‘The trouble with people who have known one from the cradle is that they become positively proprietorial, Miss Gaydon, always wanting one to remain the child of memory. I have an aunt who, even now, persists in the belief that I am an adolescent, presumably to prevent her from feeling old. No doubt Henfield here remembers you singing nursery rhymes.’ Mr Newbold’s words were light-hearted, but Lord Henfield was under no illusions as to his intent. He glared at him.

‘Oh, he must do so, since he even taught me some.’ Henrietta, vaguely aware of some undercurrent between the gentlemen, chose to take him literally. ‘However, he was very wicked, and taught me the wrong words to “Mistress Mary, Quite Contrary”, so that when I sang it, my nurse sent me to bed without any warm milk, and threatened to tell Papa.’

‘They were words I had heard, and I believe the version widely known,’ declared Lord Henfield, defending himself as best he could.

‘That is as may be, but teaching a four-year-old “With silver bells, and cockle shells, Sing cuckolds all in a row” was not appropriate.’

‘I had no more idea of what it meant than you did.’ He looked a little embarrassed, nonetheless.

‘Innocents both, it appears,’ drawled Mr Newbold. He was conscious of having been, for a moment, entirely forgotten. ‘How charming.’ He did not sound very charmed. ‘If you are going to indulge in sibling reminiscence, I fear I must withdraw.’

Both Henrietta and Charles Henfield coloured. Henrietta looked at the floor.

‘We are not siblings,’ averred Lord Henfield, glowering.

‘Ah, but as good as, yes?’ Mr Newbold saw this had hit home, and not just with Henfield. It cost him a pang of regret that it affected Miss Gaydon, but needs must.

Henrietta told herself that it was foolish to feel upset, but if others thought that she and Charles were as good as brother and sister, did it not strengthen the idea that loving him, in an unbrotherly manner, was wrong? She had come close to realising and accepting the truth, and had been telling herself that her feelings were valid, but this dented her confidence.

‘I … I think my cousin is about to play,’ she murmured, colouring furiously, and looked at neither gentleman.

Charles Henfield was fuming. If Henrietta was not aware of Newbold’s intent, he was, and Caroline’s taking up the harp and beginning her piece did not help him, since it prevented any further repudiation of the familial connection. Sir John had told him he was a fool to think it, and so had Lady Vernham, and, at long last, he was convinced of it himself, but he worried that Henrietta was holding back for that exact reason. He had been doing so well, and now this. Had not the sound of plucked strings covered the sound, Mr Newbold might have had the satisfaction of hearing Lord Henfield grinding his teeth.