The tide was coming in. Across the wide expanse of sand, the sky was now a strange yellow-grey, weighted with rain, and the sea was already halfway up the breakers. The wind whipped the trees to his left and created white tufts in the sea. The sky and wind seemed to be holding the water back. He turned away from the sea. It would be easier to take the route alongside the caravan park, skirting the edge of the wood. There was no way he could drag his bike along the sand on a day like this.

He cycled along the path, with the pond and the caravan park on one side, the wood on the other, and his heart beat faster than it should have done. Arthur had hardly seen Verity in the last couple of weeks. She’d been helping around the farm, or so she said. This was hard to believe. He suspected she was avoiding him. In fact, he hadn’t seen her since the fox hunt, when all he could remember was her face, cold and closed-off to him in the kitchen before the hunt.

She was already there, her knees drawn up, just a few inches of stocking between her skirt and boots, with the tartan flask beside her on the rug. When he came upon her, he paused with the bike. She was gazing off into the distance, smoking, unaware of him. The sight of her caught his throat.

Then she saw him and started, like a deer. ‘Oh, it’s you. God, you gave me a fright. You were really staring.’

‘What were you thinking about?’

‘I’ve got something to tell you.’ She fiddled with the hem of her skirt.

His heart lurched. It was over. He knew it.

‘I’ve not been very good to you,’ she said, and took a drag on the cigarette.

He sat down next to her. No, he thought, but he was too afraid to say anything.

‘I’ve been thinking, that’s all.’ She was going to tell him she was in love with Jack. He realised that since the summer he had been waiting for this, waiting for her to say it. Over. Finished. He should have left Wells when she had said no to coming to London. Why hadn’t he? But he couldn’t let go.

A crow cawed high up at the top of a pine tree. Her breath made white curls in the cold air. He watched a beetle crawl across his shoe.

‘What?’ he said, finally. Get it over with.

‘Just… just that I’m sorry. I was wrong and I’m sorry.’

He tried not to smile and had to bite his lip. It wasn’t over. Light-headed, he pulled her to him and fervently kissed her neck, her jaw, her mouth. Yes. She was his. Yes.