She moved away. Put back the bed-covers. ‘I – I can manage a little sleep now,’ she said.

She turned, as if to hide herself from me, though I wanted to see every inch of her. She blew out the candle, and the room shivered and then all I could see was black.

I hardly slept. I wanted to wake her, ask her why, press myself along the length of her in the bed. At daybreak, I tidied my pallet and stood for a long time watching the street. Charles came out through the front door, and cut through the mews, off to fetch milk from Piccadilly, no doubt. Shoes loud as hand-claps. Birds fidgeting with song. I went over to the writing table and sat with my hands pressed together, my face warm as a fresh heart. Remembering how she’d caught herself, and wavered like a flame in a draught. How, as if I was something bitter, she had spat me back.

Knowing that a watched face won’t long stay sleeping, I drew in a breath, opened the door, slipped out.

I confess that I doubted it. It seemed the whole night had been a dream, from the Surgeon to the kiss. I would doubt it still, if not for what happened next.

Chapter Twenty-One

Longreach was the house of Sir Percy, Benham’s brother. Sugar-bought, like everything they own. Madame and Benham were invited there to a party. She wanted to bring her own dresser, she said, since Benham was taking Casterwick. Now she’d no longer have to put up with the long-toothed girl Lady Catherine insisted on giving her, with the cold fingers.

We drove out to Wiltshire in a hired carriage, leaving at dawn and stopping twice to change horses. After a day’s travel, Longreach loomed ahead, spread across the landscape. Sprawling and broad-shouldered. A snaking line of elms led to the front door, and inside was all velvet and polished wood and brass. Their rooms looked out onto the lawn. Soft towels had been set out on the washstand, and little pink soaps carved into roses. As soon as we arrived, I unpacked the trunk and her portmanteau, and then she had to be dressed for the fireworks dinner. We were late, and had to rush, and afterwards – wanting to be anywhere but the long corridor where the visiting maids were being kept – I slipped outside and wandered down to the garden, gravel crunching beneath my feet. I kept myself to the side of the path. Hundreds of tiny lanterns swung from the trees. The sky was heavy and purple, and a smell in the air reminded me of the mint Phibbah grew at Paradise. Glasses and laughter tinkled out from the ballroom, where the doors had been left open.

Sir Percy’s guests drifted out, and I hid myself behind a stand of trees. Flashes of silk, among the black suits, like oil on water. Ladies in their dresses, gentlemen in their tails. Here were the people the world tells us to admire. I pictured their tinkling laughter choked off by the fear of being whipped, like dogs. Standing in the kind of heat that closes your throat, glancing up at a sun that might kill.