“You look as if you’ve narrowly escaped from Lord Fortescue,” she said in a low voice. We retreated to a window seat far across the room, away from the other guests. Had the weather been better, the view would have been spectacular: the estate overlooked the moors, and was considered by many to have the most sweepingly romantic location in England. As it was, a heavy mist had settled above the ground, limiting the distance one could see. This was not an entirely bad thing; I half expected to see Heathcliff striding purposefully towards the house.

Like the rest of Beaumont Towers, the drawing room was an exercise in ostentation, every piece of furniture upholstered in the finest silk or velvet, the parquet floor covered with an Axminster carpet. But quality and extravagance do not guarantee comfort. It was more like a state reception hall than a place to entertain friends. Rumor had it that Mrs. Reynold-Plympton, Lord Fortescue’s longtime mistress, had overseen extensive redecoration of the house and that she considered this, the drawing room, her greatest triumph. The ceiling, all mauve, green, and gold, was at least twenty feet high, its plaster molded in an intricate pattern of entwined rosettes. The gilding continued in a diamond pattern against a taupe background down the top two-thirds of the walls, below which was paneling too dark for the room. On this, at regular intervals, characters from Shakespeare’s Merchant of Venice had been painted.

“If only it were possible to escape,” I said. “I wouldn’t have agreed to come here for anyone but you, Ivy.” The party was not to be a large one, populated by a select group of politicians and their wives. When the men were not buried in meetings, they would be out hunting the estate’s birds, the ladies left with very little to do inside. A typical shooting weekend.

“I know he’s awful, but he’s so good to Robert. We owe him everything.” Robert’s ascent in politics had been hastened by Lord Fortescue’s support, and in return, Robert was expected to give his mentor absolute loyalty.