Free Meridon (Wideacre Trilogy 3) by Philippa Gregory

being up high and swinging from some perilous rope. But her eyes were shining. ‘And I get a short costume!’ she exclaimed.
    ‘One that shows your pretty legs!’ Robert confirmed, smiling at her. ‘Dandy, my girl, you were born a whore!’
    ‘With sequins,’ she stipulated.
    ‘Is it safe?’ I interrupted. ‘How will she ever learn to do it?’
    ‘We’ve got the act from Bristol coming to stay with us. He’llteach Dandy, and Jack as well, how it’s done. You’ll learn too, my girl, see if we can conquer that fear of yours. An act with two girls up on the swings would be grand.’
    The mouthful I had just swallowed came up from my belly into my throat again and I choked and retched and then pushed away from the table and bolted for the door. I was sick outside, vomiting the bread and cheese under the front wheel. I waited until I was steady and then I came in again, white faced, to where they were waiting, staring at me in amazement.
    ‘Were you sick at the thought of it?’ Robert demanded. He was so stunned he had forgotten to eat and was still holding his bread in mid air. ‘Was that it, lass? Or are you ill?’
    ‘I am not ill,’ I said. The metalic slick in my mouth made me swallow and reach for my mug of small ale. ‘I’m not ill in myself,’ I said. ‘But the thought of having to go up high on one of those things does make me ill. I am sick with fright.’
    Jack looked at me with interest. ‘Well that’s an odd thing,’ he said unsympathetically. ‘I’d never have thought Meridon was nervy. But she’s as missish as a lady.’
    ‘Leave her be,’ Dandy said calmly. ‘You leave her be, Robert. I’m happy to learn how to do it. And if I am doing the Aerial Act you’ll need Meridon to do the horses. She can’t do both.’
    ‘Maybe not,’ Robert said half convinced. ‘And if the worst comes to the worst I could always buy a poorhouse girl and have her trained.’
    I gulped again, thinking of the girl straight out of the workhouse in conditions worse than a prison and up a ladder to swing on a trapeze. But I nodded to Robert. I had no sympathy to waste on a stranger. I had no tenderness to spare. There was only one person in the world for me, and she was happy.
    ‘Yes, you do that,’ I said. ‘You know I’d try anything with the horses. But I cannot go up a ladder.’
    Robert smiled. ‘You’re to give it a try,’ he said firmly. ‘A fair try. No one will force you to go up high but you’ll wait and see the swing before you make up your mind, Meridon.’
    ‘I’ll have too much to do with the horses,’ I said defensively. ‘I can’t be a bareback rider and swing on a trapeze.’
    ‘Jack will,’ he said. ‘You can too. I give you my word, Meridon; I won’t force you, but you’re to give it a try. That’s fair.’
    It was not fair, but I had reached the hard core in Robert where he would not be moved.
    ‘All right,’ I said sullenly. ‘I promise I’ll try, and you promise that if I can’t do it, you get someone else in.’
    ‘Good girl,’ he said as though I had agreed rather than been forced into it. ‘And you’ll have plenty of learning with the horses. I’ll have you dancing bareback, aye, and going through a hoop of fire before the next season.’
    I thought that was ambitious and I glanced at Jack but he had never in his life spoken one word against his father.
    ‘Can I learn it that quick?’ I asked.
    ‘Going to have to, lass,’ Robert replied with finality. ‘I’m not housing you and feeding you all winter for love of your green eyes. You’re going to work for your living at Warminster as you do now. Training the horses, and learning a bareback act, and doing what the trapeze man tells you. And you, miss,’ he turned sharply to Dandy. ‘You will get yourself off to a wise woman in the village and have her tell you about how to avoid getting a belly on you. I’m not spending a fortune training you how to swing from a trapeze to see you up there fat