Now, as he descended, the river that led towards the town emerged as a thin grey ribbon from the foot of the dam. He came to a road that ran parallel to the river, about sixty feet above it. A gig that Silas assumed must belong to the man he had seen on the embankment was parked here, the horse hitched to it staring into the rain. Silas fed the horse an apple, his last.

At the bottom of the valley, he came to the deserted pavements of a hamlet of pretty stone cottages and found the river again, walking alongside trees that poked still bare branches into the sky. There was not a soul about, and who could blame them, in this downpour. Silas grinned down at Shandy as he turned east towards the town, the town that was the beating heart of the kingdom’s steel industry.

Chapter 2

Harriet Wragg blew a wayward strand of hair from her eyes as she reached the top of the staircase. The bedlinen she was carrying had blocked her view of the floor. If her cousins had left toys on the varnished planks for her to stumble over then her exasperation would be complete.

She could hear the two younger boys playing in the bedroom they shared, the thump of feet on floorboards, a blood-curdling yell. Savages rampaging through a jungle of their own making. She had no wish to investigate. Meanwhile Adam, the oldest at thirteen, should be working on the grammar and spelling she had given him ahead of his matriculation. It was hoped he’d go to boarding school this year, if the money could be found. She passed his door without pausing. Alice was downstairs in Harriet’s room, practising needlepoint with all the stubbornness a six-year-old could muster. She’d been stabbing her own pudgy fingers more frequently than the cloth and refused all assistance, even when a drop of blood blotted her stitching.

All the cousins were accounted for, and occupied, thank goodness. Her uncle had called for her to attend her aunt from somewhere in the depths of the house, and now, as she dropped the heavy linen onto the bureau, she heard the front door slam. Walter would be out until mid-evening. On his return, he would host a supper, with Harriet’s help.

Harriet quietly entered the master bedroom.

The drapes were drawn and Polly was a hunched shape sitting on the edge of the bed. Harriet suppressed a sigh and went over to crouch before her.

‘Aunt. Do you need the…?’

‘Yes.’ Embarrassment clipped the older woman’s voice. ‘You’re limping today.’

‘My foot pains me.’

She bent to help Polly rise to her feet and manoeuvred her across the room, aware the two of them must look like a grim parody of a waltzing couple. She knew that Polly felt as mortified as she, as she lowered her aunt onto the commode.

‘Just rise up a little, Aunt.’

Harriet tugged Polly’s nightgown out of the way and retreated to the rain-lashed window. The roof of a passing carriage was as blackly velvet as a moonless night.