I slid down from Sea and tossed the reins to Will. He caught them, and before he could protest I had run up the street and tapped on the big front door. I heard Emily’s little feet pattering down the hall and her nervous: ‘I ain’t allowed to open the door…’ tail off as she opened the door and saw first a slim young man in grey, and then my face under the grey tricorne hat.

‘Sarah! I beg pardon m’m, I means your ladyship!’

‘Hush,’ I said peremptorily. Not all the escapes in the world could make me unstintingly pleasant. ‘Don’t chatter, Emily. Fetch your bonnet and all the money you have. You can come away with me if you want. I’m running away to my home in Sussex and you can come too. There’s work you can do there, farm work – but fairly paid and not too hard. You might like it. D’you want to come? I’m leaving now.’

She flushed scarlet. ‘I’ll come,’ she said defiantly. ‘Dammit! I will!’ and she turned on her heel and bounded up the main staircase where she was not allowed to go, and then scuttered along the passageway to the attic stairs.

I glanced back down the street. The daylight was getting brighter, the sun was up in a sky the colour of primroses, it would be a fine day. A cool clear day. A good day for travelling. Will made an impatient beckoning motion at me. I smiled and waved back.

I was not afraid of being seen, I was not afraid of being caught. Since I had lain beneath Will in the darkness of the park, I had lost every scrap of fear I had ever known. There was a warmth and a lightness about me as if I would never fail or fear anything ever again. I did not fear Lady Havering, nor poor Perry. I knew at last who I was and where I was going. A lifetime of travelling had not taught me half so much.

There was a rush along the hall and Emily came out, wrapped in a tatty shawl and with a bonnet on her head. She carried a shawl roughly knotted in one hand, and a little withy birdcage in the other with a starling in it.

‘Can I bring ‘im?’ she asked me anxiously. ‘I’ve ‘ad ‘im for a year, and ‘e sings marvellous.’

I glanced down the street to Will who was now rigid with anger. ‘Of course,’ I said and my voice shook with laughter. ‘Why not?’

Emily pulled the door gently to close and came down the steps. We walked back towards the horses.

‘Your young man,’ she said with quiet satisfaction as she saw Will. She did not seem in the least surprised.