At ten o’clock in the morning of Tuesday 16th May, in the very best chamber of Gretna Hall, Mary awoke. She opened her eyes, studied the heavy oak in the ceiling, the curtains framing the bed – noted the tartan festoons – and started to smile.

So she had done it. Little Mary Dorothea had actually done it, and – oh! – was it not bliss? Turning on to her back, she ran through that roll call: those familiar names of poor ladies bewitched and then thwarted – sent up a prayer for their futures – and then rejoiced in her own triumph. For had not she, too, faced every obstacle? Had not she too been expressly forbidden? Yet she alone, only Mary, knew victory.

Her husband moved in the depths of the bed, then. Mary propped herself up to study the manner in which he slowly reached consciousness: saw that, even in sleep, his face crinkled with happiness. She kissed his dear lips before he had quite come to.

‘Ah.’ Blindly, Ned reached out a hand. ‘That’s right,’ he murmured; pulled back, beholding her now. He stretched first, then smoothed the wild curls from her forehead. ‘You came after all.’

‘You cannot have doubted.’ She nestled into his shoulder, looked about and drank in the sight of him, bare-chested beside her – as if witness to a miracle.

‘But of course!’ Suddenly, he was all matter-of-fact. ‘Every second of the journey: had you asked to turn back – though my heart would have been broken – I should have obliged.’ He ran a hand through her hair. ‘It felt, always, almost too much to ask of you. Now, having got my own way in it—’

‘Which you, sir, are well used to!’

‘That may be true.’ He shrugged and smiled down at her. ‘Nevertheless, I hereby pledge that I will always be grateful.’

‘Even when we are long married, and I am no more in your eyes than a good piece of furniture?’ Mary was sceptical. ‘Men do rather tend to fall into that sort of indifference.’

‘Not this one.’ Ned turned on to his side, extended a forefinger, touched under her chin and slowly – so slowly – began to draw a line down to her breast bone and then – ah! – even beyond. ‘I shall never not feel gratitude for this.’

She gasped as he stroked her.

‘Good morning, Mrs Knight.’ He spoke softly.

‘Husband,’ Mary returned, though she could hardly speak for the heat of her skin.

‘I hope you slept the sound sleep of the respectably married woman?’ He was whispering now in her ear.

She shivered – ‘Not exactly’ – and started to wilt.

‘Even after a journey such as that one!’ Ned was up on his elbow. ‘Forty hours or more in a coach not enough for you? For one who presents as a rosebud, you are made of some steel, madam.’