What a fool she had been to think she had the situation under control. Instead she had played right into Eustace’s hands. Hundreds of people had witnessed her clockwork boar destroy the pleasure garden last year, and a few guests had incurred injuries. Very minor ones, but injuries nonetheless. And she expected that she had made an enemy for life of Dr Livingstone, whose testimony would be the most damning of all against her.

She felt the doors slamming closed, the dirty chains winding tighter, the great padlocks clicking quietly shut as the key was tossed into the ocean, to be swallowed by the waves and snatched away by the skeletal hands of all those who had drowned before her. She could almost feel all the painted duchesses in their gallery upstairs, shaking their heads sorrowfully for her. It seemed she had misplayed her hand.

Her life seemed to stretch endlessly ahead, and it wasn’t the one she had planned or chosen. It was a grim existence behind bars, whilst Ada grew up without her, twisted and moulded by the likes of Eustace and Margaret, taught to believe that her mother was unhinged, that she didn’t love her, that she’d abandoned her.

Rosa looked at the ravens. A few had followed her into the room and more came down the chimney in a shower of soot. In that moment she longed to set the birds upon her husband, to have them tear chunks from his flesh until he begged her for mercy and vowed on his knees that he would never challenge her authority again.

‘I know what you’re thinking,’ he said quietly. ‘And I would think again, if I were you. If those birds attack me now, then that letter will be opened, and I imagine you are correct when you suggest that my pleas for mercy on your behalf would be ignored. It would be a shame if you were forced to spend your days within the walls of some filthy asylum, although I admit it has crossed my mind that perhaps a brief stay in such a place might make you a little more appreciative of all the many riches you are fortunate enough to enjoy here with me.’

He stood up and Rosa forced herself not to step back as he approached her. His eyes were hard, his mouth a flat line of dislike.

‘I regret to say that you are dreadfully spoiled, my dear,’ he said. ‘Your parents were far too lenient with you, and God knows Americans have some strange ways, but that will be tolerated here no longer. I have provided you with money, a title, an extraordinary mansion and an enviable position in society, yet still you refuse to behave properly, and only complain incessantly about what you do not have. What a wretched creature you are.’