‘What?’ she said. A frown tugged her brow. She pulled back.

I shook my head. The world peeled back to black sky and black branches. Bare and lonely and cold. Stars like chipped ice. Through the open windows, across the grass, came pops of laughter, like the corks from their champagne. Then she caught me and held me fast and kissed me again, and all went quiet.

‘Well,’ she said. She gave a thin laugh and stepped back and brushed her hands on her skirts. We stared at each other. ‘Well . . . I . . .’ She looked towards the house.

‘Go,’ I whispered.

I went in a few minutes behind her. Past the silent trees, down to the long hallway behind the kitchen where the pallets for the visiting maids had been lined up, like dinner plates on a shelf, and I lay on mine, which had been rolled out beside that of a plump girl who smelt like cheese, and who asked me if I’d come down with any of the Londoners.

I felt Madame’s narrow hands hot around my waist, and all down the length of my shivering flesh I felt her mouth, though it had only touched me in two places. Lips and breast.

Chapter Twenty-Two

The old heaviness returned, as soon as London lay before me again. Smoky, soot-streaked, hot. The old unease. What would happen now? For two days, I’d been back to wondering, thinking the affection between us was a thing I had dreamed. I was her maid again. Nothing more. Benham was always at her side, or one of the other ladies. I’d brought her plates filled with fruit or pastries, which she took without saying a word. I’d fetched her shawl. Carried her picnic basket when she joined Hep Elliot beside the lake.

The horses strained as they pulled towards Levenhall. Benham blinked, turned towards her, took her hand in his. ‘You and Frances are quiet with each other, my dear. Have you had a contretemps?’

She glanced over at me. ‘Not at all. I am sure we are all simply tired.’

He called across the carriage, ‘Quite a treat for you, girl, wasn’t it?’

I looked at her. The feeling of my nipple in her mouth was like a thorn inside me.

‘It was, sir,’ I said. ‘Quite a treat.’

She gave a small shake of her head, like someone jolted out of sleep.

A cold, sour feeling pressed into me as I watched them, and then I was the one who had to turn away, when he lifted her hands and pressed his lips to her knuckles and called her his dear.

At Longreach, he’d been full of a play-actor’s cheer, his smile greasy and slick, his voice loud and self-satisfied. ‘Meg!’ he’d shout to her. ‘Somebody you must meet.’ And she’d go over to him, dutiful, every time, the smile hemmed tight between her cheeks. One afternoon, I’d overheard one of the ladies say: Open doors will improve any marriage; only truly happy marriages survive closed ones.