They walked in silence for a few yards before he pulled sharply on his reins, veering away from the wood. ‘Come on. We’re heading this way.’

She thought she could already tell their destination, for ahead in the middle distance lay a copse so perfectly round and so artfully contrived, it could never have come from Nature herself. They were drawn to it as though magnetized.

‘It’s called Stairs Mount,’ he said, seeing how she scrutinized it as they drew nearer.

‘It’s very round.’

‘Yes. Perfectly, mathematically so.’

‘Why?’

‘The landscape aesthetics and visual artistry of a talented man called Capability Brown. When we get closer you’ll see there are avenues within it that bisect the plantings. They create sight lines back to the house in one direction, and over to Cumnock on the other.’

‘Oh.’ Was the landscape not already beautiful enough to just enjoy, without having to be directed and shaped? But she didn’t voice the thought. What did she know about beauty? About anything, really, other than how to climb a rope, catch a bird, tend a bull?

The ground, though gently undulating, was largely level over the expanse, but as they neared the Mount it rose like a pimple, with steep banks. She could see now the avenues he had described, how the eye travelled through the tunnelled tree stems to the light beyond. It had the effect of focusing the eye, creating a diorama.

The horses broke into a slow canter as they travelled up the slope but Effie forgot to be concerned, having almost forgotten her feet were not on the ground. The vast views, Sholto’s languid conversation and Norma’s nodding walk had contrived to lull her into relaxation.

‘You’re a natural. I knew you would be,’ Sholto said admiringly as they walked down one of the paths. ‘We can dismount here,’ he added as they neared the halfway point and she saw how the trees peeled back from the very centre, creating another perfectly round space within, a majestic oak in the centre.

She felt flattered by the compliment but said nothing. She was too distracted by the sight of a straw basket – a picnic basket – left on a rug, below the oak.

She watched as he slid a foot from the stirrup and leant his body forward as he simultaneously threw a leg back, swinging it over the horse’s rump, and slid himself to the ground. Did she have to do that?

He tied the horse’s reins around one of the smaller tree trunks before coming over and helping her down too, reaching his arms up and holding her by the waist as she came down. She hesitated, but there was no other alternative and, a second later, she landed softly, like a cat.

‘Is that for us?’ she asked quickly, eyes averted and stepping out of his embrace.