That night I undressed, fantasising Daisy’s fingers loosening my buttons and stays. My nipples hardened under this imaginary touch. I refused to acknowledge the danger of employing someone so capable of melting my willpower. I’d conducted my personal life with discretion, avoiding tittle-tattle, but now my longing for tenderness and laughter swamped my common sense like a deluge from a watering can. She was inexperienced for the post of lady’s maid but I could coach her, talk to her of books and society scandals. Show her pretty things. Even if I didn’t frequent front rooms and foyers, I read plenty of newspapers and periodicals.

I turned back sheet and coverlet and climbed into bed. Daisy Pook had invaded my senses and I was too alert for sleep. In my bedside drawer was something to help, something to which I tried not to resort too often. My very first lover had attempted to teach me to applaud my body’s needs. But my upbringing was a tight corset and though Ruth Carroll had loosened the stays, I still felt I was beguiled by the devil’s violin.

I dipped the dildo between my thighs, working it gradually inside me and closing my eyes to the ruffled ruby-redness of my bedroom. I needed to shoo away that shadow of prudishness. Like a scene from a magic lantern show, I saw a slice of azure sea, a half-moon of sandy cove flaxen as my first lover’s locks. Ruth had captured my heart and my soul three years before. “You need unbuttoning, Addie,” she used to say.

But now it was Daisy, her hair no less bright, dancing through my thoughts. No man had ever courted me. The thought of masculine hands fondling me where once Ruth’s fingers had lingered was … what? Abhorrent? Certainly untried.

I felt safer, fantasising about Daisy. But I shouldn’t allow myself to wonder whether or not she enjoyed the attentions of fellows or females. I mustn’t risk frightening her away. I knew this conflict between conscience and craving heralded storms. Had I made too reckless a decision?