She stopped, sure that her heart had missed a beat.

‘Did I startle you?’ Mrs Hart asked, she was sitting in a chair before the fire.

‘No … sorry,’ Lou said. ‘I just wasn’t expecting to find anyone still awake.’

‘And I didn’t expect someone to come creeping into the house in the dead of night.’

‘I … I –’

‘You don’t have to explain yourself to me.’ Mrs Hart took a decanter from a side table and poured a healthy slug of brandy into two glasses. ‘Join me,’ she said.

Lou sat in the chair beside her. She rested against the warm leather, waiting for Mrs Hart to mention George. Instead, she picked up her glass and indicated for Lou to do the same.

‘Down the hatch,’ Mrs Hart said and knocked the drink back in one. She let out a sigh and refilled her glass.

Lou watched the flames sprout from the coals. She clutched her drink and let her eyelids close.

‘I understand you are leaving us tomorrow,’ Mrs Hart said.Lou’s eyes snapped open.

‘You mustn’t be cross with Sally,’ Mrs Hart added. ‘She thought a member of the family ought to know. Besides, I had already been alerted by another source. Bertie told me this afternoon that he had been told to put your dolly away. When I asked him by whom, he couldn’t say.’

‘I’m sorry I didn’t tell you in person that I was leaving. It all happened so quickly.’

‘At least the forewarning of your departure means we will have the opportunity to say goodbye.’

‘Unlike when Elizabeth left.’

‘Yes, unlike when Elizabeth left,’ Mrs Hart said. The brandy in her glass quivered as she put it to her lips.

It’s now or never. ‘If I knew something,’ she began. ‘If I could tell you something about Elizabeth. If I had found something out –’

‘Please don’t continue, Louisa. I mustn’t know anything about the world beyond this world. Beyond my world. No matter how much you might want to tell me. No matter how much I might want to hear of it.’ Mrs Hart laughed sadly. ‘I have spent most of my adult life railing against any form of oppression or suppression. Yet, here I sit, forcing you to keep the truth from me because I must protect this house. Do you not see the hypocrisy?’

‘It’s not hypocrisy, if you’re doing it for the right reasons.’

Mrs Hart smiled. ‘Ever the diplomat, Louisa. Ever the diplomat. But you mustn’t mind me. I’m not quite myself. I’m afraid you’ve come upon me on my least favourite evening of the year.’

Lou picked at a seam in the arm of the chair. This was fast becoming her least favourite night of the year too. One of them, anyway.

‘It was a constant source of amusement to my husband – knowing how much I disliked this time of year – that we first met at my mother’s Christmas Eve Ball. Years after our first meeting, Frederick told me that he fell in love with me on the spot, because while all the other young women seemed so gay, I hid in a corner like a storm cloud, frightening away any man who might have asked me to dance. Fred always relished a challenge. What a sentimental, foolish man, he was.’ Mrs Hart laughed as though at a private joke. ‘He was already a captain in the cavalry then, and being an eighteen-year-old fledgling revolutionary, I felt honour-bound to dislike him. When he proposed marriage to me that same New Year’s Day, I refused outright. It was a ridiculous proposal. I hardly knew the man!’ Shadows lengthened across Mrs Hart’s face. ‘I’m sure you’re not interested in these ramblings of an old lady.’