'By all means, Mr Martell. Although I fear I cannot answer for my father, it seems.'

'I can assure you, Miss Albion' - he looked her straight in the eye - 'I am quite prepared to brave his wrath.'

She inclined her head to hide her pleasure. 'Then come by all means, Sir,' she softly said.

Minutes later, with young Nathaniel tucked beside her, she was bowling across the wild heath with Mr Gilpin, her heart singing in the breeze.

Puckle stayed down in the ship for a while after the visitors had gone. Though he despised the Tottons, he had been glad to speak to Miss Fanny Albion. He had liked something in her blue eyes. But after her departure, as he gazed sadly round the great wooden space, the thoughts that had troubled him returned with even more insistence than before.

In a few months' time Miss Albion would still be here, in the Forest. But where would he be, cut adrift?

What had he done? What could he do about it?

The chaise had drawn up by Albion House, and Mr Gilpin had just handed Fanny down and was conducting her to the door, when he turned to her casually and remarked: 'There is something, by the by, which I had been meaning to tell you, Fanny. Do you recall that we spoke of your grandmother and of her marriage?'

'Why, yes, indeed,' she answered brightly. 'We were going to look it up, were we not?'

'Indeed. And as I chanced, a little while ago, to be examining the parish register in Lymington I took the liberty of casting back to see what I could find.'

'And did you find it?' She felt quite eager.

'Yes. I think so, anyway.' He paused. 'It may come as a surprise, perhaps a shock.'

'Oh?'

'Of course, such connections in any family, especially in the maternal line are quite commonplace, you know. Entirely normal. You would be surprised.'

'Please tell me, Mr Gilpin.'

'It would appear, Fanny, that Mr Totton, your mother's father, as his second wife, married a certain Miss Seagull, of Lymington. The family is well known, as you may be aware, in the town.'

'My grandmother, the old lady who gave me this' - she fingered the wooden crucifix round her neck - 'was born Miss Seagull?'

'Yes.'

'Oh. Not of any gentle family, then. Hardly even respectable.'

'I'm sure she was respectable herself, Fanny, or Mr Totton your grandfather would not have married her.'

'Do you suppose' - she frowned - 'that Edward and Louisa know this?'

He smiled wryly. 'I have always supposed that the Tottons were pleased by their connection to the Albions. That is all they think of.'

'Perhaps the Seagulls ...'