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done it before.”
    “I have wanted to.”
    “You would have made a wonderful tart,” he said. She knew the mood was over.
    Asleep, Denys relaxed his hold. Cautiously, so as not to disturb him, she retrieved the torn nightdress and, a little shaken, got into her own bed to lie wakeful in the cool sheets. The man had played that trick on her; it had been dangerous to use it on Denys. She forced herself to push the memory back where it belonged, buried deep. Usually she managed. Only occasionally, when there were spats as there had been tonight, did the memory surface. Once she had made up her mind that whatever happened Denys came first, she had stopped having nightmares. She swore to herself to get through the next months with the child unscathed. If we had had her adopted, Vita thought, I might have had nightmares about meeting her, wondered what she looked like; as it is, I know what she looks like and mercifully I am not maternal.

SIX
    M ILLY LEIGH WAS SELDOM pleased to meet people, women especially, whom her husband had known in his youth. Angus was a large, confident, handsome man who talked in a large, confident way. He had travelled much, served far afield, made friends wherever he went. When she married him in 1908 at eighteen, she came straight from the schoolroom. Fifteen years older than Milly, Angus had a host of friends, male and female, intelligent, gifted and amusing. Milly felt herself at a disadvantage. She resented Angus’ bachelor years, was inclined to fear his friends, was jealous. Angus paid not the slightest attention. Rather, if he thought about it, he was flattered; Milly’s jealousy boosted his ego. He knew, too, that sooner rather than later she made friends with his friends, forgot she had bristled with fear when introduced and would soon be ganging up with them against him, so that they became as much her friends as his. He adored his wife, thought her by far the prettiest woman he had ever loved and would, if asked to stop and think, have concluded that Milly was the only woman he had loved. There had been lots of other women, of course, but nothing serious; he had never lost sleep.
    Cosmo and Mabs watched for their mother’s reaction on meeting what they referred to as Father’s misspent friends. They bristled with her, closed ranks with their mother, glared when strangers were bonhomously introduced.
    Cosmo tried to explain this to Blanco as they sauntered through the town after dinner. “We know she has nothing to fear, of course. Father dotes on her but he’s a fool; he expects her to know there was nothing between him and the women. It’s the women who terrify her. Some of them act as though—”
    “What?”
    “As though they and Father had had an affair. It’s ludicrous.”
    “And did they?”
    “How would I know? With the men she’s afraid she’ll appear stupid. Father has friends who are much brainier than he is and think women should be good listeners.” (Blanco laughed.) “And Ma isn’t a good listener. She chatters from nerves,” said Cosmo.
    “Wish my nerves made me chatter. I go dumb.”
    “But tonight,” Cosmo exclaimed, “did you notice? When introduced to the baroness and her five Amazons Ma was ever so jolly, joyfully accepted the invitation to join their table, all of us with all of them. That will be seven of them and six of us, gosh!”
    “We shall be thirteen.”
    “Are you superstitious?”
    “Just simple arithmetic.”
    “It’s amazing,” Cosmo marvelled. “She was so spontaneous. It’s not like my mother; it usually takes weeks to reach that stage.”
    “The old girl said, Let’s catch up on lost years, let our children get to know each other. D’you think—well, she’s as old as your father or looks it.”
    “Even so—”
    “She’s fat.”
    “That wouldn’t faze my mother. She’d be seeing a slender little Rosa peeking out from the fat.”
    “Your father was speaking as though her husband had been the great