Anyway – Lord in heaven – who could he hand over to?

‘When it comes to it, Geordie, do we have to go home though? Can’t we stay here? You know how far a rupee goes. We can have a place ten times bigger than in England. We could even buy our own. They say there’s a new law, and you can buy here now. We could run a guest house – for officers and the like.’

It was more than he’d have liked to contemplate at this time, what with a regiment to get to Guntoor all of three hundred miles away, but he must say something by way of reply. In truth, though, it wasn’t Edie Armstrong’s intention to have a decision from him there and then – merely to plant the thought in his mind, for him to contemplate during quiet moments in the coming months, of which there must surely be some?

‘Aye, well, it’s an idea, bonnie lass.’

And that was all he needed to say, and all she needed to hear.

* * *

Not long after Milne left, Georgiana and Annie returned from their afternoon promenade with Allegra. Annie and her younger charge, with the ayah and her assistants, went straight to the nursery; Georgiana joined her father while her bath was being drawn.

‘Papa, Serjeant Acton says the regiment is to go north for several months. May I go too?’

She took him by surprise. It wasn’t unusual for memsahibs – or a regiment’s women – to accompany their men on expeditions, and there’d certainly be some of the dragoons’ wives on this one, but …

‘Why would you wish to?’ (Even as he said it he realized how absurd a question it was.) ‘I mean … would it not be better that you stayed here, in the circumstances?’

The ‘circumstances’ were Kezia’s confinement (when, in the strict sense, her confinement began). But again, even as he spoke he realized how much he took – continued to take – for granted. He’d presumed on his sister for many years after Georgiana’s semi-orphaning, and now he presumed on Georgiana herself.

‘If you wish me to stay here, and my step-mama too, I shall, of course, Papa.’

‘Your step-mama wouldn’t, I think, object to your going, for she wouldn’t wish to stand in the way of your being with me after hazarding the passage here, but she might have a concern, I think, for … your company; for I believe Annie would have to stay.’

‘If Annie must stay, I should be perfectly content if Anjali or Sarah were to come.’

Hervey put down his glass. He’d never thought to prepare himself for this – the child he’d always left behind, seen only occasionally and supposed would somehow remain a child, now making her own way, and most assuredly. What, indeed, could he say? ‘Very well, we’ll ask your step-mama’s opinion on her return. And in truth … I shall be pleased if she approves.’