Mollinet’s eyes widened at this. ‘Everything she had?’ he said. ‘So you are now the owner of this house?’

‘Yes I am,’ said Jane. ‘Except I feel that it will always belong to Emmeline and I will just be its guardian until she decides to return …’

As she said this, Jane once more felt her eyes fill with tears and Mollinet reached out and laid his hand on her arm.

‘My dear Mademoiselle Jane,’ he said, ‘may I say that I find you an exceptional woman. But listen to me, why do you and Julietta not come to Paris for a while? A change of city may help you recover from your loss. I can introduce you to many artistic friends – writers and poets …’

At this moment, Julietta, seeing Jane overcome once more, appeared at her side and held her close, putting her dark head on Jane’s shoulder. Mollinet laid upon this sight a surreptitious smile not entirely unmixed with yearning. If few Englishmen could have guessed that Jane and Julietta were lovers or let such an outrageous supposition even enter their minds, it seemed to the Frenchman entirely believable and probable that they were and he found this thought most marvellously arousing. A vision of the two women – the petite and beautiful Italian, the tall and handsome English girl – together in bed (with him as well, bien sûr) flitted across his mind in wildly gyrating colours.

‘I was saying to Mademoiselle Jane,’ he said, ‘I do believe that you two should come to Paris again for a long séjour. What do you think, Signóra Sims?’

Julietta looked up at Jane. She was about to say to Mollinet that Jane was engaged to be married and would soon have to return to Bath, but Jane’s challenging expression seemed to beg her to keep quiet on this subject, so she did not say this. Instead, she smiled at Mollinet and said, ‘I think we would both find that very tempting, wouldn’t we Jane?’

Jane nodded. She was speechless because she had begun to wonder, on the instant, if, in some way that she couldn’t yet define, an escape to France might not resolve her terrible predicament.

‘There is only the question of Marco,’ continued Julietta, glancing across the room at Ashton. ‘I couldn’t bear to be separated from Marco for very long.’

‘Naturally not,’ said Guy Mollinet. ‘We can find you a large apartment, perhaps on one of Haussmann’s new boulevards, and there will be room for Marco and his Nanny. We will teach him French. We will take him to the carrousel in the Tuileries …’

‘He is very fond of his rocking-horse, who has a French name: Trebuchet.’

‘Trebuchet! How excellent. Is he a war horse?’

‘I don’t know. I believe Marco may think he is.’

‘Then of course he must come, too. What could be easier than shipping an English war horse to France?’

‘SOMETHING OF GREAT WEIGHT’

When the funeral guests had left, all except Sir William and Clorinda Morrissey, the subject of their marriage came gently to the surface and Sir William said, ‘we hope you will not take it as any insult to Emmeline, Jane, if we now set a date in early September?’