She will be here at two o’clock: Miss Walker, my potential new lover. It will be hard work to woo her, I’m sure – I just hope she will be worth it. She already vexes me. But she fits nicely into my scheme of things. Fancy, I have travelled to other countries and had dozens of lovers and even had a marriage ceremony with my dear Mariana, only to find myself back here in Yorkshire at my family home of Shibden Hall, stumbling across a pretty girl living just next door to my family’s estate. It seems foolish really, like a made-up story, to have been so close to her all these years and yet failed to meet her despite countless opportunities. I suppose I have been away travelling far too much to ever be here long, to ever really settle before now. She told me we met once before, a long time ago, but I barely remember the meeting and certainly did not notice her back then. She is years younger than me and I was no doubt madly in love with Mariana at the time.

I wonder if I had happened across her sooner, if our lives had entwined before now, would I have fallen for her then? What person would I now be? Would we be sitting here side by side, barely a word between us, like elderly couples who hardly bother about the other, or bicker with each other about trivial things, or get to the age where neither can hear the other and so cease speaking altogether? How tiresome to think of that. If I secure Miss Walker as my partner then perhaps that is what will be in store. Will she rile me? Will the sound of her breathing make me tense, not with passion but with annoyance? She will make trite embroidered items and we will have boring guests for tea and make small talk and we shall be known as the Ladies of Shibden Hall. Or the Ladies of Halifax.

We met again only last week when her aunt brought her over for a visit, her Aunt Walker whom we’ve not seen or heard from for years. She said she was bringing her niece over to cheer her up, though they did not tell us what she needed cheering up from, and no doubt to question what I have been up to these years in France. After tea and pleasantries, noticing how she would catch my eye then look away, I took her for a short stroll around the grounds and before I could stop myself, making sure no one would see us, I drew her close to me and kissed her. She did not resist.

Now she comes again to visit. She was evidently not deterred. Shame her aunt is coming too. I am anxious for 2 o’clock to arrive.