A silence fell over the table. Lord and Lady Broderick both looked shocked. That was not the way a well-bred woman spoke to her husband. As for Eustace, he and Rosa both knew he wouldn’t have hesitated to restrain her in the privacy of their home, but there was no chance he would raise so much as a finger against her in front of others. His good name was too important to him. He stared across the table at her for a moment before giving a strained laugh and glancing at their companions.

‘Americans,’ he remarked, trying to make a joke of the unpleasant moment. ‘So headstrong.’ He looked back at Rosa. ‘Very well, my dear, you may take part if it means that much to you.’

The footmen were inviting guests to pick their own plums directly from the trees. Almost everyone there rose from their seats to do so.

‘Please be warned,’ the footman went on. ‘These plums taste of regret. Only those who manage to consume the entire fruit will find their fortune within.’

The guests hurried towards the trees, jostling each other to be the first to pick their plum. Each wanted to take the roundest, healthiest, ripest-looking fruit for their own, in the hope that this might have some impact on the fortune they found inside. When Rosa, Eustace and Lord Broderick returned to their seats, the frosted plums in their gloved hands sparkled with the forbidden lustre of Eve’s apple in Eden.

Rosa looked right at Eustace as she raised the plum to her mouth and – relishing the moment of public defiance – bit into it.

Plum juice stained the cream fingers of her gloves.

The taste of regret flooded her mouth.

Her pupils dilated.

There was a strange animal-like groan, and it took Rosa a moment to realise it had come from her.

The plum fell from her hand and rolled over to her teacup. Everyone else at the table was staring at her. She could feel the purple juice sticky on her lips.

‘Really, my dear.’ Eustace sounded smug. ‘Perhaps next time you will have the good sense to listen to your husband.’

He exchanged a knowing look with Lord Broderick, but Rosa had no attention left to resent him. All her thoughts were occupied with the lingering taste of regret upon her tongue. It was, as Beatrice had said, impossible to describe, much as she searched her mind for words to do so. It had some of the sweetness of fruit, but there was something horrid lurking beneath it too. The plum tasted of dark dreams, and starless nights, cold hands and rotten wedding cakes. It was, without a doubt, the most dreadful thing Rosa had ever eaten and her tongue seemed to burn with the echo of it.