“Don’t you dare take offence. What I’m about to tell you, I’ve told not another soul. If you will pour me another cup of tea and cut me just a tiny sliver of cake, I will reveal all.”

To her relief, Louise smiled, albeit reluctantly, and reached for the tea-pot. “Go on, then.”

“AND THERE YOU HAVE IT,” Margaret concluded, sometime later, her tea cold and her cake untouched. “I’m sorry. I’ve not let you get a word in.”

“My goodness, M., but you are a dark horse. I had not an inkling of any of this. To think that you have been spending every spare minute rubbing shoulders with heaven knows who and catching heaven knows what—” Louise broke off, shaking her head. “I sincerely hope that you douse yourself in vinegar when you return home. And the smells! You have a nose like a bloodhound, too. How do you cope?”

“At first I carried a lavender sachet around. Susannah makes them for Sebastian—Father Sebastian, that is. But I barely notice now.”

“It is all so very extreme. If you must do good, couldn’t you have contented yourself with—oh, I don’t know, knitting stockings for the poor?”

“It’s not about doing good, Louise. It’s about learning what real life is like. It’s about being part of something and feeling useful. The women there take me at face value. They tease me for my unworldliness, and they laugh at me for my ignorance, but I don’t mind at all. They are rough and vulgar, but they are kind, too. I feel valued there, more than I do at home, frankly.”

“I’m astonished,” Louise said, “that you prefer a den of iniquity to Montagu House.”

“It’s not a den of iniquity! There is a great deal of industry in the parish. There’s a gasworks, pottery works, any number of breweries, and a vinegar works, too, but it is very poorly paid work; and people marry young there, so they tend to have large families. It is a hard-working community of decent people struggling to survive.”

“So says the saintly Father Sebastian, I presume?”

Margaret stiffened at her mocking tone. “Sebastian is dedicated and extremely hard-working. He listens to people, Lou, and he doesn’t judge or preach. He doesn’t wear a halo; he simply tries to make the small corner of the world he inhabits a better place. I think he is truly admirable.”

Aware that her defence of Sebastian had been rather too impassioned, Margaret made a pretence of drinking her cold tea. She had said far too much already. Dear as she may be to Louise, her friend made no bones about the fact that she valued her reputation above everything. Besides, the kiss she and Sebastian had shared last week was their secret, too precious for her to disclose to anyone, not even Louise.