Yes, she was curious.

A few years older than Vivian, Nathaniel had already caused a stir in society. Everyone was mad about him. Vivian was all too well aware that she was not alone in thinking he was the one to catch. Wealth, youth, looks, he had it all. Vivian did not have wealth – at least not nearly enough – so she had to be very clever about the whole business. She’d never been much of a scholar; she had no interest in where countries lay on a map or the elements lay on the periodic table, but she was sharp enough to know that it did matter where men laid their affections. It was all that mattered.

Vivian was dressed beautifully; she was instructed to be careful and quiet, and to befriend Nathaniel’s mother. They had been to dances, charity fund-raising lunches and afternoon tea together. Nathaniel and Vivian (and a necessary host of others who lent respectability to the flirtation) went to balls, cocktail bars, the opera and the ballet. She always singled him out for at least the first and last dance on her card. For the first four months she made sure to have a number of other partners and encouraged him to do the same. She didn’t want him to feel trapped; she refused to appear desperate. In the past month she had become more focused. If he danced with other girls, she tried to sit with his mother and smiled on, making it clear that it was she who had made the choice. If she was forced to take a turn with someone else, she was sure to roll her eyes behind her partner’s back, letting Nathaniel see her exasperation and preference. She made him laugh. He liked the fact that his mother adored her and thought she was an angel; to him alone she revealed a hint of insolence, her ability to have fun, to be a devil.

It worked. He sent flowers and notes. He invited her to take tea at his house, not only with his mother but with an aunt too: obvious vetting. His people were all divinely aristocratic-looking: thin skins, bright eyes, glowing. Then last week he’d called at her house in Hampstead. Unfortunately Mr Foster wasn’t in, so he’d walked around the small garden with her mother, faking an interest in the colourful geraniums that knelt in the borders. He appeared distracted, almost irritable. It was clear that he was disappointed not to have been able to ask permission from her father. He was not the sort of man who expected to be thwarted. As he left, he whispered to Vivian, ‘I’d hoped to catch you alone.’ She didn’t have the chance to reply. What was she to say? Weren’t boys funny? How could he have imagined she might be alone? Girls were never left alone. How wonderful, though, that he wanted her to himself.

It was the nervous nature of his visit that allowed them all to hope; that made Vivian absolutely know. She knew how it would go now. He would propose tonight and they would have a year-long engagement. Anything more was a bore; anything less meant they would not be able to guarantee a wedding at Westminster Abbey, something she longed for and something that was possible, as Nathaniel’s father was a Knight Grand Cross. Spring weddings were a delight. They’d honeymoon in Europe. She didn’t want to go to Egypt or Africa. The risk of peculiar diseases or bites from awful things was high, and besides, Vivian wouldn’t be captured so often by the papers and illustrated weeklies if they travelled too far away. After a year she’d produce an heir. Then, eighteen months later, a spare. She’d decided she’d have up to three children. No more. More had an irretrievable effect on one’s figure, no matter how young one was. They’d return to the Continent every August. She’d wear furs and pearls. She’d dance with dukes and earls. It would be heaven.