‘Hannah, I am so sorry,’ he said as soon as the maid had put our drinks before us, and gone. ‘I am deeply, deeply sorry for what I have done.’

‘Does she know you are married?’

‘Yes, she knew I was betrothed when we first met, and I told her I was going to England to fetch you and we would be married when we returned.’

‘Does she not mind?’

‘Not now,’ he said. ‘She has become accustomed.’

I said nothing. I thought it most unlikely that a woman who had fallen in love with a man and borne his child would become accustomed within a year to him marrying someone else.

‘Did you not want to marry her when you knew she was carrying your child?’

He hesitated. The landlord came with the broth and bread and meat and fussed around the table, which gave us a chance for silence. Then he left and I took a spoonful of broth and a mouthful of bread. It was thick in my mouth but I was not going to look as if I had lost my appetite through heartache.

‘She is not one of the People,’ Daniel said simply. ‘And, in any case, I wanted to marry you. When I knew she was with child I was ashamed of what I had done; but she knew I did not love her, and that I was promised to you. She did not expect me to marry her. So I gave her a sum of money for a dowry and I pay her every month for the boy’s keep.’

‘You wanted to marry me, but not enough to stay away from other women,’ I remarked bitterly.

‘Yes,’ he admitted. He did not flinch from the truth even when it was told baldly out of the mouth of an angry woman. ‘I wanted to marry you, but I did not stay away from another woman. But what about you? Is your conscience utterly clear, Hannah?’

I let it go, though it was a fair accusation. ‘What’s the child named?’

He took a breath. ‘Daniel,’ he said and saw me flinch.

I took a mouthful of broth and crammed the bread down on top of it and chewed, though I wanted to spit it at him.

‘Hannah,’ he said very gently.

I bit into a piece of meat.

‘I am sorry,’ he said again. ‘But we can overcome this. She makes no claims against me. I will support the child but I need not go and see her. I shall miss the boy, I hoped to see him grow up, but I will understand if you cannot tolerate me seeing her. I will give him up. You and I are young. You will forgive me, we will have a child of our own, we will find a better house. We will be happy.’

I finished my mouthful and washed it down with a swig of ale. ‘No,’ I said shortly.

‘What?’

‘I said, “No”. Tomorrow I shall buy a boy’s suit and my father and I will find new premises for the bookshop. I shall work as his apprentice again. I shall never wear high-heeled shoes again, as long as I live. They pinch my feet. I shall never trust a man again, as long as I live. You have hurt me, Daniel, and lied to me and betrayed me and I will never forgive you.’