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and Edie was a better mistress of herself when called upon to serve the other courses. She was thankful to be at the end of the table furthest from the family, able to watch them without having to get too near.
    Lady Mary sulked about coming back from the London season too early and missing the best closing balls, while Lord Deverell heavy-handedly reminded her that there was a good reason for that, which made her sulk all the more.
    Edie exchanged a look with Jenny that asked, ‘What reason?’ Jenny responded with a tiny shrug.
    Conversation was far from lively. Sir Charles occasionally attempted to stir things up with a sly barb or two, but nobody seemed to be in sufficient spirits to react in the way he wanted. Sir Thomas barely spoke at all, glaring down at his plate as if he saw the face of a mortal enemy in it.
    Edie was lulled by the low murmurs, the scraping of knives and forks on fine china, the low light and the ambient warmth into a kind of daze. Her legs and feet ached and her head was so fuzzy now. She had been awake since five o’clock in the morning and she had walked as many miles inside the house as she had outside it.
    Could they not just finish their meal quickly and let her go to bed?
    Through half-shut eyes, she saw the red-gold glow of Lady Deverell and the gleam of Sir Charles’s teeth, dangerously bared. Points of light from various gems danced across the walls and ceilings behind them. The wallpaper pattern was a repetitive curl of red and gold, a curiously soothing thing to look at. She fixed her attention on it, lulled, comforted. She leant back against the door jamb, feeling her legs twitch a little and then …
    A kick on her shin.
    ‘Keep upright,’ hissed Jenny.
    She had been on the point of falling asleep where she stood, like a horse. How did anyone live this life without doing so all the time? And this was only her first day.
    Somehow she dragged her body through pudding, but it was still another half-hour before the ladies retired to the drawing room.
    She swooped forwards to take the dishes downstairs for the last time. Gathering the last of them up, she made the mistake of looking again at Sir Charles, who was smiling at her as he poured himself a brandy. The smile struck Edie as predatory and she made a hasty escape to the kitchen, feeling like one of the grouse they had spoken of shooting at.
    ‘Told you,’ said Jenny at the bottom of the staircase. ‘He’s got an eye for you already. Watch yourself, girl.’
    ‘I don’t want to watch anything,’ said Edie, stacking the dishes up by the sink, thanking her lucky stars that she wouldn’t be washing them. ‘I want to shut my eyes and fall into my bed.’
    ‘Aren’t you coming for a game of cards in the kitchen?’
    ‘I simply can’t. I’m half asleep already.’
    ‘Fair enough. Sweet dreams, then. I hope they won’t be of
him
. I don’t want to see you go Susie’s way.’
    ‘I won’t.’
    * * *
    Edie’s dreams were of nothing, or, if they had substance, it soon melted from her memory. Her first consciousness was of a foreign place, a bed too hard, a pillow too flat, and a peculiar smell of other bodies and their exhalations.
    She was the only one abed. The other three girls were dressing already, yawning and tying each other’s apron laces.
    The rain still beat dully against the little square-paned window and somebody had thought to light a candle, even though the summer dawn had broken half an hour since.
    Edie had never risen this early, save on a handful of special occasions, and she bitterly resented having to leave the warmth of her bed to engage in a day of more hard and mystifying work.
    The girls seemed disinclined to talk, going about their morning ablutions in pale-faced trances. The memory of Charles and Lady Deverell at last night’s dinner hit Edie once more – a big, nauseating blow. Why had she been so stupid as to get herself noticed? All she had had to do was serve some soup, for heaven’s