Stilled by the reminder of how little she knew above her husband’s life before he gave up his family name, Jane grieved at the volumes she learned from that single sentence. ‘But it cannot strike you as right. A father should be a source of comfort and a figure of respect.’

He set the boot neatly by the other, aligning the two with painstaking care. ‘ “Should” and “are” rarely match. My father commanded respect, certainly, and if the respect seemed to him to be lacking, then he . . . corrected us. But, as I have mentioned, I was not a nice boy, so I cannot doubt that it was justified.’ Vincent stood, one knee popping audibly. Rubbing his head until his brown curls stood out in a mane, he paced a little away from her. ‘I think only my sisters could be said to find anything like comfort with him, but the expectations for girls are not so exacting.’

‘Different perhaps, but no less rigorous for that.’ Jane remembered the hours she spent walking the length of their hall with a glass of water in her hand, trying to develop the smooth and easy stride her mother wished her to have. To walk to the end of the hall without spilling a drop seemed such a simple task, but it was one Jane never fully perfected. Her sister Melody had been so graceful she could almost skip with the glass. ‘Still, I cannot believe that my father would have treated a son so.’

‘Well . . .’ Vincent shook his head, cutting off the rest of his words. ‘Well, your father is an exemplary man, but I hope the comparison will not make you think ill of Bruno. Based on my friends’ accounts of their childhood, he is the more common model of father.’

Dismay crept by slow measure into Jane’s heart. She tried once more. ‘Not a model, never an exemplar. You – that is, if we were to have children . . .’

‘I would wish to follow your father’s example.’ He adjusted a curtain to let more light into the room, his back carefully to her. ‘Interesting. Bruno has set his students to creating a group glamour in the yard. Or, no, I am mistaken. They are practising passing threads from person to person at speed. It appears to be part game and part exercise.’