Now he held her hand over his lap and pressed each of her fingers, like piano keys. All the while his eyes sneaked towards me, and I thought he must surely know what had happened between us. The way he fluttered her fingers, like flags. Her face was pale. At finding herself so close to him? Or was it me? With her free hand, she plucked at her skirt. I stared and stared, wondering what she was thinking.

‘Do you know, Meg?’ He twitched their joined fingers across his lap. ‘Some of the westerly farms have been allowed to fall into such a state of disrepair . . . I had another word with Percy, told him it’s high time he undertook a programme of improvements. Told him the tenants will work much more productively for a benevolent master than a neglectful one.’

There can be no such thing as a benevolent master, I thought. I laced my hands together in my lap, and bit my tongue, thinking perhaps I’d tell him so when he next called me to the library.

She glanced up. ‘Is that right, Mr Benham? Well, that is a wonder.’

He gave her a tap on the wrist. ‘Not a wonder, my love.’ He shook his head, laughed. ‘You meant to say wonderful, of course . . . That’s wonderful.’

‘Yes.’ She drew her hand back into her own lap.

Mr Casterwick snored beside me, legs poking out like tent poles.

I watched, and waited. I wanted her to look up at me, but she kept her eyes down.

Benham called her up to his library as soon as we came through the doors, saying he wished to speak to her alone. I stood to watch them go, Charles hefting their bags ahead. Then I turned slowly and followed Mr Casterwick downstairs. Cold chicken and boiled potatoes had been left out for us and Mr Casterwick set his portmanteau under the table. Pru asked him about the party and I heard him telling her about the new periwinkle livery Lady Catherine had got from Harper’s in March, and the fireworks, and the rows of ham hocks in the basement where the visiting valets had slept, how the smell had given him dreams of being smothered by dirty stockings. Linux busied herself clearing away the tea things, and asked him if he’d noticed whether the Longreach housekeeper used dried fruit in her stuffing. But she watched me all the while.

Mr Casterwick had been given a slice of lemon cake, by the Longreach cook, to give to her, and when he got up to fish for it in his bag, she turned to me, lips small as pin-tuck seams. ‘Homer is missing.’

I frowned. ‘Who?’

‘The cat. The cat. The cat is missing.’

A laugh cracked out of me. It went on and on. I couldn’t stop it.

The scrape of my chair made Pru whip up her head.

‘Are you accusing me of something to do with the cat, Mrs Linux?’ I said. She pinched her lips tighter. ‘You think I took him? I have been miles and miles away!’