‘And she’s one of them?’ Effie felt a primal stirring against the beautiful woman with the big cat, who stole spectacles from the prime minister and laughed about it.

‘Much to her ladyship’s horror. The countess thinks it’s all frightful’ – he made a funny voice – ‘but she’s friends with Lady Sibyl’s mother and doesn’t like to make a fuss. Nothing’s worse than that! I think she’s hoping she’ll settle down once they’re married.’

Effie stopped walking, pale-faced. ‘You mean . . . she and Sholto are engaged?’

‘Lord Sholto! Effie, what did I tell you about that?’ He rolled his eyes. ‘And no, not yet. But it’s only a matter of time.’

She felt suddenly as though there was a weight on her chest. ‘Have they . . . been together long?’

‘Depends what you mean by “been together”. They’ve known each other since they were children, by all accounts. You know how it is with the rich – they keep a tight circle of friends. From what I heard, they were on and off for a few years, flitting about, flirting with anything with a pulse. But his lordship’s twenty-three now; he knows what’s ahead of him when the earl goes.’

‘Goes? . . . Oh.’

‘C’mon, we’ll need to hurry. I’ve got Graves’s boots to polish before he goes into the village.’ He began walking more quickly and she hurried after, blind to the wildflowers growing in bushy banks along the path, a red squirrel scampering up a tree, blackbirds singing melodies in higher branches. Her brain – her heart – had snagged on the topic of Sholto’s imminent engagement to Lady Sibyl Wainwright and wouldn’t let go. ‘. . . It’s just up here.’

‘Billy,’ she ventured, as he came to a stop outside a stone cottage. She blankly registered it had an upstairs and four windows. A brick-red front door.

‘Aye?’

‘Last night, at supper . . . when Fanny took the lilies and put them in Lady Sibyl’s room . . . what was so wrong with that?’

Billy looked across at her, an incredulous grin on his lips. ‘Are you really such an innocent that you can’t guess?’

She blinked. She must be.

‘Corridor creeping.’ His eyes were dancing with scandalized delight. ‘When he pays her a visit after midnight . . .?’

‘But . . .’ Her voice was choked. ‘They’re not married.’ The minister’s words still rang in her ears, a lifetime of warnings against sin not so easy to drown out.

‘But they’re going to be, I just told you. And besides, this is 1930. The world is changing—’

The world is changing. They were the same words Sholto had said to her.

‘Look at the papers – men dress as women; seemingly women dress as men!’ He indicated to her own clothes. ‘As long as they’re discreet, what happens behind closed doors, stays behind closed doors.’ He pressed a finger to his lips and winked at her.