'You can't imagine! He's a skilful fellow, though, is Daffy; that must be said. He's got a knack with the knife and the needle. Thomas couldn't manage without him.'

Mary worked on beside Mrs. Jones for a minute, her glossy head bent over her sewing. 'Nowadays, though,' she asked, 'has Cadwaladyr any ... do you think he might ever take a second wife?'

'Not at all.' Mrs. Jones was amused at the idea.

'Or would he ever...' The girl blushed faintly. 'You know, go with a bad woman. Like Sally Mole, while she was alive.'

Mrs. Jones gave her maid a stern look. 'Mary, how can you say such a thing of our curate, a man of God!'

'I just wondered,' said the girl a little sulkily.

'You can tell just by looking at Joe Cadwaladyr, the thing's impossible,' said Mrs. Jones, more gently. 'The whiff of loneliness comes off him like ... onion.'

The maid nodded thoughtfully. Then, with one of those swerving changes of subject, she said, 'There's something I must admit to you, madam.'

'What is it?' asked Mrs. Jones, concerned.

'When I came away from London in such a hurry, I left ... something owing.'

'Debts, Mary?' Mrs. Jones's hand froze over the velvet hem.

'Just one,' said the girl rapidly. 'Rent ... In her sickness, you know, my mother couldn't help but run into arrears, and our landlady at Charing Cross...' Her voice trailed off.

'You mean she wouldn't forgive the debt of a dying woman?' asked Mrs. Jones, appalled.

Mary shook her head slowly.

'How much is it, child?'

'Near a pound.' It came out in a whisper. 'I knew it was wicked to rush off without paying, but I couldn't think where else to turn but to you. Only, now the sum is preying on my mind-'

'Of course,' murmured Mrs. Jones.

'-or, I mean to say, on my conscience. I can't rest till I send it back to the landlady.'

What a jewel this girl was, thought the mistress. Just fifteen years old, but the wisdom of twice that.

Mary's voice was faltering. 'So I wondered if you might possibly ... advance it on my wages?'

'Well, now,' dithered Mrs. Jones. 'It's not the usual thing, you know, Mary. Nothing till the end of the year, is the rule. I don't know what Thomas would say.'

The girl nodded miserably.

Delight bubbled up in Mrs. Jones; she knew what she was going to do. She leaned closer and murmured in the girl's ear. 'But I have a little fund for emergencies, look you, and if I advanced you the money out of that, there'd be no need to trouble Thomas with the matter at all, would there?'

A smile flashed, quick as a fish.

'That's what we'll do, then, Mary. You won't need to fret anymore. It'll be our wee secret.'

The girl grabbed Mrs. Jones's fingertips and kissed them. Her mouth was hot and soft as a child's.

This time Mary told the drawer-boy at the Crow's Nest to fetch his master and no dawdling. As soon as Cadwaladyr stepped up to the bar, she moved into the light. Yes, it was true, she thought, examining his tired eyes; apart from her, he probably hadn't touched a woman in twenty years. Which meant that if he had indeed picked up an itch, it was from her, and there was no point bluffing.

'So it's you again,' he said, 'the innocent maiden.' His vowels stretched with contempt.

Mary wet her lips with her tongue and said, in a murmur that was barely audible, 'We both did what we oughtn't, Reverend.'

'I'm only Reverend on Sundays,' he said warningly, drawing his tufted eyebrows together; 'here I'm the Master.'

'Well, any rate,' she said soothingly. 'It's not a bad clap you've got; it's the kind that cures itself pretty fast. So I'll say nothing if you'll swear to the same,' she suggested.

At that the man smiled grimly, and leaned on his fists on the bar. 'Our cases aren't alike. My parishioners must already know that I'm a man of flesh and blood. Do your masters know you're a whore?'

Mary shut her eyes for a second. The word winded her; it had been so long since she'd even heard it.

His voice came closer; his breath smelled of strong beer. 'Jane Jones, of all the women in the world you might have taken advantage of! How would she like to know what kind of slut she's let into her home?'

Anger came up in Mary's chest like heartburn; if she'd had a knife in her pocket, it would have been in her hand by now. But she opened her eyes and saw how old this man was. How much he needed to punish her: not for the clap, nor the money, but for the night on a stinking mattress in Coleford when she'd played the virgin and fooled him into feeling young and dangerous again. 'Please, sir,' she said with difficulty. 'Please. I need to keep my place.'

He folded his arms more tightly. 'I've thought of a way you could repay me,' he offered.

'Yes?' she asked, curious. Maybe she would get to hold on to the money in her pocket after all.

He nodded towards a little group of drinkers in the darkest corner of the inn. 'There was a traveller asking for a girl, tonight, and I told him there was no one since Sally Mole.'

Mary met his level gaze, waiting for it.

'Sally used to take them to a room over the stable.' He jerked his head. 'The stairs are round the back.'

He just wanted to humiliate her. She should have known.

'A shilling a go to you, the same to me,' he added lightly. 'At that rate it wouldn't take you too many nights to pay off the pound you owe me.'

Mary allowed her lip to curl. She took enormous pleasure in scooping the coins out of her hanging pocket and sliding them across the sticky bar. 'You're too kind, but there's no need. Here's your money, Reverend.'

His eyes went wide with surprise. She picked up her lantern and Mrs. Jones's cider and stalked out.

Daffy was leaning against a post with his hands in his pockets. He watched Mary emerge from the tavern; the door banged shut behind her. Her colour was up; it must have been the heat from the fire.

When she caught sight of him she leapt, and almost spilled the cider. 'My god, man, what are you doing skulking about here?'

'Waiting for you,' he said, slightly offended. 'It's a dark night; I thought you could do with company home.' He took the lantern from her and opened the glass to trim the flame.

'Why, thank you, then,' said Mary, almost meekly. She took his elbow before he offered it, and they set off up Grinder Street.

He tried to think of an interesting topic of conversation to propose, but for once his mind was entirely blank.

'That's not a bad alehouse your father runs,' Mary remarked.

Daffy let out an inarticulate puff of contempt.

'You don't think so?'

When the words came they were like a swarm. 'It's the same as it was in my grandfather's day, and his granda's before him,' he told her. 'The man hasn't expanded, or improved, or so much as whitewashed the place in twenty years!'

'Would you?'

She had a way of cutting to the meat of things that took him aback. He thought for a moment, then said, 'Probably not. Pulling pints is a low business, whitewash it or not.'

'Lower than being a manservant?'

He flashed her a look, but she was only teasing. 'That's my father's argument,' he told her. 'He still thinks I'm going to crawl home in the hopes of someday owning that sodden barn. He says no son and heir of his should follow another man's orders. But what he doesn't see,' Daffy added eagerly, 'is that my aims are high.' The girl's smile was wide and shiny. He felt tempted to go on. 'I'm more an apprentice to Mr. Jones than a mere servant, you know; I made most of that last pair of stays for the Widow Vaughan myself.'

'Did you really?'

'And I've done a couple of very plain pairs for a Quaker family. Besides, trade will expand with the town, it's sure to. We get more visitors of quality every winter; Monmouth is becoming the regular stopping-place after Bath. I tell you, Mary, one of these years there'll be a sign hung up that says, Davyd Cadwaladyr, Master Staymaker Davyd Cadwaladyr, Master Staymaker!'

She was laughing, a low gurgle in her throat. He flung her arm away from him as if it were a snake. She stopped in her tracks, there, at the corner of Inch Lane.

'Mock all you like,' he said, his voice ragged.

'Oh, Daffy, I wasn't laughing at you,' the girl said, soft and serious. 'Only at your ... passion.'

He shrugged, then folded his arms. 'My future is a matter of some importance to me,' he said stiffly. 'What else should I spend my passion on?'

In the lantern light, her mouth was pursed up like a tight little rosebud. 'On Gwyneth, for instance.'

'Ah. No,' he said, finding it surprisingly easy to bring out the words. 'We're not to marry, after all.'

Mary's eyebrows shot up. 'But the mistress told me you've been walking out for years.'

'Well, my cousin is promised to a pig-gelder now,' he said, 'and there's an end to the matter.' As he said it, he almost believed it.

'No!' she said, narrowing her black eyes at him.

'I don't blame the girl,' he said lightly. 'Her family can barely feed themselves, and I'm in no position to marry yet. Who could blame her for trying for a better life?'

They turned down Wye Street in silence. The moon was enormous, and bright blossoms loomed out of the darkness. On a tree, narrow buds like fingernails clutched the sky; Daffy reached for one, and it pricked like a needle. It seemed to him that there was some urgency in the air, but then he always felt like that in February: a sense of something breaking out through his skin.

On Inch Lane Mary stopped, with her hand on the front door, and said, 'Truthfully, you know, I wasn't mocking your ambitions.'

He nodded in acknowledgement.

'I have a few of my own,' she added.

Her tone was curiously discreet; not one he'd ever heard from her before. Daffy craned his neck to watch as she disappeared up the narrow stairs.

'Go on, do it today,' Mary told Abi as they were dressing that morning.

'Don't know.'

'What are you so afraid of?' asked Mary, lacing up the older woman's leather stays at the back.

Abi shrugged. 'You trouble,' she murmured as she climbed into the brown holland skirt that Mary had reversed and hemmed for her. The girl let out a roar of laughter.

Abi had spent a fortnight thinking about it, but it still made her break out in a sweat along her hairline as she stood kneading bread on the kitchen table. All she knew was that to ask for something was to show a weakness: a back bared to the whip.

'Mistress,' she said quietly as Mrs. Jones bustled out of the pantry, wiping her hands on her apron.

Mrs. Jones spoke distractedly. 'Those meat dumplings are quite dried up, Abi, I fear we must throw them out.'

'Yes, mistress. But please?'

'What is it, then, Abi?'

The maid-of-all-work looked down at her hands, covered in dough to the wrist. She spoke through a tightened throat. 'I think. Wonder. I hear-' And then she broke off. She couldn't mention Mary's name; that would be tale-bearing of the worst kind. On the plantation, you could end up with your throat cut in your sleep for that.

'Come now, tell me what's the matter,' said the mistress with gentle impatience. 'Is it about the dumplings?'

Abi shook her head. 'Some say-' she began again. And then, with a sudden bluntness, 'I want wages.'

'Oh, my dear.' Mrs. Jones blinked at her. A long pause stretched between them. 'This is unexpected, Abi. After all the years you've been with us. Are you not content in our family?'

Abi made a painful shrug.

'What is it you lack? Tell me. Is it a new dress you'd like, for Easter? I never thought you cared about such things.'

She shook her head violently. 'Wages,' she repeated, as if it were a magic word.

'But what for, exactly? I mean, to buy what with?' Getting no answer, Mrs. Jones rushed on: 'You know you're still not used to our money, my dear. Remember that time you got tricked out of a whole shilling for that old slice of salt pork?'

Abi bit down on her lip. She knew it: all she'd brought down on herself was disaster. That whoreson of a butcher, she remembered him now. It was her first year in Monmouth, and when she'd asked for her change he'd denied she'd given him any more than thrupence. 'I said sorry.'

'Indeed you did, and it's all long gone and forgotten,' Mrs. Jones told her, patting Abi's floury elbow.

The maid's voice was hoarse with frustration. 'I just want some wages.'