‘I don’t mind swinging on that,’ I said, and I meant it. ‘I might even like it.’

‘Getting dark,’ Jack said. ‘You two had best get back. We’ll start work early in the morning.’

We went out into the grey twilight and Jack pulled the door shut behind us.

‘What’s it like sleeping in a house after being in a wagon all your lives?’ he asked.

‘Too quiet,’ Dandy said. ‘I miss you snoring, Jack.’

‘It’s odd,’ I agreed. ‘The room stays still all the time. You get used to the wagon rocking every time someone moves, I suppose. And the ceiling seems so high. In our old wagon, with Da and Zima, the roof was just above my head and I used to get a wet face when I turned over and brushed against it.’

‘What’s it like for you, Jack?’ Dandy said insinuatingly. ‘Will you miss not seeing us in our shifts in the morning? Or getting a little peep at us when we wash?’

Jack laughed but I guessed he was blushing in the darkness.

‘Plenty of girls in Warminster, Dandy,’ he said. ‘Plenty of choice in this town.’

‘As pretty as me?’ she asked. Dandy could make her voice sound like a gilt-edged invitation to a party, if she had a mind to. I could feel Jack sweat as he walked between us.

‘Nay,’ he said honestly. ‘But a darned sight less troublesome.’ He turned abruptly as we walked into the stable yard. ‘I’ll say goodnight to the two of you here,’ he said, and went through the little door in the wall to the garden and the main house.

Dandy went up the stairs before me humming, and unpinned her cap before the bit of mirror while I lit our one rush candle.

‘I could have him,’ she said softly. It was almost an incantation, as if she were making magic with her own lovely mirror-image. ‘I could have him, though his da has warned him against me, and though he thinks to look down on me. I could call him into my hand like a little bird with a speck of bread.’

She untied her pinny and slid her gown up and over her head. The curves of her body showed clear as a ripple on a stream. Her breasts rounding and plump with pale unformed nipples. The dark shadow of curly hair between her legs and the smooth curve of her buttocks were like magical symbols in an old book of spells. ‘I could have him,’ she said again.

I stripped my Sunday gown off and bundled it into the chest and leaped into my bed, covers up to my chin.

‘Don’t even think of it,’ I said.