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eye out, but the curious red-haired girl did not return. The house on Abbeygate Street was all in darkness when they entered. Richard lit a single candle to guide them up the stairs to the bedchamber, so Rachel could form no impression of her new home other than of a clinging coldness on the lower floor; narrow, creaking wooden stairs and a spacious but low-ceilinged upper room with a rumpled tester bed at its centre. The air smelled as though the windows had been a long time shut; the bed as though the sheets had been much slept upon. All of which is only the lack of a woman’s touch , Rachel assured herself. Richard put the candle down on the nightstand and came to stand opposite her at the foot of the bed. He laced their fingers together, swaying slightly on his feet; in the candle’s glow his face was soft and smiling. Rachel’s smile was more uncertain, and she wished then that she’d drunk more wine at dinner. She’d wanted to be fully aware of this night, of this crucial moment in her life. There were only her and Richard to remember it, after all, but now it came to it she was afraid and didn’t know what to do, and wished to be less aware than she was. Richard kissed her gently, opening her mouth with his, and Rachel waited to feel something other than the urge to recoil from the wine gone sour on his breath, and the taste of lamb grease on his lips. Mother did not love Father at first. And Father was a good man. Richard’s kisses grew harder, and more insistent, and soon he was pulling at her clothes.
    ‘Rachel, my sweet wife,’ he murmured, kissing her neck. Unsure how to behave, Rachel reached up and began to unpin her hair, as she normally would before bed. The pins pattered onto the floor as Richard swept her from her feet, and crumpled onto the bed on top of her.
    She would have liked more time to become acquainted with his body. The differences with her own intrigued her – the heft of it, the breadth of his shoulders, the fairness of his skin across which, she could just make out in the candlelight, freckles were scattered. He was so solid, so warm. She sank her fingers into the flesh of his upper arms, and pictured bones as thick and smooth as the mahogany arms of a chair. The weight of him pressed on her chest and made it hard to breathe. She would have liked to see the thing between his legs, to know how it behaved, to feel it with her fingers before it touched her elsewhere, but she had no chance to. Breathless and still muttering disjointed endearments, Richard pushed his way into her, remembering only too late to be gentle. He groaned as he moved, to and fro, and Rachel clasped his shoulders tightly, screwing her eyes tight shut at the discomfort and the strangeness of it. He is my husband. This is proper. She studied the sensation, which by the end was merely uncomfortable, and tried to feel satisfied that this was a duty done, a milestone reached. A pact sealed, irrevocably. I am his now , she thought, and only then realised how strange and limited a kind of freedom marriage might be.

1803
    When the sun was well risen on the second day, Starling was fed a breakfast of milk porridge sweetened with honey. She ate until her stomach was full to bursting. Outside, a weak and chilly sun lit the world. The starlings had flown from the horse chestnut tree, and a small flock of spotted white hens were scuffing their feet in the yard. They ate breakfast in the kitchen, where a fresh fire snapped in the hearth; sitting at a scrubbed and pitted oak table on benches that wobbled on the uneven floor. Alice was wearing a blue dress with a wide lace collar, a little frayed at the cuffs but still finer than anything Starling had ever seen up close before. The older woman, Bridget, wore brown wool, and an apron. Starling could not quite make out the bond between the two. They seemed to be young mistress and older servant, but then, they did not always speak to one another that way.
    ‘How old are you,