Rosa took a deep breath. There were dark birds of rage trapped within her, desperate to get out and rip Eustace apart, but she knew she must control them. She could not allow things to spin out of control. Eustace blew as red hot as she did herself, and if either of them lost control in this moment, then they’d be racing together down a dark tunnel from which there could be no turning back.

‘What do you want, Eustace?’ she asked.

‘You know full well what I want,’ he replied. ‘An heir.’

‘That is never going to happen.’

‘Then Ada stays where she is,’ he snapped. ‘And we’ll see which of us breaks first.’

‘If you try to do battle with me on this,’ Rosa said, ‘One way or another, you will lose.’

Eustace slowly smiled. ‘I do not see how,’ he replied, ‘when I hold all the cards.’

Not all of them, she thought silently. Not quite.

She still had the Winter Garden. The competition. And the chance of winning a wish. At one time she had hoped to use it to fix whatever was wrong with Eustace. Then she had hoped to bring Esme back. But now her thoughts went to Ada. She found herself blinking rapidly. Surely the world would not be so cruel as to force her to choose between her daughters? She would not think about it. Not now. All that mattered was that a wish was up for grabs and, however she used it in the end, it must surely go some way to putting right the many things that had gone so wrong in her life. And if a wish could not do so, then surely nothing in the world could.

‘I do not have time to talk nonsense with you,’ Rosa said. ‘I have work to do on the garden.’

She turned and left, but not to her workshop. Instead she called for her carriage and went directly to Margaret’s home in London. She had at least to try and see her daughter, but in the end the two-hour journey was fruitless. The duchess was not there, nor was Ada. The footman said he could not possibly pass on the precise details of her whereabouts without the duchess’s permission.

Despite Rosa’s best efforts, he would say nothing further, so she returned to her carriage, sick with frustration. Even if she’d found Ada there and taken her home, what then? She could not keep the child with her all the time, could not watch her every hour of the day and night. Eustace would eventually find an opportunity to snatch Ada away again, and could pay a servant to hide her somewhere – anywhere. Indeed, even now she might not be in the country at all.