He rolls over, reaches out to Annie who murmurs in her sleep. He runs his hands over her, warming himself on her back, her shoulder. He feels the warm softness of her breast in his palm, heartbeat and muscles below, the pleasure of her nipple hardening underneath her nightdress as he gently rubs at it. She drowsily turns towards him, arms reaching out, pulling him to her. It has been a while, he thinks. There has been so much to do of late – unpacking and setting up his consulting room, study, and dissecting room as well as his existing hospital duties – that Edward has increasingly come to bed exhausted and long past midnight.

He kisses her, slowly at first, then harder, more urgently, hand sliding up underneath her nightdress, bare limbs, warm skin, before she lifts it up herself, wriggling out of it and throwing it to the floor. He throws his own night-shirt off and rolls on top of her, the weight of him pinning her down as he pushes her thighs apart. Annie giggles for a moment, gasps as he sinks inside her with a groan, pressing against her. Passionate and gentle but briefer than he would like, when he is done, he rolls off, one arm around his wife even as he falls asleep, gently snoring himself towards daybreak.

Annie lies awake in the dark, her husband’s arm a dead weight upon her. His disagreement with Samuel sits uncomfortably with her and she has a pang of regret at having approached Mr Covell for advice. It is too late now, she thinks. An appointment has already been made and she must surely stick to it.

‘It is a very large house for just the two of us, is it not?’ she had said when Edward had first taken her to see the house where they now lived.

‘Not at all, my dear!’ he had replied. ‘There’s a whole room that is to be your studio, the basement rooms will be perfect for my research and the back room, well . . . ’ He had looked at her meaningfully, squeezed her arm and smiled. ‘It would make a fine nursery, would it not? God willing.’

Annie shifts, edges herself away from the uncomfortable damp patch left in the middle of the bed. Why do women not talk more openly of these things? she wonders. Of marriage and babies, of lovemaking and damp sheets, of hopes and dreams. She wishes she could paint it somehow, capture this wave of emotions with her brushes and oils. She thinks of Edward earlier, at the breakfast table. She would like to have sketched him like that – green eyes ablaze in his handsome face, black hair fierce and untameable.

Edward murmurs, turning over and away from her in his sleep. Gently, so as not to wake him, she runs a finger down his naked back, feeling the bones of his spine like marble beneath his warm skin. She thinks of the crack in the plaster figure in the hallway downstairs and smiles to herself.