On February 14th, as my mother and I sat opposite one another at the kitchen island drinking tea, there came a knock. We looked up from our books and exchanged nods. My mother stood, brushed herself down and patted at her hair. Susannah Cedars was adamant that she would look presentable, nay, majestic, when our eviction came. We would be observed walking away down that hill, bags in hand, lackeys carrying our possessions in our wake. We’d been careful to box and seal as much as we could, so the detail of our lives would not be on display, picked over.

That lamp will have cost her a pretty penny in shipping.

A frying pan so big! No wonder he had a heart attack.

I expected the Cater brothers to be standing there as messengers, or perhaps we would suffer the ignominy of Luke Signal informing us that the lodge was now his and that us ladies were to show good grace and step aside. Mary Ahearn had, of course, capably taken over the management of the land after the funeral; she had, in some ways, taken over years ago, picking up the slack as my father’s health deteriorated. Yet we still did not know if she would officially be named his successor. After my suspension from school, and her daughter’s disgrace, the idea of Lark appointing its first-ever female gamekeeper seemed ever more absurd. The elder Signal boy was growing daily in confidence and wore a curl to his lip that suggested he knew something that we didn’t.

When I opened the door, there was no one there – no Luke, no Mark or Andy Cater.

In the porch lay an object, the shape of it making me recoil at first. I picked it up. It wasn’t completely smooth, the chiselled scoring of its creation was still visible, nor was it entirely even in shape, though symmetry had probably been the intention. I liked it precisely because of this unfinished and irregular quality. It was a St Valentine’s Day gift. A carved wooden heart.

When word reached Ben of what had happened at the Council meeting, he had visited me at my cottage in the way that he had used to – by tapping on the back door at midnight. We’d kissed in the kitchen, begun to tear at each other’s clothes right there. I felt like a prisoner with access to their lover for just one night; I had to drink my fill.

Lying upstairs in the mess of one another, he said to me: ‘I need to keep my job.’ He pulled me closer, those narrow eyes of his darting left and right, herding me into his gaze. ‘I have nothing here if I lose that. You at least have this roof over your head, you have your mother, her place, friends …’