Will told me other news of Wideacre, a baby had been born and was to be called ‘Sarah’, the vicar had been away for a week and was greatly put out on his return to find no one had attended church for the curate he had installed in his absence. A vagrant had come through the village begging and had stolen all the linen off the washing lines. The gypsies were back on the Common where they always camped. They were early which was the sign of a hard winter.

‘Everything the same as ever,’ Will said with a smile.

We rode side by side in a sedate canter. Sea remembered the races on Downland and Common and threw up his head and wanted to gallop but I held him back.

‘And you?’ Will asked. ‘Is it how you expected?’

I shrugged. ‘It passes the time,’ I said. I shot a sideways look at him and then I told him how it was in truth. I told him about the pleasures of the new life: the dresses, the hats, the morning rides. I told him about the extraordinary people who were accepted as normal in this odd new world. I told him about the young men, and I made him laugh until he had to cling to his horse’s mane when I told him about Sir Rupert left gasping on the sofa clutching his balls.

‘And Lady Havering? And Lord Peregrine?’ Will asked. ‘Are they good to you?’

I hesitated. ‘As much as they can be,’ I said. ‘Lady Clara is as cold as ice. I’ve met kindlier women laying-out paupers. She cares for nothing but the Havering estate and the succession.’

Will nodded. ‘I heard she cared for her oldest son well enough,’ he said. ‘The one that died.’

‘Aye,’ I said crudely. ‘Men are always more lovable when they’re dead!’

Will laughed at that. ‘But Lord Peregrine,’ he said and his voice was carefully bright. ‘Do you see much of him now? Is the engagement still on?’

I nodded. I did not look at him. ‘The contracts are with the lawyers,’ I said. ‘I will marry him, you know.’

Will was looking straight ahead, down a little avenue where the pale yellow fronds of the chestnut trees made an archway over our heads. We were quite alone and the clatter of the town in the early morning seemed far away.

‘I thought you might meet someone you fancied better,’ he said. ‘I thought you were using him to get yourself comfortable in London – that you’d throw him over when you were settled.’

I smiled a little wry smile. ‘You think highly of me, don’t you?’ I asked.

He shrugged. ‘It won’t be the first time a girl’s jilted a milksop,’ he said. ‘I thought when you had a chance to look around you’d see someone you fancied more.’