At the bedside, Julietta had reached for Jane’s hand under the furs and kept rubbing it to try to warm it, then laid it against her cheek and kissed it and shed hot tears upon it. She saw the doctor staring at her when she did this, but she cared nothing for what he thought.

She had sent Nancy to run to Tedworth Square, to bring Ashton to her side. She herself was still shaking from the violence Valentine Ross had inflicted and was frightened that the wretched ‘fiancé’ might decide to return. The household needed Ashton’s protection. But more than this, if Julietta was going to lose Jane, she wanted the dear comfort of her husband and she had no doubt that he would give it. Whatever he knew or did not know about the erotic bond between the two women, his love for Julietta brought everything into the shelter of his forgiveness and acceptance. Moreover, she knew that he admired Jane – for her dedication to her work and for her wit. If she was now dying, Ashton Sims would wish to bear witness to that death.

While waiting for him to arrive, Julietta, speaking in a low voice, fearing to wake Jane from a sleep that might be beneficial to her, asked Dr Wood if he had lost patients before who had miscarried. He replied that he had. And in this case, too, there had been a fall and a haemorrhage which could not be staunched.

‘It is,’ he said, ‘a sad reflection on the state of medical knowledge that we know so much about bloodletting, but do not know how, under certain circumstances, to make the flow stop. We just have to trust to nature.’

‘What more can we do?’ asked Julietta.

‘Administer more laudanum presently. It lessens the shock of the pain and the brandy is a stimulus, which perhaps encourages new blood to form. But the next few hours will be telling. She will either be gone by nightfall or the bleeding will stop and she will begin a slow recovery.’

Silence then filled the room again. Jane’s breathing was so quiet, it reminded Julietta of the breathing of a child. And thoughts of her little Marco, alive and bounding about his nursery, filled her with sudden joy. And she thought how Jane would never know this happiness, now, of loving a child. The bits and pieces of her baby’s half-formed body had been strewn across the hall. The husband-to-be would never be allowed to return.

These thoughts led in turn to a decision in Julietta Sims which she never thought she would be able to make: if God would spare Jane Adeane, she would renounce her ‘beauties’. She cared nothing for them, only for the excitement of the showy orgasms she alone was able to give them. Henceforth, she would love only two people, Jane and Ashton. She would bring Ashton more frequently to her bed so that they might conceive another child, a child whom Jane could know from its babyhood and grow to love, along with its adoring parents. In this arrangement, provided she could still have Jane as her lover, she saw a beautiful triangular domestic felicity.