“I certainly remember counting those dragging hours until we could escape to the lake that summer. You built a swing so we could drop into the deep water.”

“I was a particularly fine dropper, you’ll allow that. Some spectacular backward flips.”

“No one else could do it.”

“I was the unchallenged king of the flip. Even our wretched cousins couldn’t match me.”

“Partly because you kept putting them off with well-timed shouts about their ludicrous bathing costumes.”

“Well, they were ludicrous. They had only themselves to blame for presenting such easy targets.”

I laugh lightly, surprising myself with the unfamiliar sound. It has been a long time since I have laughed.

“We used to have fun, Freddie, didn’t we?”

He nods.

“It all seems an age ago,” I say.

“We were children.” He raises his hands in a gesture of hopeless acceptance. “And now we are adults and life is not allowed to be fun anymore.”

“Oh, Freddie.”

“I don’t think I make a very good adult at all,” he decided. “I should have stayed a child.”

I lean forward and take his hand. To see him so beaten by life when he is barely nineteen years old pulls at my heart.

“You were so happy at Radnor Hall,” I say, clearly picturing the bright-eyed boy he had been, scampering among the undulating gardens of our country estate, or urging his pony on at breakneck speed across the parkland, or climbing to the very top of the tallest tree in the orchard to reach the best apple. “Why don’t you go back there? Just for a while,” I race on as he slowly shakes his head. “Oh, think about it, Freddie, at least consider the idea.”

“I would shrivel up and die there.”

“But you love the place. You were so content there, so free…”

“I was a boy, Lil. I can’t go back to being seven.”

“You could shoot and hunt and fish. The air might put some color back in your cheeks.”

He smiles at me ruefully now, gently taking his hand from mine. “You and I both know my devilishly fashionable pallor has nothing whatever to do with a want of fresh air.”

“I can’t stand seeing you so unhappy. And nor can Mama. After losing Papa, it distresses her to see you unwell. And of course she cannot know the cause.”

“If you’re trying to make me feel guilty you needn’t bother. I already hate myself quite sufficiently, thank you.”

“Freddie.” I snatch up both his hands this time. “I really do believe going home to Radnor Hall could help. There are not so many … distractions there.”

He gives a mirthless laugh. “Out of temptation’s way, you mean. No Mr. Chow Li to tend to my needs.”

“Perhaps it is too easy for you, living in London, too easy to…”

“My darling sister, I can assure you, nothing is easy for me.”