Sibyl gave a laugh of realization. ‘Oh!’ She looked around the room quickly. ‘Look, over there – there’s a robe on the door you can put on. Come over to my room and we’ll find you some day clothes too, although it may have to be a dress, I’m afraid?’ She pulled a face. ‘I know you’re not awfully keen.’

It was Effie’s turn to smile. ‘A dress is fine.’

‘Super!’

Effie watched her go, a whirlwind of energy and good intentions. Suddenly she understood why Sholto always looked so tired in her company. It was exhausting. She lay slowly back in the bath, listening to the bubbles pop and wondering what on earth she had just agreed to.

The music drifted up the stairs, all the way to the top of the house. Effie was still cloistered in the salmon-pink room, at Lady Sibyl’s insistence. ‘You can’t possibly walk all that way from your cottage in those shoes,’ she had said as she had handed over a pair of her silver satin Mary Janes. The heel was several inches high and she was right – Effie would be doing well to cross a room in them, much less a country estate.

The dress she had loaned, to go with them, was hanging on the wardrobe door. Effie couldn’t keep her gaze from returning to it. The colour of June skies, it was cut in a liquid satin that seemed to drip as much as to drape and finished in a gently flared long skirt. The bold blue hue had drawn her at once as she had stared into Sibyl’s wardrobe and she had only realized after she’d picked it that a demure front belied a risqué cutaway back with just a single ribbon of fabric running down the spine. Sibyl had laughed off her protestations, telling her it was the fashion, but Effie had already determined to spend her time with her back to the wall. She sat very still as Jenny tonged her new short dark hairstyle into the same tight, sleek finger waves that Sibyl favoured. It was a shock every time she caught a glimpse of herself but Sibyl had been adamant she could carry it off. Her make-up was already done: brows drawn, cheeks rouged and her lips painted a bold red. She could see the overall effect worked; it was just so odd, being painted. She had never worn make-up in eighteen years, and now she had worn it twice in a few weeks.

Effie could tell the maid was unhappy about having to tend to her; she’d said barely a word and wouldn’t meet her eyes. But was it Effie’s fault that Sibyl had said she would see to herself for tonight? That she was prostrating herself for forgiveness after this afternoon’s disaster?