, least of all you.’

‘You don’t listen to anything!’ Will said. ‘You don’t listen to Mr Fortescue when he warned you off them, you don’t listen to me. You don’t even listen to your own common sense when the man has robbed you before marriage and you know his whole family will rob you later. Any woman with anything in her head but vanity and wind would call off the wedding and run for her life away from such a band.’

‘The wedding’s to be brought forward!’ I said, as angry as he and picking on the one piece of news which would make him angrier. ‘We’re to wed and be home on Wideacre by Christmas! So there, Will Tyacke, and don’t you dare try to tell me what to do!’