He went to turn away, but Sibyl lunged for him. ‘No? Not the right time?’ She had her hand on Sholto’s arm. ‘Tell me, then. Seeing as timing is such an issue for you, darling, when exactly would be a good time to tell all our friends here that we’re engaged to be married – and have been for six months? Why exactly are we keeping it a secret? What is it that we’re waiting for?’

Her voice had risen to a shriek, and several people around them gasped. One man – his moustache twirled to point upwards, a monocle at one eye – pressed his hand to his mouth in exaggerated shock.

Effie recoiled. He was grotesque. They all were. Even Sholto. Even in all his refinement and decorum . . .

Tears sat gathered in her throat and pooled at her eyes as she looked across at him. It wasn’t hearing he was engaged now that devastated her; it was that he had been even when he’d come to St Kilda, when he’d kissed her and asked her to make a plan . . . Even by the time he’d found her on her rock in the sea, he was already lost to her.

And what had she suffered because of him? Aside from her own heartbreak, the jealousy he had spurred in Frank Mathieson had sparked a ripple effect with devastating consequences, far beyond anything he could ever imagine: Mathieson himself was dead, Poppit was dead, and she was left broken by what she had had to do to survive. Her entire life was in tatters for someone wholly unworthy; she had invested in a lie.

She tore the wig from her head and threw it at him. His mouth parted as she stood before him, herself again, wild and defiant.

‘You disgust me!’ she cried. ‘You’re not better than me! You’re worse!’

‘Effie—’

‘Where is your honour?’ she demanded.

Sholto blanched at the question but she wasn’t interested in hearing his answer. She looked around desperately for a way through the bodies, an escape route to the door. She couldn’t breathe in here. She couldn’t think.

‘Effie, just wait—’ Sholto reached for her, holding her back.

‘Get your hands off me!’

‘Don’t go,’ he implored her.

‘Better a good retreat than a bad stand,’ she spat.

‘Please! Just listen to me—’

‘Sholto!’ Sibyl’s voice was fractured with shock at his actions. ‘What are you doing?’

Effie jerked her chin towards Sibyl. ‘She’s right. What are you doing?’ she scoffed, her eyes blazing. ‘People are looking!’

He looked back at her desperately. ‘Effie – I can explain—’

‘You and she deserve each other.’

‘No—’

‘Yes!’ she cried suddenly. ‘Yes! Stop pretending there’s a different ending! It was always going to be this way. You belong with her. And I belong to another anyway.’

His mouth flattened. ‘Felton isn’t—’