I had tried a drive out in Lady Clara’s oversprung landau and was coming in, weary with overtaxing myself in my gritty struggle back to health. Perry was bright as a new guinea, golden-haired, blue-eyed, smiling like sunshine.

He was also drunk as a wheelbarrow. He fell out of the travelling chaise and giggled like a baby in sunshine. The footmen coming gracefully down the steps to fetch in his baggage suddenly put on a turn of speed and heaved him up out of the gutter. Perry’s legs went from under him and tried to race off in opposite directions while he laughed aloud.

‘Why Sarah!’ he said catching sight of me. ‘You up and about already! You look wonderful!’

I scowled at him. I knew I was as white as ice and my hair was a copper mop of curls again which looked ridiculous under a bonnet and half-bald under a cap.

‘I’ve had such luck!’ he said joyously. ‘I’ve won and won, I am weighed down with guineas Sarah! I’ll take you out to the theatre tonight to celebrate!’

‘Bring him in,’ I said abruptly to the footmen, and went ahead of them into the parlour.

Perry walked steadier when he was in the house. He dropped into a chair and beamed at me.

‘I really have done well, you know,’ he offered.

I managed a thin smile. ‘I’m glad,’ I said.

There was a tap on the door and the parlourmaid came in with tea. I took a seat by the fireside and my cup when she handed it to me. Perry drank his eagerly and refilled it several times. ‘It’s good to be home,’ he said.

‘I’ve seen my lawyer,’ I said abruptly. ‘The marriage is unbreakable and the contracts are going through. They’ll send the deeds of Wideacre to you at once.’

Perry nodded, his face sobering. ‘I was washed up, Sarah,’ he said. ‘I was quite under the hatches. It would have been the debtors prison for me if we had not married.’

I nodded, but my face was stony.

He shrugged. ‘Mama said…’ he started, then he broke off. ‘I’m damned sorry if you are angry with me, Sarah,’ he said. ‘But I could think of nothing else. The doctor told us you would die, I was not even thinking of getting Wideacre. I was just thinking of getting my own money, and I thought you would not mind. It’s not as if you wanted to marry anyone else, after all. And we are very well suited.’