The bedroom was filled with the mellowest of lights that flooded through the tall windows, and the fire crackled and blazed in the grate, giving off a cheery glow that was both warming and comforting. The pale watery apple-green silk that covered the walls, swathed the windows, and fell down in rippling cascades from the four corners of the carved oak bed created a cool and restful effect, one that gave Emma a sense of tranquillity and, since the bedroom was not as cluttered with bric-à-brac as the adjoining sitting room, she also found it less overpowering and irritating to be in.

And it was certainly more restful than the kitchen she had just left, which was full of hot bustle, flying tempers, and all manner of frantic goings-on. Annie, the betweenmaid, was assisting Cook with the preparation of the food for the dinner, which was such an elaborate meal even Annie’s mother had been engaged to help out for the evening. Mrs Wainright had planned a wonderful menu, they all agreed on that, even though Cook kept grumbling that things were getting a little too fancy for her liking. Emma suspected that Mrs Turner’s little tantrums, temperamental outbursts, and complaining sprang from her extreme nervousness about coping with such an intricate meal. Although Mrs Turner always claimed that good solid Yorkshire cooking was her great speciality, Emma had long comprehended that it was her entire repertoire.

As she pulled out the threads, Emma thought about that menu and laughed to herself quietly, as she recalled Mrs Turner’s face when she had read it that morning. Her eyes had stood out on stalks and she had huffed and puffed for a full hour. She could just imagine her flustered rantings and ravings downstairs right now. Poor Cook had never prepared a dinner quite like this in all her years at Fairley. The guests were first to be served chilled cavair garnished with chopped hard-boiled eggs, chopped raw onions, and wedges of lemon with melba toast. After that came the lobster soufflé with a lobster sauce, followed by turtle soup flavoured with sherry. ‘Not too much sherry,’ Mrs Wainright had warned, ‘just the right amount to add a dash of piquancy.’ Then there would be Dover sole cooked in a creamy white wine sauce containing slices of mushrooms and shallots. The main course was roast beef with horseradish sauce, potatoes roasted in the pan with the meat, carrots and peas, and a thick gravy made of the juices from the beef. There was to be a cheese board of Stilton, Cheshire, and Wensleydale cheeses with a selection of crackers and digestive biscuits. Finally, three desserts would be served as a finale to the meal, which Cook kept referring to as ‘a blinking banquet’. These were a compote of mixed fruits, made from Cook’s pantry supplies bottled last summer, and currently soaking in Kirsch, a fresh lemon pie with thick whipped cream, and a chocolate mousse, which Mrs Wainright had said must be light and fluffy to be really perfect.

Emma knew that some of these dishes had definitely strained Cook’s talents, which had never been put to such a test, and, in fact, Emma herself had been pressed into hurried service earlier. She had made the soup and the sauces for the fish and meat dishes, prepared the mousse, and covered the fruit compote with the liqueur, scrupulously following Mrs Wainright’s instructions.

Emma was decidedly happy to have escaped for a while. The hubbub had increased with great rapidity in the last hour and Cook was so harassed she was getting truculent with the maids, and Annie’s mother as well. Emma smiled again. She knew only too well how easily rattled Cook became when there was any change in the kitchen routine. Not only that, this was the first big dinner party the Squire had given in several years and it had sent everyone into a flurry, except Mrs Wainright. And me, Emma thought then, preening a little inside, remembering Mrs Wainright’s compliments about her cool head, her efficiency, and her light hand with the sauces and the mousse.

Although she had no taste for rich and elaborate dishes herself, Emma liked cooking and had begun to find it a challenge to prepare interesting meals. With Olivia’s arrival, the menus in general had become a little fancier than was normal at Fairley, and Emma had been helping Mrs Turner with the cooking lately. She was also learning a lot from Mrs Wainright, who wrote out explicit instructions for every new dish and usually came down to the kitchen to supervise. Emma had kept the menus and the instructions and had pasted them into an old school exercise book. Her intuition had automatically told her they would come in useful one day. Now she reminded herself to copy down the name of the peculiar tea, Lapsang Souchong, in her book, and the names of the wines Mrs Wainright had selected from the cellar with Murgatroyd, each one for a different dish. Emma had listened carefully to Mrs Wainright that morning and had learned for the first time that red wine was always served with meat, white wine with fish, and champagne with dessert. The names on the bottles were funny. ‘Frenchy names,’ Mrs Turner had told her with a huffy grimace. Murgatroyd had glared. ‘But the very best, you ignorant woman,’ he had snapped. ‘Vintage wines the old Squire himself put down years ago. Can’t be bettered hereabouts, not even in fancy London town,’ he had finished pompously.

Yes. I must remember to copy the wine names proper like, and ask Mrs Turner for the dinner menu and them there recipes, Emma said to herself. She pulled off a length of black cotton from the reel, licked the end, threaded the needle, and began to sew the hemline of the dress, her mind on her exercise book. Everything that might be of some value went into it. She didn’t know what information she might require in Leeds when she put her Plan with a capital P into operation, and she must be absolutely prepared in every way. The tattered old book contained menus for all kinds of meals, innumerable recipes, household hints, sewing instructions, little sketches for dresses and hats Emma had designed herself, and some of Mrs Fairley’s special and most secret beauty hints. Now it’ll have a wine list, Emma thought, and was pleased. Emma sewed patiently, thinking her ambitious thoughts, glancing up from time to time to observe Mrs Fairley. She must keep a close eye on her, to be sure she didn’t get nervous or upset before the dinner, which was a long way off yet. The guests were coming at eight-fifteen and dinner was to be served at eight-thirty sharp, Murgatroyd had told her, warning her in a snooty voice to be dressed and ready in a fresh uniform. As if she didn’t know that.

Adele Fairley was unusually calm as she finished her tea, picked up the newspaper, and continued to read it. Sheer fear of Adam’s wrath, if she appeared in any way strange that night, had made her control her impulse, her very need, to send for Murgatroyd and ask for the drink, the only thing that could blunt the sharp edges of her pain these days. She had resorted to alcohol as an anodyne for her ills only in the last year and was still able to resist it, when circumstances forced her to do so. As yet she was not sodden with it, nor had she become a confirmed alcoholic. That afternoon she had assiduously removed the temptation of drinking by taking to her bed. Cowardly though this stratagem was, it had served its purpose. Also, Adele had not realized just how worn out she was, and she had fallen into a numbed and exhausted sleep immediately. When she awakened she discovered she felt better, and more importantly, and much to her amazement, she was less riddled with anxiety.

She concentrated on the newspaper, another ruse to keep her mind occupied and prevent her from dwelling on either the need for a drink or the impending evening that loomed ominously ahead. She turned the page and glanced at the Court Circular, which gave items of news from Buckingham Palace. As she scanned the column of fine black print she learned that the Russian and French ambassadors had been received by King Edward yesterday; the Marquess of Londonderry had had an audience with His Majesty after the Council; the Queen and Princess Victoria had visited an exhibition of drawings. Bored, she rustled through the paper to the back pages. Her eyes caught the words Bradford Market. She passed on hurriedly. That was all she needed! More about wool. She knew enough about that to last her a lifetime. As her eyes lighted on the advertisement for John Smith and Tadcaster ales, Adele thought longingly of the whisky and her mouth felt suddenly dry. She moistened her lips and her eyes flew nervously to the other page. She folded the paper in half and began to wade through a long story about Lord Fitzwilliam’s Hunt at Clifton near Doncaster. She concentrated all of her attention on this, attempting to block out the persistent image of the glass of amber liquid that floated before her eyes and settled enticingly on the centre of the page.