But then came my great setback. The heat of the afternoon one Sunday forced us to come indoors from the garden. Everyone was arguing over which room downstairs would be coolest for our Bible reading. As they tried out one room and then another, I ran upstairs to use the privy in the tiny closet off our maidens’ chamber.

Before I had finished, though, I heard Katherine and one of the other girls entering the room, clearly thinking themselves to be alone. I dared not step forth once they had begun to converse.

“Little Carrot Top has left her things in a mess again, I see!” called out Juliana, and I had a horrible feeling that she might have been fiddling or tweaking with my bedcovers or my underclothes. I must admit I had left them in some disorder.

“Quite! She thinks that she’s far too good for the rest of us,” came Katherine’s languid reply. “What a lazy little snob! She thinks she’s so grand that she doesn’t need to keep her stuff tidy, but the funniest thing is that she doesn’t realise what a comical rustic she sounds like, with her north country accent.”

My hands clenched themselves into fists, and the pit of my belly dropped down towards the floor. While I had warmed to Anne Sweet and even sometimes to Alice, I wasn’t sure what to think about Katherine, our natural leader. I hid my feelings behind a mask of hostility, but in truth, I found her glamorous. Secretly, I would have liked sometimes to be petted and made much of by her, as Anne often was.

“It’s hilarious to hear her prattling endlessly about that ratty old castle of hers, all in the tongue of a farmhand,” said Juliana.

“And then she follows Master Manham round like a sad little spaniel,” said Katherine, beginning to laugh. “I’m sure he doesn’t notice, but it’s so humiliating. It would be a kind deed to tell her. I’m almost tempted to teach her a lesson myself.”

How unfair! I nearly burst out of the privy to have it out with her, but then I remembered how dreadful it would be if they knew that I was eavesdropping. In my uncertainty, I shifted upon my seat and a floorboard groaned. It sounded as loud as a cannon. I froze.

Luckily, the stable lads chose that moment to bring one of the horses into the yard below our window, and the distracting noises from outside saved me from detection.

“Indeed, she thinks she knows it all!” Katherine now ran on. “But I know for a fact that despite her talk of grand marriages and alliances, she understands nothing about how to win a husband and make him happy.”

I frowned.

I had to admit to myself that my habit of showing off about my family’s grandeur was unattractive.

But I also wondered if there were some arcane lessons in making a man fall in love with you that Katherine and the older girls had learned, and that I had not. Perhaps these were the lessons given privately by the duchess herself, in the evenings after dinner, when only a few chosen older girls were invited to withdraw with her into her own chamber.

At the same time, though, I was relieved to hear Katherine and Juliana clattering out of the room in their leather slippers, with the workbox or book or whatever it was they had sought, and slamming the door behind them. I crept out of my humiliating hiding place and lay down upon the unmade nest of my bed.

What does she know, anyway? I thought. I rolled on my side, letting a hot tear spill down my cheek and soak into my pillow. I bet I do know more than her about how to make a man happy.

While all the girls claimed to be passionately in love with Master Manham, our music master, I had reason to believe that among all the girls at Trumpton, he liked me best of all.