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‘Indeed. Terror alone can make a deer’s heart burst.’ Richard Fopling’s voice trembled with feeling. ‘We too can die of fright, until we learn how to survive.’ And in that moment, Leonora understood that here was a man whose childhood had instilled such fear in him that he passed through the world as inconspicuously as possible. He walked towards Leonora, his face haunted by some memory she could not know. He took her hand and bowed. ‘I’ll leave you to deal with the disturbed herd and I’ll return to my restive flock.’ He managed a slight smile. ‘Forgive me, Miss Appleby. I have made a mistake in troubling you. I fear I have nothing to offer.’ He saluted Mrs Priddy and Mr Lockwood and left as unobtrusively as he had come.

George Lockwood recovered his good humour. ‘I do apologise for bursting in like this: my manners are deplorable. I hope I haven’t hastened away your visitor. It is still your home. Forgive me.’ He took Leonora’s hand and squeezed it in a friendly manner.

But Leonora’s mind was on the incident in the field. ‘Is there anything to be done? Are the deer settled? Where is Achille now?’

‘I chased him back into the woods. Probably returned from whence he came. And good riddance, I say! After I did his lordship the courtesy of returning his dog yesterday and was greeted with such insolence, I’m disinclined to do him any more favours.’ He stamped off to the back of the house to remove his boots, and then extracted from the inside of his coat the folded plan of his tree-planting scheme which he had sought to protect from the rain.

Nanny P took Leonora’s arm. ‘Well! What a to-do. That dog seems as intractable as his master.’

‘If the occasion arises, I might mention his roaming hound to the Earl when I accompany Miss Charlotte to the Abbey tomorrow.’

‘Oh, Master Alistair never liked being chastised for anything. He was the most stubborn of boys, only really respected his brother.’

‘And you too, Nanny P?’ Leonora looked at the elderly woman with a mischievous smile.

‘Oh, tush now!’ As Mrs Priddy drew Leonora back into the drawing room and closed the door, she asked the one pressing question on her mind. ‘Nora dear, was that a proposal from the young curate, do you think?’

‘Perhaps he was just strengthening his resolve to do the deed,’ she said with a wry smile. ‘But I don’t know if in his mind that pair of homing swans included me or whether he was happy enough to fly alone.’

‘He’s a good man. My dear, he would treat you well, you know. Don’t dismiss him out of hand.’

‘I think Mr Fopling’s full of sympathetic feeling, but he doesn’t seem equipped for the hurly-burly of the world.’

‘That wicked father of his had any spirit beaten out of him. He was the same with his dogs.’

Leonora’s heart contracted with horror at the thought, but she was then distracted by her name being called. Charlotte dashed in through the garden door. Mrs Priddy grumbled, ‘This house has become like a well-oiled turngate, so many alarums and excursions, comings and goings.’

Under her breath, Leonora protested, ‘Nanny P, Charlotte has every reason to be unsettled after the recent turn of events.’

‘Well, you’ll know more tomorrow, so there’s no use in awful contemplation.’ Mrs Priddy smiled and nodded at Charlotte as she turned for the kitchen in search of Cook.

‘Oh Leonora! I saw Mr Fopling walk past so lost in thought he didn’t even see me. Did he propose?’

‘Come through to the morning room. Mr Lockwood’s in the library completing his arboreal planting scheme.’ Once they were sitting together on the sofa in the window, Leonora answered her friend’s anxious question. ‘I think he was about to when Mr Lockwood burst in complaining about the Earl’s dog upsetting our deer herd. In that second of distraction, he thought better of it.’

‘The Earl seems to have a capacity to upset everyone! He banned us from swimming, he’s visited grief on my family, his rudeness has made an enemy of Mr Lockwood. Only Nanny P looks on him with kindness.’

‘Lottie!’ Leonora laughed. ‘It’s not that bad. Don’t get yourself into a state about him. I like the fact he cares for his piano-forte and plays well and is a fine swimmer. Rumour has it, like Lord Byron, he’s crossed the Hellespont.’ Her eyes were sparkling at the thought of such a heroic swim.

Charlotte’s eye fell on her copy of Belinda still open on the table by the fire. ‘Oh good, ’tis here. I’ve been missing it. I love her character. She makes me think of my own life and how I want to live.’

‘I’m reading Mrs Burney’s Camilla and the antics of what I call the Typhoid family.’

Charlotte gave a gasp of laughter. ‘They’re the Tyrold family, not the Typhoids!’

‘That’s better. I like to see you laugh.’

‘In Belinda there’s a character who is very like you, Miss Appleby. She spreads light and warmth wherever she goes. Mama Mildmay could not have been kinder but she is timid and afraid of the world, and you are not. You encourage me to be brave. Since reading Belinda I have lost patience with the idea that women exist at the mercy of men’s wills.’

Leonora was surprised at her young friend’s growing independence of thought and chuckled as she said, ‘See, there are good reasons to read! Thus we inhabit other lives and begin to think in new ways.’ Charlotte had been a reluctant reader, preferring the outdoors in summer and attempts at dressmaking and bonnet trimming in winter, but her view of life and relationships were very much moulded by the Mildmays’ careful nurture. Leonora was pleased to see her horizons expanding.

Charlotte was looking at her hands when she said, ‘Mr Lockwood leaves tomorrow. With his schemes and enthusiasm, he’s brought extra interest to our daily lives at Hatherleigh.’

Leonora suspected a growing restlessness in her friend and said, ‘He has indeed. Life in the village is a bit tedious for someone as young and full of spirit as you, is it not?’

‘No, no!’ Charlotte was quick to demur. ‘It’s just it’s been pleasant to hear about his plans. I don’t feel as sad about your moving to the Lodge.’

‘Well, that is a good thing, wouldn’t you say?’ Leonora’s hopes that Charlotte and George Lockwood might discover a love for each other were very much alive. ‘Would you like to join us this evening for his last meal with us?’