With some reluctance, Fanny removed the cool compress with which she had covered her eyes and propped herself up on her elbows.

‘We cannot believe you could do such a thing!’

All of the Knights were good-looking, but Lizzie was, by some distance, the beauty of the family and took with her position the licence to behave without inhibition. Marianne, the next Knight sister down and Lizzie’s soulmate, caught her as her legs buckled from under her. Gently, she led Lizzie to the bed, laid her upon it and sat at the end.

‘Such a thing as to get married?’ Fanny snuggled in beside Lizzie and took her hand. ‘Do I not have your permission, my loves?’

‘Of course, we’re so happy—’ began Marianne.

‘No we are not!’ Lizzie cut in. She sat bolt upright, her glorious face cross and scowling. ‘You do not have my permission to marry without love, now or forever. Oh, darlings.’ She laid a hand on her own heart and looked into the distance. ‘When I remember my own engagement – the romance – the passion – I knew – the whole world knew that if Mr Rice could not marry me, he would simply lie down and die.’

Fanny certainly recalled that Mr Rice had fought hard for his bride, but still she retained doubts that he would have forced the matter too far beyond the limits of personal comfort.

‘Which is what I want for you, Fan dear. What we all want for you. That is, if you must marry. We did rather – no, not hope, exactly, of course not—’

‘Just suspect, perhaps?’

‘Thank you, Marianne, yes, suspect that it might …’ She grabbed both Fanny’s shoulders. ‘Because, of course, you absolutely loathe any sort of change—’

‘And are so devoted to Godmersham—’

‘But if it must happen, why—’ She stopped herself, wriggled a little, began again. ‘Darling. We just met Ned in the hall. He said this Sir Edward of yours’ – her tone suggested some mythical being of Fanny’s own invention – ‘is positively ancient.’

‘You all talk about it behind my back?’ Fanny swallowed hard and was visited by that left-out sensation which was, to her, all too familiar.

‘Oh no, never! Not at all!’ Marianne’s distress was quite evident. Her most heartfelt desire was complete happiness for all living beings, and the slightest dip brought her an almost physical pain. ‘The merest, tiniest mention.’

Yet another unpleasantness about being engaged was the thought of becoming the subject of gossip. Fanny flushed even to think of it. And to find one’s own siblings … The whole business was gruesome. ‘He is not quite in his fortieth—’

‘Goodness!’ Lizzie flung herself back on to the bolster. ‘Almost seventy years between you by the time you are wed. I cannot find it decent.’ She covered her eyes. ‘My wedding present shall be a pair of old bath chairs and then I shall never see you again.’