Annie dabbed at her eyes again, and thanked him. But she knew there wasn’t the least need for him to persuade her. Her people’s days were probably not long – they’d said so themselves when she’d asked them if she might go to India – and they’d said she must make her own life, and make of it the best that she could. She couldn’t tell him this, of course – it wouldn’t seem right, as if she were … well, some sort of fortune-hunter – but she could make some of her own feelings known at least, and plainly. (And if she could stop being tearful and behaving like a housemaid, and bear herself like someone respectable.)

‘No, Colonel, I would not wish to return on that account.’

‘Well, I am glad to hear it, of course, for neither I nor Mrs Hervey – and certainly not Georgiana – would wish to see you go. And I do commend you for your consideration in keeping the sad news to yourself, but please recollect that you are as family to us. Neither I nor Mrs Hervey would wish you to withhold something so distressing again.’

‘Thank you.’

It was the first time, she’d later recollect, that she’d ever answered as a woman rather than as servant – no ‘sir’ or ‘colonel’. What was become of her?

‘Well now,’ he added briskly; ‘I would not have you unhappy. You’ll be joining us at dinner this evening? I think Sir Eyre means to put on quite a show.’

She nodded, and managed a smile. ‘I shall.’

‘Capital … Then, what say you to a walk if Georgiana isn’t able to? In the Mogul gardens. I’m greatly in need of a little exercise after so many letters this morning. You might tell me a little more of what you’ve observed of this place, and the business of the thugs.’

She said she would.

Half an hour later, under Serjeant Acton’s ever-watchful eye, they began their stroll in the cool greenness of what had once been the private precincts of a considerable palace long dismantled.

‘I can’t pretend to knowing a great deal about Mogul gardens – and these here are far inferior to those at Dehli and …’ (he was going to say ‘Agra’, but thought better of it, since that was now the place of her brother’s grave) ‘… and Fatehpur Sikri.’

‘Fatehpur Sikri is near Agra, is it not?’

He smiled to himself at his unnecessary delicacy. ‘Yes. The fort and palace there are quite extraordinarily fine – red sandstone.’

‘And the Taj Mahal. I have read a little about it.’

‘Ah, yes, the Taj Mahal.’

‘You have been there, Colonel?’

‘Yes, when last the regiment was here, in Calcutta.’

‘And seen the Taj Mahal?’

‘Yes.’

‘I had very much hoped to go and see my brother, and while there to see the Taj Mahal. Is it the most beautiful building in the world?’

‘Well, I am at a disadvantage in that I have not seen all those that would claim to be more beautiful, but I would say that there is something to its situation – by a great river, the Jumna – and the brilliance of the marble stone, and the symmetry, and its dimensions and proportions, which are very great. It is certainly without comparison with anything I’ve seen, or indeed seen images of. And it’s come upon from Agra – where too, incidentally, is a fine sandstone fort, which your brother would have known well; it’s come upon via some miles of desert, and so it stands most impressively on the eye.’