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‘Yes, indeed. Everything about them deserves special treatment. They are heroic little beasts.’

‘Do you think you might play music to my bees too?’

Sybella was surprised with delight. ‘You mean you have acquired some skeps?’

‘I have. It’s all part of my new plan to bring my estates back into better productiveness.’

Sybella spontaneously grasped his hand. ‘I’m so glad.’ They stood together for a moment, not moving, his hand in hers, their thoughts somehow entwined.

Suddenly, as if recalled to the present, they stepped apart. Mr Brabazon assumed his impassive expression and offered Sybella his arm as he led her out to his curricle. Just at that moment, the door that divided the hall from the kitchens burst open and James dashed up to them, grabbing his mother’s skirts.

‘Mr B’s ’orses! Can I see ’em?’ Sybella looked up at Mr Brabazon, a query in her eyes.

‘Of course, Master Jim.’ He reached down to take the small tot’s hand. Sybella was pleased to see James release his hold on her and gaze up into the austere face of the man whose hand he trustingly held.

In a confident voice, as if he was speaking man to man, the child confided, ‘Your high-steppin’ prancers are the rummest in London. Gem tells me so.’ Mr Brabazon accepted this judgement with all the seriousness with which it was offered, but Sybella noticed a twinkle in his eyes as he glanced down at her son.

‘I am very grateful for your high opinion. They are indeed fine prancers, but today I’m just taking your mama out for a drive. We’ll all go out together next time.’ He ruffled James’s golden curls as the little boy nodded then scampered back towards the kitchens. Mr Brabazon pulled on his gloves. ‘Thank you, Samson,’ he said as he took his hat from the old retainer and led Sybella out into the sunshine.

The warm late spring weather had brought the world and his wife to Hyde Park. As if the intimacy that had existed between them in the library had somehow been too unexpected or discomfiting, they both resorted to exchanging social banalities on the drive up Park Lane. As they swept through Cumberland Gate, Sybella was amazed to see what a crowd of curricles and smart phaetons were milling about, together with a multitude of men and some women on horseback, and others walking in convivial groups. Children were playing Hide and Seek and Tag, dogs roamed free, scavenging where they could, and working Londoners on their day off caroused and picnicked under the trees. It looked like an informal fête champêtre, the dappled light filtering through the leaves on a picturesque tableau of an ever-moving pastoral scene.

Mr Brabazon wove his horses carefully through the throng and headed towards St George’s Row to a quiet glade near the perimeter. As they left the crowds behind, he turned to Sybella. ‘I think I owe you an explanation and an apology. When you asked about my suspicion of Lord Rockliffe, I didn’t give you the straight answer you deserved. I blame myself for the situation last night.’

Sybella caught his troubled look, his dark eyebrows lowered and his grey eyes distant with some painful memory. ‘No, no.’ She dropped her eyes. ‘I accepted Lord Rockliffe’s offer to escort me around the sights, perfectly voluntarily.’

‘You asked me why I hated Rockliffe and I should have told you how I had once loved him as a friend. At Oxford, we were as close as Val and Freddie are. We were both young blades, wild and full of spirit. I had a fortune and he had a title and we shared most things. Except we did not interfere in matters of the heart.’

He wheeled the horses about and they headed for the shade, his face set. He was silent for a while, staring at the glossy haunches of his fine pair as they trotted easily in perfect unison. Sybella waited, her hands in her lap but alert as a wren.

‘Our friendship was broken irretrievably when Rockliffe seduced the young woman I planned to marry. Her family then locked her away in the country. She refused to see me. She recoiled from any talk of marriage. She felt her life was ruined.’ His grim expression had turned to anguish.

‘What could you do?’

‘I took my anger to Rockliffe’s door.’

‘You called him out?’

‘I did. I was a better shot, he was a better swordsman.’

‘So, as the challenged, he chose swords?’

‘Yes. But at that point, I did not care if I lived or died. I too would have chosen swords.’ He had let the reins fall and the horses stood in the shade cropping the grass. ‘We fought for an interminable length of time. I was so filled with anger, I wanted to kill him, or be killed. He winged me but I would not let our seconds close it down.’ Sybella involuntarily placed her gloved hand on his. He was breathing deeply, as if reliving the combat. ‘I’ve never spoken of it. And certainly not to a woman.’

‘Well, you’re telling me now. It’s not too bad, is it?’

He shook his head, but was distant, unburdening his memory. ‘We fought on, both almost dead with fatigue. My arm was strapped up but still running blood. But I sensed Rockliffe was tiring faster than me. Suddenly he feinted, then thrust a Quarte across the arm, which I could parry high in Seconde. I could then disarm him by encircling his wrist and pressing his blade with mine in Tierce. In a flash, he was defenceless and I longed to run him through his black heart. But I desisted.’

‘That’s what you meant last night when you said you would have to kill him next time?’

He looked at her with clouded eyes. ‘I’m afraid it all returned to me. The anger. The outrage that he could try and spoil everything again.’ He stopped, suddenly realising the import of his words, but Sybella had not reacted. Her sympathetic face was quietly watching his. ‘It’s just that Rockliffe has become so debauched, he sees every woman as a challenge he has to overcome, regardless of the damage he causes. I no longer recognise the brave young gallant I used to know.’

‘And what happened to the lady you wanted to marry?’

‘She sickened with some mysterious illness and died. The family would not talk to me, and I never saw her again.’

They sat silently together in the shade, with only the soothing sound of horses contentedly cropping the grass. Sybella removed her hand from his. ‘And that lady you were with, at Vauxhall Gardens?’

He glanced across at her, his eyes narrow, gauging her reaction. ‘I know you will understand that there are certain mutually satisfactory arrangements between unmarried men of appetite, and certain bored ladies of quality.’