And, in that one word, all that had happened was explained. He would not be leaving. He look a long breath. He wished she would sit down. Or go, now that things were clear again between them. Instead she stood before him, she loomed over him.

She was speaking again and it seemed at first inconsequential, talk of the servants, but after a long moment her words penetrated.

‘I have sent Alice away. Her and the child.’

He looked up at her. ‘Child? What child?’

She did not answer at once, then, ‘Do you deny all knowledge of it?’

‘My dear, I have not the slightest idea as to what you are referring.’

At his words, she turned away. Whatever passed over her face in that moment she did not wish him to see. And when she turned back there was a coldness to her, a bitterness.

‘First this woman, this Miss Trent,’ she said, ‘who must break the law in the most appalling way to rid herself of your bastard child, and now the maid—the maid, Alasdair!—who presumably had no option but to expel the wretched thing, and right here under our very roof for all I know, though the idea of it is quite repellent. Well, now she is gone and the child too.’

He could not speak. And this was as well for she had not finished.

‘The hypocrisy of it! That you should accuse me of infidelity—’ She stopped herself. Took a deep breath. ‘I believe you should go, Alasdair. I do not wish us to continue as we are.’

He struggled to his feet. How could she know all this about Verity? As for the rest of it!

‘But you are deluded, Eleanor. I do not deny this …’ He paused. He could not find the word. When he did find a word, he closed that part of himself that shrank in shame. ‘… this incident with Miss Trent. Indeed, I am come here today to discuss it frankly with you and to beg your forgiveness. But this other accusation about myself and the maid—the maid, Eleanor, good God!—and a child, it is preposterous. Deranged.’

But she stood before him, resolute. And he saw that it was not her strength or her resolution that kept her standing there, it was her dismay, and the slightest movement of the breeze would see her crumble into powder before him. But still she stood before him, resolute, despite him. Despite herself.

‘Eleanor, what child, for God’s sake? Look about you. There is no child. There never has been a child.’

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO: THE TRANSIENCE OF ALL THINGS

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

THE TRANSIENCE OF ALL THINGS

A short time later a carriage drew up outside the house, a dark green brougham pulled by two perfectly matched bay cobs and carrying Mrs Henry Rothe.