“I should have thought that was his business and nobody else’s. Silly old bat. Fear not, I shall keep a beady eye on her and intercept if she comes near. I notice Louis is here looking delicious as ever.”

“Try to resist nibbling him,” I tell her. “Cook has gone to some trouble to provide canapés and suchlike.”

“Don’t I know it! How is a girl supposed to keep her figure when you tempt us with such sinful treats?” She underlines her point by snatching up a tiny smoked-salmon mousse en croute from a passing silver tray. “In any case,” she goes on, “I wouldn’t dream of coming between the two of you. The most glamorous couple in London. How you do tease, keeping us all waiting for a wedding date.”

“You’ll have to suffer for a while yet, Charlotte. I’m not going to be rushed into anything.”

“Hardly rushed. You’ve been engaged forever.”

“We’ve been engaged for precisely a year. And now I am in mourning. I couldn’t possibly start organizing a wedding. Even Mama would stop me, and you know how keen she is to see me settled as Viscountess Harcourt.”

“As long as you’re not planning to run off and join the movement for women’s votes or something so energetically modern.” She sighs. “I suppose you’re right. I simply thought it would be such a lovely cheerful thing for you to have to think about, after these terrible few months. You will find yourself at something of a loose end now.”

I have to remind myself often that dear, sweet Charlotte, whose friendship I value so highly, knows nothing of the Lazarus Coven, nothing of my own new role within it, nothing, in short, of the fact that her best friend is a witch. She has no idea what demands there will be upon my time and my thoughts now. She sees me as a young woman who wants nothing more than to be a bride and has no obligations other than those to her fiancé. How far that is from the truth. But I can never tell her. Just as I can never tell Mama. Must I always keep secrets from people I care for? Must I always hide the greater part of myself?

It is late in the evening by the time the last of the guests leave. Mama has already retired to bed. Freddie slipped away some hours earlier, to heaven knows where, to do heaven knows what. At last, with a slow summer dusk descending, I am free to climb the broad staircase to the sanctuary of my own room. I find my darling black cat, Iago, stretched out upon my bed.