Before Rosa could say anything, the soft whisper of the plum rain began to fall in sheets around them. As before, there was a mixture of people wanting to experience it and others who stayed carefully shielded beneath the ceiling of parasols. Lady Broderick gazed at the rain for a moment before removing her hand from her muff and reaching out, only for her husband to catch her wrist and draw it back.

‘Good God, Peony! Did you not hear what I said about Vera?’ he demanded. ‘It would be too bad to have your medical bills to pay, on top of hers.’

‘How thoughtless of me. I apologise, Laurence,’ she said in a meek tone.

She made no further move to touch the plum rain, but Rosa saw the wistful look in her eyes as she gazed out at it. Lady Broderick had had ten children in eleven years, three of whom had died in their infanthood. Surely that explained the quiet sadness in her brown eyes.

There is another wasted life, Rosa thought. She had no desire herself to experience the plum rain again. Once was more than enough.

She turned to Eustace. ‘You are not going to partake?’

‘I am not interested in other lives,’ he replied. ‘Only this one.’

For the first time Rosa wondered what Eustace’s future mistake would be. It did not take a scholar to see that their marriage was a tinder box. Sooner or later, one of them was bound to go up in flames and no doubt take the other person with them.

The rain quickly came to an end. As before, there were some people who were badly affected by it and had to be revived in their seats with fans and smelling salts, or else helped from the garden altogether. But, unlike before, the evening was not yet over. Instead of inviting people to return to their carriages, the footmen instead came round the tables to enquire who would care to enjoy the greatest spectacle of all in the garden – the fortune plums themselves.

This time Eustace and Lord Broderick both accepted. Lady Broderick looked hopeful, but was immediately forbidden by his lordship, who claimed that the plums might be too dangerous. Eustace followed suit by making the same comment to Rosa, but she found herself laughing in his face.

‘I am having one of those plums, Eustace,’ she said. ‘And there is simply nothing short of physical restraint that you can do to stop me.’