‘Now then, do sit down whilst I—’

‘Don’t p-pretend you d-didn’t hear me, Aunt,’ Beatrice cut her off. ‘I w-won’t marry today. Or ever.’

Emily had gone quite pale and it was impossible to tell whether it was from anger or fright. Beatrice had never spoken to her like that before; in fact she’d never done anything like this before. All her senses seemed suddenly heightened: the eyes of the peacock-feather wallpaper were shockingly blue, the scent of the orange blossoms in the bridal bouquet so intense she could taste them.

‘My dear, I think the wedding excitement must be making you a little hysterical,’ Aunt Emily ventured. ‘Shall I fetch a sal volatile?’

‘You m-may fetch Eustace so I can sp-speak to him in private.’

‘I certainly will not!’

Beatrice glared at her, then gathered up big handfuls of her lacy skirts to stride from the room.

‘If you go out that door, I shall faint!’ her aunt cried at her back.

Then fetch your own sal volatile, Beatrice thought, with a certain vicious satisfaction as she walked into the hallway.

She made her way along the landing to the Adam and Eve staircase. It was a seventeenth-century original with elaborately carved bannisters showcasing the Garden of Eden’s flora and animals. Twin statues of Adam and Eve watched from the posts as Beatrice descended in a rustle of petticoats, her long veil whispering over the polished wooden stairs behind her.

She thought of that night seventeen years ago when she had descended this very staircase as a child, clutching her mourning parasol and following the trail of dancing mushrooms. It was a night she had not thought of in some while, but the memory of it now was oddly comforting, reminding her that there was more to the world than wedding guests, marriage vows and blood opals.

When she reached the ground floor she found the house infuriatingly empty. It seemed that everyone was already assembled outside for the ceremony. She passed through the Summer Dining Room, the Billiards Room, the Winter Smoking Room, the Marble Hall, the White and Gold Music Room, the two-storey Library with its ten thousand volumes, but there was simply not a soul around.

As she strode down the long South Front viewing gallery it was impossible not to recall the many occasions she’d wandered the house as a girl, in the months after her mother had died and the Winter Garden had gone, when her father was so often absent. With the servants closeted away below stairs, it had sometimes felt like she was the last person alive in the world.