Mother forces a laugh then, a shrill, nervous sound, and casts me a look of warning. We both know I’m building up to being outrageous. I was fully prepared to behave myself tonight, but this set-up with Cuthbert is enough to try the patience of a saint. Really, it’s her own fault.

I think I might be about to start enjoying myself.

“Ah.” Cuthbert clears his throat, his uncertain gaze moving anxiously between us. “What – what do you like to do, Beatrice?” he asks, rather desperately, as though trying to steer the conversation back to stable ground. “As a hobby, I mean?”

I lean forward on my elbows and flash him a brilliant grin. “Oh, Cuthbert,” I say. “I’m so glad you ask.”

“Beatrice…” Mother begins, all her senses obviously awake to the danger of the situation, but it’s too late now.

“Actually, at the moment I’m making a study of the Lampyris noctiluca, or the glow-worm, as you would call it in common parlance.” I sit back in my chair. “It’s their mating habits which I find particularly fascinating.”

My voice rings out clear as a bell in the quiet room.

“Mating habits?” Cuthbert’s flush deepens, and he darts an anxious glance at my mother, whose eyes are widening helplessly. I realize that even the vicar has turned in my direction.

“Yes,” I say. “Mating habits. By which, of course, I mean the sexual coupling that leads to reproduction.”

Cuthbert’s mouth is slightly agape, his fork hanging limply from one hand. The others at the long table sit in frozen silence.

“It’s the female glow-worm who emits a bioluminescence in order to attract a mate, you know,” I continue chattily. “In fact, the more a female glow-worm glows, the more attractive a mate she becomes, as greater luminescence indicates increased fecundity.”

“F-fecundity,” Cuthbert repeats in a dazed whisper.

A groaning sound comes from the end of the table, where Father sits with his head in his hands. Mother’s face is ashen. The rest of the party are staring at me with round, unblinking eyes.

“Yes,” I say, turning slightly so that I am addressing all of them. “Fecundity.” I roll the word around in my mouth. “Or fertility. Which is, of course, innately desirable in a mate when considering copulation for the propagation of the species.”

“I think this conversation is unsuitable for the dinner table, Beatrice,” Mother cuts in now rather raspingly, having recovered something of her voice.

“I think this conversation is unsuitable for a young lady, regardless of the time or place,” the vicar thunders in his dramatic, Sunday-sermon roar and Mother flinches.