But now she was lying in bed, very pale, with her forehead and hands very hot and dry. She was moving restlessly on her pillow, seeking a cool spot to lay her head.

‘Lie still, Mama,’ I said, going to the bell-pull. ‘I’ll order a cold drink for you, and some warm water to sponge your forehead with. And I’ll have them fetch a doctor to see you.’

‘Oh, it’s you,’ she said in relief. ‘What a long time you have been with Dr Phillips today!’

I should have told her then that I had played truant that morning, but she seemed so wan and ill that I let the omission slip into a lie. I raised her up and turned the pillows and took one of the blankets off the bed, and then I went to the door to ask Meg for the things I needed and to send the footman out to the best doctor in Bath.


He came at once and felt Mama’s forehead and looked at her eyes and asked her how she felt. Then he smiled and said very soothingly that it was nothing more than a putrid sore throat, and that she would feel very ill indeed for a week or so, and then perfectly well. He gave her some laudanum and left a small bottle for the pain and to help her sleep, and he recommended lemon tea with a dash of brandy in it.

As soon as he had gone, I scribbled a note to James to ask him to come back and see me, if it was convenient, and one to Mrs Densham to make our excuses from her card party and dinner that afternoon.

James walked back with the footman and learned from him that my mama was ill. ‘Leave it to me,’ he said comfortably. ‘I’ll go to Jimmy Dart and the rest of them and get them moved into the inn. I’ll give them some money to be going along with, and I’ll have the landlady of the inn fetch a doctor for Rosie. You stay here and look after your mama, and I’ll drop in on my way home to tell you how I have done.’

Oh, thank you, James,’ I said, and put out my hand to him. ‘I knew you would. You are kind to interest yourself in them.’

He smiled. ‘I am interested in them,’ he conceded. ‘But I think I am more interested in you, Julia Lacey. Is your mama too ill for you to speak to her about us? I should like to speak to her as soon as possible.’

‘To ask for permission to propose?’ I asked, teasing. ‘You seem to have left it a little late for that!’

He drew me to him with an arm around my waist and turned my face up to him with his cupped hand under my chin. ‘Oh, my darling, you are very, very silly,’ he said softly. ‘I asked permission of your mama a week ago! I told my parents that I should propose to you whenever your mama had heard from Wideacre and given her consent. She told me last night as I took her to her chair that as far as she and your Uncle John were concerned, you might take or leave me as you wished.’

‘Oh!’ I said blankly. ‘She never said anything to me.’

‘Well, they all have this maggot in their heads, don’t they?’ said James easily. ‘They all want to know whether you can be an ordinary young lady or not. And they all think that unless you live elsewhere, you will be plagued with dreams and seeings and hobgoblins. I think they thought you would turn me down.’

‘I should hate to leave Wideacre altogether,’ I said, suddenly afraid that James might want me to live in his home town of Bristol.

‘I don’t see why you should leave it at all,’ James said. He sat down on a sofa by the fire and drew me down to sit beside him. ‘I have a substantial inheritance, which comes to me on my marriage. Why don’t we buy your cousin out of his share of the hall and live there? I could fancy being a country squire if Acre is as you describe it now!’

‘We couldn’t!’ I said, remembering Richard’s passion for the hall, and remembering with some discomfort the old childhood promise that we would marry and live there together.

‘If your cousin cares little for the stock and for farming, then I don’t see why we should not offer him a good price for his half,’ James said reasonably. ‘Or you could sell your share of the hall to him. We could build our own house, and farm your share of the land from there.’

I looked at him suspiciously. ‘You have been planning this!’ I accused. He drew me a little closer to him until it was most easy and comfortable to rest against him, and look up and smile into his warm brown eyes.

‘Of course I have!’ he said. ‘You didn’t think that I was going to take my lovely squire Julia and shut her up in a Bristol town house, did you? Of course I want you to have Wideacre. And I shall buy it for you.’

‘And the dreams and the seeings and the hobgoblins?’ I asked softly.

‘If you are mad, my darling, then I am moving into Bedlam at once,’ he said firmly and drew my face towards his and punctuated his sentence with small gentle kisses on my cheeks, my eyelids and my nose. ‘For you [kiss] are the sweetest [kiss] and the wisest [kiss] and the bravest [kiss] and the cleverest [kiss] and the angriest [kiss, kiss] young woman I have ever had the pleasure of kissing while her mama is too ill to chaperon us!’

I leaped to my feet at that, gasped, blushed and then laughed. Oh, that is dreadful!’ I said. ‘And I am dreadful to be sitting here with you. And you, James Fortescue, are no gentleman at all!’

‘I know,’ he said mournfully. ‘Trade, my dear. Only the first generation out of the counting-house and still smelling of shop!’

‘You do indeed,’ I said firmly. ‘Now go and run my errands for me, and don’t come and see me again without one of your sisters to sit with us.’

‘I should think they would bless me for that,’ James said as I pushed him out of the room to find Meg industriously polishing the table in the hall.

‘I shall shout through the keyhole that I have the children from Acre safe,’ James said. ‘Or sing it up to your window. Anything rather than be alone with you again. Will you come to dinner tonight?’

‘No,’ I said while Meg dawdled over handing James his cape, hat and gloves. ‘I have written to your aunt. I shall stay at home with Mama.’

‘I’ll go back home to Clifton then,’ James said. ‘I want to have a word with my papa. He’ll want to know his son has joined the minor gentry.’

‘Minor!’ I said in mock outrage.

‘A very little estate,’ James said dampeningly, ‘and scarcely a dowry at all, I understand.’

I gleamed at him. ‘Not bad for a tradesman’s son,’ I said.

‘Not bad at all,’ he said with satisfaction. ‘Thank you, Meg,’ he said as he took his hat from her, and then he stepped forward and kissed me on the lips and was out of the door and down the steps before I could say a word.

‘Congratulations, Miss,’ Meg said, reverently shutting the door behind him. ‘Cook will be so surprised.’

And she was away down to the kitchen quarters before I could ask her not to tell them in the kitchen, because I had not even told my own mama yet, nor my uncle. Nor had I written to my cousin.

I should have written to Uncle John and Richard that very day, but Mama awoke from her sleep so hot and so feverish that I sat with her all the afternoon and barely had time to dash off a note to Ralph Megson telling him that I would send the Acre pauper children home to Wideacre as soon as I had confirmation from him.

I waited for his reply; and I nursed my mama. I did not leave her bedroom for more than a few minutes for my meals, or for a little rest in the afternoon when Marianne or Mrs Densham came to sit with my mama. James called every day with flowers for Mama or wonderful out-of-season fruit. She did not seem to be getting worse, so I did not write to Uncle John to bid him come to us; but as the doctor had predicted, she was very ill indeed.

I learned to love James very well during those days. Every day he came with a posy for me as well as for Mama; and his family did his bidding and offered every help they could to make Mama’s illness and my nursing easier. He was a very comfortable person. He was easy to be with, he had no moods, no storms of introspection. James was as blessedly open and as contented as a well-loved child. He cared for me well. He teased me and laughed at me; but when I was tired, he would ask Marianne to play the pianoforte for us so that we could sit side by side on the sofa in silence. In those gentle afternoons he would draw my head down to rest on his shoulder, and on one occasion I slept.

‘You snored,’ he said provokingly as he was leaving.

‘I never did!’ I protested. ‘I never snore!’

His eyes crinkled in his familiar loving smile. ‘Well, I’ll soon know, won’t I?’ he asked in a voice as soft and as warm as a caress. ‘When you and I sleep together in the same bed, every night of our lives.’

My cheeks warmed with a blush at that, but I held his gaze. ‘I should like that,’ I said honestly.


James sighed very softly and bent and kissed me gently and was gone.

Every time he came he brought me a little gift, a bunch of flowers or a single unseasonal daisy from his garden at Bristol. One day he brought me a hoop and a stick.

‘I thought we should take some exercise,’ he said innocently. And despite my protestations, he took me out to the park and we bowled the hoop down the paths, weak with laughter, while the old Bath tabbies looked at us askance.

Every time he left he kissed me. He kissed, with meticulous care, the fingertips of both hands, then the two thumbs, and then finally, as light as the brush of a feather, he kissed me on the mouth.

Every time except once, when Marianne had forgotten her reticule and he came back inside to fetch it. I had gone to the drawing-room window to wave goodbye, and when the door opened, I spun around in surprise. He crossed the room in a few swift strides and caught me into his arms without saying a word. He held me so hard that I could scarcely breathe and he covered my face with kisses and then buried his face into the warmth of my neck and sniffed at my skin hungrily.