My maid enters and checks my hair and I cannot look her in the eye. I fear that I have a look of guilt upon my face at just the thought of Miss Lister. Is the kiss we shared to be a burden on me for the rest of my days? Am I branded a deviant already? Will God judge me and condemn me? Oh, how my mind races. I must focus on now, right now. I must get up and leave this room. Go downstairs and greet my aunt and act casually about the visit and put on my cloak and then mount the carriage and make small talk with my aunt about the weather and the horses and the condition of the roads and Miss Lister and her younger sister Miss Marian Lister and her Aunt Anne and father, and how we mustn’t stay too long in case the weather turns and hope, just hope, that nothing in my demeanour or what I say will reveal me. Reveal that I am as nervous as a schoolgirl, as nervous as when I first danced in public, as nervous as when a boy first touched my hand, as when a boy first kissed me. With Miss Lister, though, it is not just nerves but a thrill.

I realise. Why didn’t I think of it sooner? This is what it feels like to fall in love. But not just any love. A secret love. A forbidden love.

I begin to worry that she does not feel the same, that I am just a conquest and will be cast aside. Perhaps she will go off travelling again and will leave me here, alone, never knowing, ever waiting for her to return.

These are the thoughts that possess me all the way to Shibden Hall, right up until the moment I see her standing there in the doorway, her hand raised in greeting. Suddenly all the thoughts stop, and it is just her looking at me, and me looking back at her, and I no longer care about anything, past or future, just being here right now. The thought that crashes to the front of my mind then is simply: please kiss me again.

Miss Lister

I read on her face that she is smitten. She does not need to utter the words. I wonder if others can read it too? Not likely her aunt, who never looks anyone in the eye as she’s so busy talking about herself and asking Father about the estate and goings-on in Halifax. My aunt may recognise the glances between us, but if she does, she turns a blind eye. My sister Marian, however, sits like my own private judge, constantly watching me. Although she makes no sound, I can hear her tutting. I wonder if she suspects, though I do not much care if she does.