‘And so will you speak to your parents, May?’ Maudie asked as they reached Piccadilly Circus and came to a halt. ‘I’m quite sure if you did, it would turn things around in a flash.’

May could never remember being in such a quandary. Not only was Frank a reckless gambler, but according to Dolly he had also acquired the reputation of being a womanizer, something Maudie was presumably unaware of. Just as worrying was that Frank hadn’t given the slightest indication that his feelings for Maudie were such that he would marry her, if he could; and, knowing her brother as she did, May doubted if what he had said had been sincerely meant.

Not wanting to encourage Maudie in her hope that her relationship with Frank was going to have a happy ending, and wanting to protect her from hurt, she replied, ‘If you really want me to, I’ll speak to my parents in the way that you’ve asked, but I truly think the best thing you can do for your future happiness is to end your romance with Frank, because I honestly don’t believe it can have a happy ending.’

People were bustling past them in a never-ending throng. Bicycles, horse-drawn buses, carts and carriages rattled and clattered as they rounded the fountain in the centre of the Circus and streamed off into Piccadilly, Regent Street and Shaftesbury Avenue. Over the general din, Maudie said cheerfully, ‘Oh, but it will have a happy ending, May. My romance with Frank has gone too far down the road for it not to.’

Out of the corner of her eye, May saw with relief that Jim had brought the carriage-horses to a halt and was waiting for them only yards away.

‘I’m sure it must seem like that, when you’ve known each for as long as both of you can remember—’

‘That isn’t what I meant by Frank and me having gone too far down the road for us not to be allowed to marry.’ The expression in Maudie’s cornflower-blue eyes was both defiant and triumphant. ‘Frank and I are lovers, May. We are lovers in the most full and wonderful way possible. So you see, if the worst comes to the worst and the answer is no, when Frank finally asks Papa and Granny Queen if he can marry me, then I shall tell them that unless I’m allowed to marry Frank, gossip will get out about my having lost my virginity and the result will be no one else ever asking for my hand in marriage. Poor, dear Toria will be tainted by association, and Granny Queen will die of heart failure.’