‘I suppose I am. At least, a little.’

‘Why?’

‘There are times I wish I’d acted differently,’ I said. ‘I’m not entirely proud of who I once was, or what that person did.’

‘That doesn’t sound unusual. We all have regrets.’

‘Tell me yours.’

We were greeted by another couple walking in the opposite direction. I smiled and wondered how we looked to them. With every step we were further from the centre of Drekenford, leaving shops for houses, and heading east along the valley.

‘Matherson,’ she said, ‘I regret leaving him.’

That pricked me somewhat, but I pushed those feelings away; the man was dead. ‘There was nothing you could have done.’

‘That’s not what I mean.’

The road was beginning to gradually slope upwards, and take us out of the town completely. We were now among carts rather than fellow amblers, but if Rebecca cared she showed no sign.

‘I loved him, but he scared me.’

‘Scared you? Did he threaten you? Hit you?’

She stopped. ‘No! Look at you, with your hackles up; there’s nothing here that needs defending.’

‘Then…?’

‘I was scared for the same reason I was in love: it was what he made possible. That I might leave here and never return.’

‘What was so frightening about that?’

She looked up at me, incredulous. ‘Well, everything.’

‘But he was stationed at Fort Seeben, wasn’t he?’

‘He was offered commissions elsewhere. At first he refused, for my sake, but that could only last so long. In the end, I was the strong one. In the end, it didn’t matter. I could have been with him.’

‘You couldn’t have known what would happen,’ I said, holding her hands in mine.

‘That’s the great comedy of it all, isn’t it? To think we could change things if we’d just made different choices.’

‘Different isn’t always better.’

‘What of you, then?’ she said. ‘What do you feel that you shouldn’t?’

I set us walking again – it was not a conversation for standing, and I doubted I could look her in the eye the whole time. To tell it entirely would need more of the day than we had left to hike up the valley and beyond. But I did tell it. Penelope, my first love, a young woman of much higher standing. She kissed me, being much more versed in such things, but her brother saw us. It was some time before her reputation recovered.

‘And what would you have done, Alexsander? Refused her kiss?’ Rebecca said lightly.

‘Refused her invitation to the greenhouse entirely!’

‘Come now, we don’t have time for every one of your misdemeanours.’

But the first set the mould for all the rest.

As we wandered further I told her of my other significant dalliances. Marta, an older woman who ran her own tailors. Katarina, a scullery maid who grew roses that were the envy of the whole city. Simple Jacquelyn, who understood less of love than I, but felt it twice as strong. And lastly Clarissa. A woman I hardly knew, but we shared a number of mutual friends who were keen to see us both settled. She was a widower, and comfortably so, but friends will meddle regardless.