Beatrice’s eyes slid away from her. ‘I d-don’t know wh-what you m-mean. D-did you like the g-garden?’

Rosa shook her head and, even in the dim light, she saw Beatrice flinch slightly.

‘I didn’t like it,’ she said softly. ‘I loved it. It is exquisite. Simply the most magical, wondrous thing I’ve ever seen.’

Beatrice smiled suddenly, and Rosa wondered whether it might have been the first time she’d ever seen her do so.

‘I did think the plum trees cruel, though,’ she added. She could feel her irritation turning into something stronger, angrier, as she went on. ‘What is the point? We can’t undo our choices, so why torture ourselves with visions of what might have been?’

‘And y-yet you ignored the w-warning and ch-chose to. Experience it. Anyway,’ Beatrice said.

Rosa had no answer to that and the fact that she only had herself to blame just made her anger even hotter.

‘It is h-human n-nature,’ Beatrice said. ‘To l-look in all the wrong p-places, focus on all the w-wrong th-things and s-seek out that which is b-bad for us. It’s why so m-many of us. Are so. Unhappy.’

‘Including you?’ Rosa hazarded. ‘I suppose you know there was much gossip about you and Mr Sheppard whilst you were away. Going off together like that, quite alone … Why, there were even people who thought the two of you might have eloped.’

Beatrice flushed. ‘J-James is m-married.’

Rosa raised an eyebrow. ‘James, is it? So you did nurture feelings for him. Bad luck that he chose someone else in the end.’

Rosa had no idea why she was speaking in such a way. She felt suddenly sick.

Beatrice gave her an odd look and said, ‘I am h-happy for h-him. He d-deserves every h-happiness and h-has b-been a g-g-great f-friend to m-me. But a-as you k-know, I d-do not w-want to m-m-marry anyone. Ever.’

Rosa shrugged impatiently, suddenly desperate to change the subject. ‘Well, I don’t know what instructions the Spider Queen gave you, but I understood our gardens were supposed to amaze and delight people.’ The thought gave her a sudden surge of hope. ‘You’ve no more sense than a June bug, if you think your plum trees do that. I don’t imagine you will win the competition this way.’

She was pleased to see a flicker of uncertainty cross Beatrice’s face and hoped that she had touched a nerve.

‘Your garden is extraordinary,’ she said. ‘But mine is better. You must come when it opens next week. Until then, I’ll wish you goodnight.’

She climbed up into her carriage and was about to rap on the roof to signal the driver to go, when Beatrice suddenly reached in through the window and gripped her wrist.