‘I am stiff with sitting, I am aching with sitting,’ I would reply desperately. And she would sigh, and look at me with irritated incomprehension. And I would throw on a shawl and walk until I was under the cover of the wood, and then I would lift my skirts and pelt along the woodland paths until the blood was back in my cheeks and the clean air back in my lungs and my legs no longer felt like lead. Then I would saunter home, my bonnet swinging on its ribbons in my hand, my head tipped back to watch the interlaced branches over my head, and my ears rinsed clean of the chatter and full of birdsong.

Celia could have Wednesday afternoons with my blessing. She could have Sunday afternoons, too. After we had attended Matins and eaten a substantial Sunday dinner, it was Harry’s privilege to go to the library and supposedly read serious books — actually he used to put his feet up on the desk and doze in his chair, while in the parlour I sat ramrod-backed in a straight chair and read to Mama from a book of sermons. Celia could have the sermons, and much good might they do her.

All I cared for in county social life were impromptu occasions which happened when there were enough young people to roll back the rugs, and beg an aunt or an indulgent mother to let them dance. I liked the assemblies at Chichester we attended when lambing was done and the roads became easier. And I loved the easy male camaraderie out hunting, and the dances after dinner in winter. But outside those times, when my feet would tap and I would dance with anyone, anyone at all, for the sheer pleasure of swirling round the room, I could do without a social life. I followed my papa. My home was all I needed, and Wideacre could be represented by quiet, pretty little Celia at every county tea party from now till Doomsday with my blessing.

I should have been less easy at the promotion Celia would gain on marriage if I had not seen, without vanity but with clear eyes, that I was far the prettier. Celia was a lovely girl, brown eyes as soft as pansies, skin like cream. But set beside me she became invisible. That summer I glowed with beauty and sensuality. I never walked down a Chichester street but I felt people watching me — women as well as men — and watching me with pleasure in my easy swift stride, in the way my copper hair caught the light in its dancing, wavy ripple, and in my bright face and easy laugh.

If I had lived the life my mama wanted, I should have been as proud as any silly peacock in a dry aviary, for I should have had nothing to think about but how I looked and what colours best became me. But leading the life I had chosen, it mattered less to me whether my hair was right or my eyes bright or my skin clear than whether I could keep a gang of reapers in line. And I prized my eyes less for their clear lovely greenness, and more because one hard look from them could have a lazy ploughboy turned around and speeded up in one second.

But I should have been a saint in heaven if I had not watched Celia narrowly, for she was my rival. And I should have been an angel indeed if I had not looked forward to her wedding day when I was to stand beside her as bride’s attendant, at a time when we would be side by side and I would shine her down.

I would look well in the grey silk Celia had chosen. My hair would be piled high except for one negligent curl, which would trail over my bare shoulder. It would be powdered with white, white powder, which set off the bright green of my eyes and the warm living tints of my skin. The cross old dressmaker, brought from London to Havering Hall for the final fittings, actually gasped when I came out of Celia’s dressing room to stand before the glass in the dress.

‘Miss Lacey, you will be the loveliest lady there,’ she said.

I gazed at the pier glass in Celia’s bedroom. The gown was watered silk, catching the light as I moved, yet as dully smooth as pewter. You could not look at it and not want to touch me. It clung to me — and as I was mother-naked underneath every movement I made let the rich fabric shout, ‘Look! Look! Look!’ I really was very, very lovely. And I was glad to be so lovely.

The grey stomacher was embroidered with tiny seed pearls and tied so tight that I could scarcely breathe. Its pressure on my breasts made them flat so they overflowed in two warm curves at the low neck line. The silk overskirt parted to show the underskirt, which was not of the usual thick quilt. I had deliberately chosen a silk of fine light weaving and I could feel its smooth, satiny texture against my bare legs as I walked.

But my complacent smile was wiped off my face as the door to the closet at the side of Celia’s bedroom opened and she came out to stand beside me at the pier glass. In her wedding dress of white silk with a silver thread of pattern, she looked like a fairytale princess. No man could look at me and not feel hot desire. But no man or woman could look at Celia and not love her. Her waist, as slim as my own, was enhanced by the pointed triangle of the stomacher, and her slim back was hinted by the straight fall of silk at the back of the gown that swayed, tantalizingly, when she moved. Her soft brown hair was piled above her face. She had not powdered it today, but I could imagine that when she was powdered and curled she would set any man’s heart racing, not only with desire, but with tenderness, too.

She smiled in unaffected pleasure at the sight of me and said generously, ‘Why, Beatrice! You look lovelier than ever. You should be the bride, not me!’

I smiled back, but wondered if she was right, and which of us — with a free choice — Harry would prefer.

‘Is anything the matter, Beatrice?’ she said, turning to me. ‘What are you thinking about to make you look so grave?’

‘I was thinking about your husband-to-be,’ I said, hoping to wipe the happiness from her face. I succeeded better than I meant. Her very heart seemed to stop and her face blanched.

‘You can go, Miss Hokey,’ she said to the dressmaker, and then sank down into the window seat, disregarding the fine silk of the dress, crushing it and creasing it under her twisting hands.

‘Can you come on the wedding tour?’ she asked, her brown eyes wide with fright. ‘He wrote me a note to thank me for asking you but it was not clear if you could come, or no. Can you, Beatrice? For the more I think about it, the more certain I am I cannot face going away with him alone.’

‘I can,’ I said triumphantly and watched her face light up.

‘Oh! What a relief!’ she exclaimed and she turned her face and leaned her forehead against the cool of the window pane. She heaved a shuddery sigh but I saw her face was still strained.

‘Is there something more troubling you, Celia?’

‘It is wrong of me, I know,’ she said. ‘But it is the thought of the … bridal night. The plans are that we drive from the wedding breakfast to the Golden Fleece at Portsmouth, you know, and take a boat to France the following morning. I cannot bear the thought …’ She paused and I could see the play of anxiety on her young face. ‘If I should be hurt,’ she said softly, ‘or very much afraid, I should prefer it not to be in a small hotel, especially in England and especially so near home.’

I nodded. This might be meaningless to me. To me it was nonsense, of course, and all to my good. But I can recognize delicacy when I see it.

‘You are thinking that if someone gossiped then people might say things about you,’ I said understandingly.

‘Oh, no!’ she said surprisingly. ‘Not about me, but Harry. I should not like him to be distressed by gossip, especially if it was because of my foolish inability to …’ — she gasped —‘… behave as I must.’

She really was a little darling! To be in such fear and yet think first of us. And it was good to know that the future Lady of Wideacre had a keen appreciation of our good name.

‘I am sure Harry would excuse you the first night,’ I said, and thought gleefully that his first night as a married man should be spent where most of his married life would be spent — with me. ‘With the journey to Portsmouth and then France, perhaps we should agree to travel as friends until we are comfortably installed in Paris.’

Her eyes looked down and she nodded. In that assent she gave me another foothold in Harry’s life. I smiled encouragingly at her and hugged her. Her waist was slim and pliant and I felt the warmth of her body through the gown. She turned her sad face to me and leaned her cheek against mine.

I felt the soft smooth skin just damp with the trace of a tear and could not avoid the thought that if she ever turned to Harry like this then all my passion and power would not hold him. Her lovely virginal body would be a potent attraction to a man like Harry, and her youth, her trust and her sensitivity would create in him the birth of a gentle and tender love. I gave her a little kiss on the lips and — coming as I did from Harry’s hungry bites — she was soft and sweet. Then I got to my feet and slipped out of my bridesmaid gown and into my grey riding habit.

Lady Havering tapped at the door and came in as I was arranging my curls before Celia’s mirror.

‘Good gracious, Celia, get out of that gown immediately,’ she said in her firm oice. ‘You will crush it and spoil it sitting around like that.’ Celia dived for her closet. ‘I suppose you girls have been dreaming of your trip,’ said Lady Havering to me.

I smiled and bobbed her a decorous curtsy.

‘It is so kind of Celia to invite me, and I’m so happy that Mama can spare me.’

Lady Havering nodded. She was an imposing woman, well fitted to her leading position in our county. Large-boned, well-made, she had a presence that totally overwhelmed her pretty daughter and everyone else, too. She settled into a chair and inspected me with the frank appraisal of a woman of the Quality in her own house. How she had fitted into the little Bath town house with her invalid first husband I could not imagine. Lord Havering had recognized in the rich widow someone who would overlook the poverty of his position for the pride, and who would never let down appearances however badly she was treated. He had chosen well; Lady Havering had done her duty, cared for the children of his first marriage and added to the nursery on her own account. She ran the Hall as well as she could for a woman who now had no money and no love for the land, and made no complaint either of her lord’s frequent absences in London, nor at his frequent arrivals with a bunch of drunken friends who would roam about shooting pheasants, and riding down the corn.