‘You might get fat but you’ll never be ugly,’ Ruffy had admonished her. ‘And just think how lovely it will be when you hold your first baby in your arms.’

Louisa had scowled. ‘When it’s born, I shall hand it straight over to a wet nurse,’ she’d declared petulantly. ‘Babies are such noisy, dirty little things. A friend of Mama’s called on us for afternoon coffee with her new baby and its nanny once, and it didn’t stop crying the whole time she was there. And her nanny had to take it away to change its bindings.’ She had shuddered with disgust as Ruffy grinned.

‘Hm, let’s just wait and see how you feel once the bairn is here,’ Ruffy had replied with a secret smile as if she knew something that Louisa didn’t. But that day had never dawned, for three months into the pregnancy Louisa started to bleed and lost the child. The same thing happened twice more over the next two years and then she had managed to carry two babies to full term but they were both born dead. Barnaby had been heartbroken, whilst she herself was indifferent. And now here she was in the same position yet again and clearly none too happy about it.

‘I think I shall take Tumble for a little wander around the lawns,’ Louisa said as she planted an affectionate kiss on the dog’s head. Like his mistress, he was very spoilt. He had been a wedding gift from Barnaby along with an amethyst necklace that Louisa favoured above all her other much more expensive jewellery. Ruffy nodded indulgently as her mistress placed the little dog on the floor and headed for the door, collecting her sun parasol on the way.

Minutes later as she watched them from the bedroom window Ruffy frowned. Would her young mistress be lucky this time and finally give the master the child he so longed for? she wondered. There could be no way of knowing, it was all in the lap of the Gods now, so with a sigh she turned to tackle the piles of clothes that Louisa had strewn about the place when she had been trying to decide what to wear.