She could not prevent the strangled cry that escaped her lips, but fortunately no one else noticed, as the air was filled with the exclamations of others who had experienced the plum rain. Some were laughing, others were weeping, whilst some people simply looked dazzled, as if their eyes could not adjust to the lantern glow of the pleasure garden after whatever it was they’d just been looking at.

A footman was thanking them for coming, and guests were rising to their feet to leave. Rosa hung back and let them go first, desperately trying to catch her breath and to thrust all the pieces of herself back together again. Her hands shook with anger. How could she have been stupid enough to touch the plum rain, knowing full well that nothing good could come of it? Now she had simply given herself another burden to carry – one more rock to make her already-unbearable load even heavier.

Even worse was what this meant for the competition. She’d been so certain that she would win, but now, for the first time, she felt a thorn of doubt slide beneath her skin. She was struck again by the sparkling beauty of Beatrice’s garden – the snow was a perfect carpet, the candlelight lapped at the night, like a cat licking cream, and the darkness meant that the sky was a net full of trapped stars. She worried that her own garden seemed brash and fake, and too bright, in comparison.

Finally she stood up from her table, snatched up her muff and the guidebook and quickly followed the other guests towards the exit. The carriages were already starting to rumble down the drive, and Rosa was just about to climb up into her own when a voice spoke behind her.

‘Hello, R-Rosa.’

She turned to see Beatrice lingering on the dark steps of Half Moon House, wrapped up in winter furs. It was strange to see her again after all this time.

‘Why are you lingering out here like this?’ she asked. ‘You’re the hostess. You ought to be in the garden.’

If their roles had been reversed, Rosa would certainly have been out in the middle of it all, basking in the triumph of her success, soaking up every adoring, rapturous moment. It was such a waste that Beatrice had merely skulked at the outskirts, like an intruder at her own party, and Rosa felt an unreasonable flare of irritation towards her.

Beatrice shrugged, then seemed to hunch deeper into her furs. It seemed to Rosa that there was something different about her. ‘Too m-many people,’ she said. ‘They make me f-feel t-trapped.’

Rosa frowned. ‘Why are you looking at me like that?’

‘Like wh-what?’

‘I don’t know, like … like you’re seeing me for the first time or something.’ She put a hand to her face. ‘Do I have something on my cheek?’