I put out my hand and shook with her. ‘Don’t curtsey to me,’ I said. ‘There’s no need. I never was a proper lady in the manor. Now I’m where I belong, and right glad to be here. I’ll need you to teach me how to go on with the children and the house.’

She nodded, still bemused. ‘Aye,’ she said. ‘Of course.’ Then she looked at Will. ‘How’s all this then?’ she asked. ‘I thought you were moving up north, just going to London to say your farewells?’

Will kneeled at my feet and pulled off my wet boots. ‘It’s as you see,’ he said. ‘I’ll tell you all about it in the morning, Sally. We want to get to bed now, we’ve been travelling all day, and we were up all last night too.’

She nodded. ‘Of course,’ she said blankly. ‘Well, there’s porridge in the pot and ale in the jar. I could make you some tea?’

Will glanced at me and I shook my head.

‘No,’ he said. ‘Babbies all well?’

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Sleeping sound.’ She paused, she was longing to stay. ‘I’ll be off then,’ she said hesitantly.

‘Good-night, many thanks,’ Will said briskly.

She paused in the doorway to look at me. ‘I knew your ma Miss Julia,’ she said softly. ‘I think she’d be glad to know you’ve come to live among us. It’s an odd thing to do, but I think she’d have done it herself if she could.’

I nodded. ‘I think so,’ I said.

Then she opened the door and a cold gust of air blew in and made the flames leap in the little hearth, and she was gone.

‘Be all around the village by daybreak,’ Will said philoso-phically. ‘Saves telling people. Hungry, are you?’

‘No,’ I said.

‘Bed then,’ he said softly.

Now we were so close to being lovers I was suddenly cold with nerves.

‘Yes,’ I said uncertain.

He drew me towards him and he took me in his arms, lifted me gently, and carried me up the creaking wooden staircase to the upstairs room at the back of the cottage where the window looked out on a dark field and beyond it, the Fenny, with the stars in the night-time sky above and the black downs of Wideacre all around us. He took off my wet stockings and breeches, as gentle as a lady’s maid, took off my linen shift, and laid me down on the soft hay mattress. Then he loved me until the sky paled with dawn and I heard the spring birds singing.