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only half listening.
    Instead of going back to her work, she hovered at the back door, watching the stable boy as he worked.
    “Don’t think we don’t know who you’re looking at,” Martha said over her shoulder.
    Annie started and turned to face her. “And why shouldn’t I?” she said, returning to the kitchen and pausing to glance in the greasy piece of mirror that sat above the sink. She tucked her hair in tidily, and set her cap on her head at a more flirtatious angle. At least as flirtatious as a housemaid’s cap could be. Martha nudged her out of the way to tumble the potatoes into the sink.
    “Give over yer primping,” she scoffed. “He won’t be interested in you.”
    “Want to bet?” Annie patted her hair and gave a little twirl. She didn’t look so bad, she thought. She might not be a beauty like Rose, but she had a pretty nose and hardly any freckles. She glanced at the clock. She could steal five minutes just to pop over and say hello to him.
    “Annie, love, a lad like that has his pick of the ladies.”
    “And he won’t pick you, that’s for sure!” Annie tossed over her shoulder as she went out into the courtyard. She held her head high and walked with a swing in her step toward the stables. Now that Rose wasn’t here, Annie was certainly the prettiest of the housemaids. There was no reason the new stable boy wouldn’t be interested in taking her to the fair.
    She reached the stables and peeped coyly round the door. The boy was at the far end of the stable, filling the rack with hay. He didn’t look up as she came closer. Annie cleared her throat, making him look up.
    “Hello,” she said with a smile.
    The boy grunted a greeting and went back to pitching hay. Annie gazed at his arms. They were like wood, she thought, like carved, hard oak.…
    “Got something to say to me?” he asked.
    “Oh!” Annie started and blushed. “I just thought I’d come over and say hello. You know what with you being new and all. What’s your name?”
    “Tobias.”
    Annie waited for him to ask hers, but he didn’t. She went on: “Up from the West Country, are you?”
    Tobias looked up for the first time, and smiled. Annie’s knees weakened. He had the whitest teeth she’d ever seen.
    “I am.”
    “You can hear it in your voice, it’s like cream and honey,” Annie fluttered, then blushed as she heard herself.
    Tobias’s smile broadened and he set the hayfork to one side. He brushed the hay from his hands and walked unhurriedly toward her. Annie felt her face turning bright red. She couldn’t stop staring at him. His skin was the same golden color as the hay.
    “Just a social call, is it?”
    “Y-yes.” Her voice had gone squeaky; she hastily brought it down. “Yes.” Too low, she sounded like a man. She swallowed and started again. “Some of us are going to the fair this evening and I just wondered, I thought maybe, since you’re new—” This was all going wrong. “If you’d like to come with us?” Her voice ended up squeaky again.
    “I see.” He was standing so close to her that she could smell the clean sweat on him. “That’s a kind offer…”
    “Annie.”
    “Annie, of course. Only I won’t be taking you up on it.”
    Annie fell silent in disappointment. Tobias nodded toward a beam, where Annie now saw a photograph of a young lady that had been propped against a nail. Annie took it in at one glance; the elegant clothes, the gloves, the feathered hat, the large dark eyes, the small mouth parted in a smile to show teeth as white as the pearls on Lady Edith’s best brooch…and the complete absence of a maid’s uniform.
    “See her? This is my young lady,” Tobias announced. “She works in the haberdasher’s in the village. Miss Sadie Billesley is her name.”
    Annie made no answer, but she had the feeling that someone had upset a jug of iced water in her insides.
    “I’ll be going to the fair with her. So can you think of any reason why I might go with a servant