And, stupidly, dimly, up to this point she had not understood his intent. He had followed her into the room, she realised.

She pulled her hand sharply away. Or tried to. He clasped it more tightly. He slid his arm about her waist, pressing it against the small of her back to pull her towards him.

‘Come, Eleanor, do not be coy. You are hardly a blushing virgin.’

‘How dare you!’

She snatched back her hand and made for the door and there was a moment when she thought he would spring after her, that he would prevent her from leaving.

Instead he let out a hard little laugh: ‘Leave, if you must, my dear!’ And then, as she reached the door: ‘I do not take kindly to being made a fool of!’

Outside Alasdair was standing at the reception desk. He gave her the queerest look as she burst from the lounge, furious and flustered.

A moment later Drummond-Smith emerged, pulling on his gloves.

‘That man is odious!’ she declared, shaken, and she took her husband’s arm.

Alasdair stared at her as though he had not heard. ‘What were you doing, alone, in a room with that man?’

What had she done? Eleanor did not know. But why, then, did she remember that one evening? She wondered if perhaps she did know and her unease grew.

As the dawn crept in she arose from her desk and went out of the room and to her husband’s door. It was half open. There was movement within and she stood, uncertain, then pushed open the door. Inside Alasdair was dressed, or completing his dress: knotting a tie, buttoning a waistcoat, smoothing down his hair. A trunk stood open upon the table with items already inside and Alice, the maid, stood midway between wardrobe and trunk, a pile of shirts in her arms. The girl stopped dead and stared, her eyes quite wild and terrible, as though she knew all that went on in the house. Alasdair stopped and stared too; his eyes were fearful and furious and then nothing at all as he turned from her.

Eleanor wondered how, after twenty years, she could know someone so little.

‘Leave us, Alice,’ she commanded, and the girl all but dropped the pile of clothes in her haste to get out. Eleanor closed the door behind her. The trunk on the bed. Alasdair’s clothes in the trunk. And a portmanteau, fastened and bulging, by the door.

‘You are going somewhere?’

She felt something rise within her. Her words so calm, so quiet, so reasonable, but something was rising. It frightened her a little.

‘The Tour of the South with the Premier.’

‘I did not realise you were to accompany him—’

‘I received word yesterday. What is it you want, Eleanor?’

Already he had turned back to the mirror, his fingers fumbled with the myriad tiny buttons on the waistcoat.