Then she’d sent him a note. It was not like her first one. She did not write his name or sign it either.

Door will be open, come after 11 p.m.

He’d assumed she meant the back door, and she had. He had swiftly walked to her house, forcing himself to contain his pace; a running man would draw attention. Yet he would run to her. The house was in darkness, not so much as a flickering candle in a window. The heat had gone out of the day and the night’s coolness licked his skin. There was very little land left that had not been turned over to crops; even Vivian’s garden grew carrots and potatoes rather than roses, but Howard noticed dense clumps of daisies and dandelions defiantly pushing up through the earth along the path and around her house. They were closed up tight against the night but they made him smile. He thought how he’d like to make a crown or a necklace from them for Mabel.

The house and garden were still except for some movement near the compost heap. A fox? A rabbit? He tried the handle and the door slowly gave way, allowing him unencumbered entrance. The kitchen was unknown to him; he passed a long, scrubbed wooden table that could seat eight. He knew that Vivian sometimes ate there because she liked the company of Mrs Rosebend, Cook and the maids. The china on the shelves gleamed. There was something under a tea towel: a pie perhaps? He carefully crept up the stairs, treading at the edges so as to avoid telltale creaking floorboards. At the top he froze, suddenly unsure which room was hers; then he saw a crack of light coming from underneath one, spilling on to the floorboards, lighting his way.

As he edged open the door, she fell on him, smothering his face with kisses, and pulled him into the room. He wrapped his arms around her – not that she’d given any sign that she wanted to escape. Her tongue was in his mouth, her hands slipped inside his shirt; quickly he gathered up her nightdress so his hands could slide across her bare thighs and backside. His body pulsed, convulsed with longing. He ran his fingers through her hair and it fell like a waterfall. He wondered at the beauty of her, how splendid she was.

She pulled him towards the bed, and God knows that was where he wanted to be, but he sat on the edge with sudden and inconvenient reluctance. He ferociously wished he could control his fits of conscience. She crawled behind him and sat squeezed up against him, her breasts pushed into his back, her legs astride, clamped to his hips and outer thighs. She pulled at his shoulders, urging him to lie down.

‘Did you make love with Aubrey here?’

‘Don’t think about it.’

Yes, then. He hadn’t been able to stay in the room. The sheets, the walls, the patchwork eiderdown all seemed cloying, restraining. ‘Come outside with me,’ he’d suggested.