But that was as far as she got before Ada let out a piercing shriek. Rosa flinched. She had forgotten they were there for a moment. The noise woke Esme, who had been sleeping peacefully, and soon both babies were crying. Ada had only just settled moments ago and already she was upset about something.

‘I’m sorry,’ Rosa said, raising her voice above the din. ‘One of the servants will remove them.’

‘Please don’t on my account.’

Rosa tried to stifle her rising panic. It was bad enough when the servants saw her with the twins, but with James the shame would be even worse. She knew she would not be able to quieten them, and then all her ineptitude as a mother would be laid bare.

You do not know the first thing about infants, Eustace sneered inside her head.

But before she could say anything, James had walked over to the cribs and was leaning over them, talking to the twins. Rosa went to pick up Esme, who immediately stopped crying in her arms. The babies were now too big for one person to pick them both up at the same time whilst also supporting their heads, but Rosa knew there would have been no point in picking Ada up anyway. Once she started crying like that, nothing would make her stop.

She was therefore astonished when James reached a hand into the crib and Ada wrapped her own hand tightly around his finger and fell silent.

‘Beautiful,’ James said softly, looking down at her.

I wish she was yours …

The thought seemed to ring loudly in Rosa’s head. She had always thought of Ada as being ugly, but perhaps that was because she only ever saw her with her face screwed up in anger. Now, as the baby blinked her large eyes up at James, she seemed suddenly lovely.

‘I wanted to get them each a present, but I could only find one, so perhaps they might share it?’ James reached into his pocket and drew out something in a miniature glass dome. It was a star that fitted snugly in the palm of his hand.

Rosa gasped. She recognised it from the pop-up book. The pages were littered with these beautiful, sparkling, impossible stars. They shone in the snow, and glittered amongst tree branches, and dusted the ice-house steps. It seemed that they fell from the Tiger of Stars, just as a real beast would shed its fur.

‘Have you been there?’ Rosa asked quickly. ‘The Winter Garden?’

James glanced at her, looking surprised by the eagerness in her voice.

‘I have not,’ he said. ‘This was just another auction find, I’m afraid.’

Rosa thought of the carousel, shining there in the dark amongst the pines. ‘Have you ever heard of just one small piece of the garden appearing by itself?’ she asked.

‘I cannot say that I have,’ James replied. He straightened from the crib to turn round to her. ‘Why?’