Furtive, she started to plot how and when they might meet. With the Mother’s mind so much on her health, Mary had gained slightly more freedom. She was now allowed to move around Town with only Booker for company. The situation was promising.

But then, just as Ned’s arrival was imminent, Fanny brought her sister Marianne up to town. And suddenly, Mary was never alone.

Every morning of the season, she was engaged to take lessons at the fashionable stables of Mr Allen in Bryanston Square. Riding was thought to be beneficial for the health of the body, as well as the more difficult mind. An hour out with a horse, and a troop of young ladies of her age and class, would be all to the good. And Mary enjoyed it, in fact. It was the only pleasure she knew.

But when Marianne was also signed up to the course, her suspicions were heightened. The lady was a Knight! They needed no lessons. And now at twenty-four years of age, would she not, in that company, look rather odd?

The one explanation Mary could come up with was that Marianne was employed as her gaoler, and it left her dismayed. Not only was it irksome to be spied upon, it was most disappointing to think that Marianne, of all people, had agreed to act as the spy. For had not she too been thwarted in the fulfilment of her ideal match? And yet now she betrayed Mary! Was there no sisterhood?

While being only ever polite, Mary now held back from treating this Miss Knight as a friend. On their outings together, she listened impassively while Marianne’s tongue tripped on with news of nieces and nephews, of her dear father’s gout, as if she had no other life of her own.

Until, one day after their lesson, as Mary and Booker were exiting the stables, Marianne cried out that she had somehow forgotten her bonnet. It must be retrieved. She begged that they saunter on, and promised to catch up.

‘Ah, a moment of peace,’ Mary began, rather uncharitably, as she took Booker’s arm. ‘If I hear one more word about teething, I do believe I shall—’

‘Ooh, well I never!’ Booker squealed as they turned on to Montague Square. Before adding mysteriously: ‘I’ve got a stone in my boot, so if you’ll pardon me, miss.’

And there was Ned, rushing towards her with the wind at his back.

‘You!’ was all Mary could manage. She had to grab at the railings to hold herself up. ‘You have come.’

‘You cannot have doubted me?’ With one hand, he lifted his hat; the other worried his hair. ‘I have been counting the days …’