Harriet pulled the curtains tightly together.

She lifted the counterpane and slipped between sheets that had been warmed by Alice’s body. She touched her cousin’s back, her fingertips brushing the soft flannel of her nightdress. It would be nice to cuddle up, but she didn’t want to wake her. Harriet contemplated rising again to fetch woollen bed socks from the dressing table drawer. They might help ease the ache in her foot. Or perhaps the cold would numb it. But she was reluctant to expose herself to the cold air again. She turned on her side and pulled the sheets higher, glad to be insulated from the gale still raging outside the walls of the house.

Chapter 6

There was heat in Gunson’s chest from the brandy his wife had handed to him, which he was savouring, and a prickle on his skin from the leaping flames in the fireplace.

‘Where are you going, Charlotte?’

She had got up from her armchair on the other side of the fireplace, skirts rustling. He admired her silhouette in the light from the candles, her hair gathered up to reveal a long and delicate neck. He had the privilege of seeing that hair tumble down her back when she removed her pins at bedtime.

‘I’m tired out, John.’

‘You’re not going to bed at this hour? What is it, nine o’clock only?’

She smiled and bent to kiss his cheek.

‘Oh ho!’ He took her hand and pulled her towards him. ‘You cannot fool me. You have a new book that is more fascinating than keeping your poor husband company.’ He tried a pleading look. ‘Ask Millicent to bring it down for you. Stay by the fire with me and read.’

But Charlotte was having none of it. ‘No, it’s too dark in here. The light by the bed is better for reading. My eyes are starting to sting in my old age.’

‘Fifty-five isn’t old, my love.’

‘As I would expect a fifty-six-year-old to say. When do we become old, then?’

‘Old age is always a decade hence.’

‘So, sixty-six now? And then, in ten years, seventy-six?’

‘If we live that long. It would be pleasing to get to the point of saying old age is ninety-six.’

Charlotte shuddered. ‘Don’t wish your life away. Goodnight, John. And don’t stay up late.’

The house groaned in sympathy with the gale raging beyond the shuttered window. Candlelight flickered over the faces in the family portrait that hung on the wall, animating his younger self, bringing to life the hand rendered in oils that rested on his wife’s shoulder, warming the serious gazes of their children who were gathered around her. All of them grown now, and scattered like seeds to create their own families. His eyes fell on the celestial globe that sat on a low mahogany table by the fireside, the constellations inscribed in gold on a black sphere that could be rotated within its brass meridian. It was a beautiful piece of nonsense, a wedding anniversary gift from the children. A pleasant wave of tiredness washed over him and his head nodded.