I wheeled Sea around and thundered away, forgetting all about the rule of not galloping in the park. I raged against Will, shouting abuse and swearing out loud, all the way back to the gate, and then as we trotted through the streets I swore under my breath, the rich filthy language of my childhood. I stormed up the steps to the front door and hammered on it loud as a bailiff. The footman gaped at me and I ordered him to take Sea around to the stables for me in a voice which made him leap to do my bidding. Then I raced up the stairs, two at a time, to my room and slammed the door behind me. I was so angry I could not think what to do or what to say.

I leaned back against the door, my hat squashed against the wooden panels and I shut my eyes. They felt hot in my hot face. Then I remembered what he had said about Becky, and I found I had clenched my hands into fists and I was cramming them both against my lips to stop me screaming in rage. He had told me that he loved her, that he loved her body, that he loved to hold her in his arms, that he was going to marry her.

That last took the rage from me as if I had had the breath knocked out of me with a fall. I thought of him smiling and kissing my wrist and then going back to his cottage where she waited for him. I thought of her three little children around his table, pleased to see him home. I thought of her sitting on his lap in the firelight after the chavvies had gone to bed, then I thought of him holding her in his arms all night long. He had said that she adored his touch.

I stood with my back against my bedroom door staring into the room, silently, for a long time.

I went over to the writing table and I drew a sheet of the expensive notepaper towards me. It was embossed with the Havering crest in gold, and on the right-hand side I spelled out the London address. At Havering Hall they had notepaper with the Sussex address. One day soon I would be the new Lady Havering and all this, two sorts of notepaper and everything, would be mine.

It took me a white, for I could not write swiftly. I had to print the words and many of them were spelled wrong for all I knew. So it did not look as proud and angry as I wished. I wanted to hurt him, to cut him to the heart.