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Violet knew it was a mistake, letting Edmund Bliss hold her hand. Not holding her hand⁠—only cradling her fingertips. It was most unlike him, yet like him all the same. This was how it would be, she told herself, to be married to him: a vague, tentative, fingertipping sort of love. If she ever marr…

Edmund stared blinkingly at the dancers again. He was the happiest he had ever been, and he needed to put an end to it. If the moment were drawn out, if he and Violet were to talk, he knew he would spoil it somehow. If only he could get away! He veered his head and saw Mrs. Simpson a few yards off.…

“Do you think they’re only flirting?” she said eventually. “Or is it love?” The band had finished and were preparing to start again. The couple were still holding each other, smiling and talking, his head sunk toward hers, hair hanging lankly, sipping at her forehead.

“Oh, one or the other, I e…

If Mrs. Simpson surveyed as from a pediment, Mrs. Laird was suggestive of a large ornamental gate. Impressive; attractive even, if you could see the attraction in heavy iron, manipulated by supreme technical skill. Violet was always trying to look past her, to get a proper view of things. She had g…

“She isn’t here yet,” Edmund said, swallowing a mouthful.

“I wonder what she’ll be wearing,” Albert said. He was a trim, dapper young man, who affected a monocle.

“Awfully hot, isn’t it?” Edmund said.

“If she wears anything like last year I’ll simply fall at her feet.”

They looked at …