The trouble was, he’d not written to condole with her on the loss of her husband. The last time he’d seen her was at Bristol, when Sir Peregrine Greville had presided at the court of inquiry. She’d been dismissive, to say the least. Not that he’d no right to be dismissed, but it had been Kat herself who’d invited him to their supper party. It had been an altogether disagreeable evening, for not only had she behaved strangely, so had Sir Peregrine. It had been as if each, in their own way and for their own reason, wished to warn him off. And there could have been no reason but the birth of a son – as The Times had it, ‘The twelfth of March at Rocksavage, County Roscommon, to Lady Katherine Greville, a son and heir.’ It had struck him at the time as being a curious wording: the heir was surely to Sir Peregrine? The child had no title to inherit from him, for his was KCB not Bart, so perhaps succession in the Irish peerage followed a different rule? Perhaps the child really was the heir, through Kat, to some Athleague remainder? But why did he concern himself? Only because of the nagging doubt that Kat reserved, as it were, the paternity – and that that was the cause of Sir Peregrine’s froideur that evening. And yet for several days afterwards he’d studied the announcements in The Times and found the wording entirely usual. What, therefore, was her design now in writing?

The first two pages gave him no clue. They merely told him of not so much her widowing but Sir Peregrine’s passing, as if he’d been a distant cousin of theirs both. There were expressions of sorrow, but they lacked the quality of being heartfelt. Perhaps it was that she’d steeled herself to writing, as she must have done to many another. Sir Peregrine had not been a bad husband, only an absentee one, and considerably older than her. Or rather, in truth, it had been Kat who was the absentee, for she’d chosen not to accompany her husband to Alderney, where he was military governor, a post he’d held for nearly ten years before another sinecure was found for him in Ireland, which suited her more in her sudden and unexpected pregnancy. And so here was she now, a widow with child, about his age, undoubtedly left well provided for, and, he supposed, with looks and figure undiminished in the three years since he saw her last – and quite probably enhanced. What indeed was her design in writing?

The third page revealed it in part, perhaps. She’d returned to London, already disdaining widow’s weeds, ‘for Greville would not have wished it’ –