At that moment the footman reappeared to announce the arrival of the doctor – a small, portly man with a neatly trimmed beard. Margaret rose to her feet to receive him, but Beatrice’s mind was suddenly racing. She saw life unfolding before her as Eustace’s wife, her tongue sliced into silence, her fortune shredded to pin-money for trinkets she did not want, and all her mushrooms and flowers and insects stolen away from her.

‘Lady Sitwell,’ Margaret said, leading the doctor over to her, ‘I am delighted to present Dr Livingstone.’

Beatrice ignored the bow the man gave her. She carefully placed the book the duchess had given her on the chaise longue and stood up. But she did not speak to the doctor, or respond to his bow, or even glance at Margaret. With a feeling of complete calm, she simply turned her back on them both and walked towards the door.

‘Where on earth are you going?’ Margaret demanded behind her.

She sounded scandalised, but Beatrice didn’t care. She was leaving. She walked right out of Raven Hall without another word to anybody. And as she climbed into her carriage she made a promise to herself that she would never be mistress of that dreadful house.

CHAPTER TWO

Beatrice wrote the letter as soon as she returned home and sent a servant to deliver it to Raven Hall that evening. Eustace ought to have arrived from London by then. She’d spent some time over the composition of the message, wanting to be as polite as possible under the circumstances, whilst remaining firm and making it clear that this was no spur-of-the-moment decision:

I am truly sorry for any hurt or embarrassment I may cause, but it seems to me that it would be the gravest folly to avoid one misfortune by committing oneself to a much larger and more permanent one.

She enclosed the blood opal, fiercely glad to be rid of it, and promised to return all other engagement gifts in due course. It was too late to prevent the wedding guests from arriving the next day, but she promised that she and her aunt would explain matters, and that there was no need for Eustace himself to appear at Half Moon House.

Her Aunt Emily was utterly distraught when she found out what her niece had done, but it was too late to get the letter back by then. Beatrice slept well that night for the first time in months, warmed by a deep sense of contentment, an enormous glow of satisfaction at having freed herself from a horrible fate.

But her peace was short-lived. When the maid woke her with her cup of chocolate the next morning, the first thing Beatrice saw was the blood opal gleaming beside a bouquet of flowers on the walnut chiffonier. She jerked upright in bed, staring at the ring, quite unable to think how it could possibly have got there.