“Yes?” I asked.

“I left Mr. Hargreaves’s cigars inside, madam, as the combination with lemonade would be rather atrocious.”

“You’re very bad, Davis,” I said. “I’ll expect an entirely different outcome the next time I call for port rather than lemonade.” With another bow, he left us. “He knows Colin doesn’t mind when I smoke, but dear Davis refuses to be an accessory to what he views as my ruin.”

“A good man, your butler,” Robert said.

“I won’t take any nonsense from you, sir.” I smiled. Robert had long ago given up on trying to influence me. He had come to tenuous terms with his wife’s own small rebellions (drinking port with me, for example), so long as she restricted them to private situations. Decorous behavior, however, he required in public.

It was I who had corrupted Ivy, just as I’d corrupted myself. While locked up in mourning after the death of my first husband, I’d undergone an intellectual awakening and taken up the study of Greek. I’d learned to read the ancient language, reveled in the poetry of Homer, and become a respected collector of classical antiquities. As I became more enlightened, I’d also come to despise the restrictions of society, and in the course of rejecting them, had come to discover the simple pleasure one could afford from a glass of port, a drink ordinarily forbidden to ladies. Now, at the prodding of another dear friend, I’d expanded my studies to include Latin, and had convinced Ivy to learn it as well. She might not have been quite so enthusiastic a student as I, but she had a sharp mind and was learning quickly.

The lemonade cooled us and we sank into more relaxed postures as the blue light of dawn reached for the dark sky. I wondered how much longer Colin would be. His work as one of the most trusted and discreet agents of the Crown took him from me at odd times of the day and night, and I had come, after more than a year of marriage, to trust his competence absolutely. His missions might be dangerous, but no one was better suited than he to handle them. When he at last staggered into our garden that night, his evening clothes were tattered, his face black, and the bitter smell of smoke heavy on him.