‘Charlotte,’ he murmured, and a piercing flare ran to earth in her groin at this first use of her name. She desperately wanted to kiss and be kissed; at the same time that she was fighting so hard for breath, she was relieved to wait. But nothing compared with the relief of his mouth seeking hers, covering it, opening it, at last: it was this that she had been waiting for.

For long minutes she stood clasped in his embrace, head tilted back, returning the movements of his lips and tongue hesitantly at first, then with increasing greed and ardour, giving herself over to inhabitation only of that moment, and the next, and the next. She twined her arms around his back, his neck, almost sobbing as their bodies swayed.

At last they paused, drawing back slightly to scrutinise each other’s faces. And then Charlotte did what she had to do: she stepped out of the comfort of his arms, took another two steps back. Then another. They stared at each other wordlessly, the only sound their harsh breathing. Her eyes filling, she turned and stumbled away, her soul tearing.

And then, like Lot’s wife, she looked back.

CHAPTER XXXI

THE DAY DAWNED THAT WOULD bring the homecoming of the master of the house, and formality once again settled over Pemberley like starched linen. The girls were taken upstairs to eat in the nursery, while the adults donned evening dress and assembled for a rather more lavish meal than the ones they had grown accustomed to. Lizzy prepared to meet her husband dressed both fashionably and elegantly in a gown of green silk, wearing a choker of emeralds and a matching ornament in her hair, which her maid had piled into a heap of pomaded curls. Any other day, Charlotte would have felt drab and countrified by comparison; but she was still humming like a rung bell, richness emanating from within.

She had spent the day trying to make sense of her feelings and actions. She was almost dismayed by her lack of guilt. She was at last able to pinpoint her most acute sense of distress: it was the prospect of her husband and Jacob meeting and spending time together in company. Not, she discerned, from any alarm at the prospect of suspicion, much less outrage or disgrace: it was Herr Rosenstein’s judgement of Mr Collins she feared. She knew she would see no triumph on the musician’s face as he sat across from her husband at the dinner table, but she could not bear to see pity on her behalf.