Slipping out of bed, she had put on her dressing gown and padded out of the room. Creeping along the corridor, she stopped at the door of Oliver’s room. It was the dead of night. The silvery glow of the moon breached the tall windows behind her, illuminating the bare boards beneath her feet, turning the hand she put on the door knob a cold steely hue and her dressing gown into a shimmering flow. She felt nervous, apprehensive, shivered, and opened the solid oak barrier.

She could feel the disappointment as acutely now as she had done then, of finding the room empty, the bed untouched.

Her hands had flown to her face in desperation. She loved him. Dear God, how much she loved him, she had never stopped, never could. And she liked this new Oliver, at last it seemed he had grasped how it was to be a mere mortal, not having the right to abide to his own code of behaviour.

She had run to the top of the stairs. He was most likely with Bartholomew, but she had to know. She had to know if he was all right.

A laugh, a typical laugh of male bravado from Bartholomew came floating up the stairs. ‘Come now, Uncle, you’ll never beat me at chess if you don’t concentrate. I’ll away to the cellar and fetch us something rousing.’

Kerensa listened. Bartholomew’s steps were coming away from the study, where Oliver had his chess set; his papers had been pushed aside for days. Matthias Renfree and Kelynen were entrusted with all estate affairs after a brief weekly audience. Bartholomew was heading in the direction of the cellar.

As if some notion had informed him she was there, he looked up at her. His words drifted up to her, full of meaning. ‘When you’re ready, you’ll find him waiting for you…’

Ready. That word, heavy with import, still hung under the ancient beams of the house.

Oh, dear God, what a position to be in. Choose, Beatrice had begged her. She had, and it meant she was going to suffer the loss of one of the two men she loved.

Thirty-One

And so Pengarron Manor was astir with activity of an unprecedented kind, and the talk throughout the establishments of the local gentry was that Sir Oliver Pengarron had gone quite mad.

‘He’s giving a party for a servant and, me dear, can you believe, it’s to be outside of the servants’ quarters, in the great hall?’

‘Have you heard of such a thing? But, of course, one can’t forget that he married a… well, I don’t know exactly what she was before the wedding but she’s of the lower orders.’

‘It’s outrageous! He’ll be giving the working class dangerous ideas.’

‘The man’s clearly unstable. All this accident and separation business has driven him to a course that’s extreme even for him.’