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Bertha wafted into the drawing room in a peach-coloured tea dress with her greying hair fashioned in the style of a Greek goddess.

She looked worse for wear indeed, her hair was already falling away from its pins.

She sank into a chair with a loud sigh and reached for her cigarette box.

I told her what a triumph it had been, and she listed with misty eyes the dukes who had deigned to attend.

Truly, she could not have been less interested in everyone else.

I let her rabbit on, but I was restless and could barely sit still.

There was only one person about whom I wanted to talk.

He will shortly be returning to America and I am desperate to engineer a meeting before he leaves.

I needed to persuade Bertha to invite him to Broadmere.

At last, I brought up his name. ‘Very charming,’ she said absentmindedly.

Not to be deterred, I added quickly, before she could swing the conversation back to the dukes, ‘Would it not be nice to invite Mrs Willesden and her party to Broadmere? Esme Aldershoff is after all an heiress and Lester is in want of a wife with a fortune. Indeed, Broadmere depends on it.’

I had struck a chord. Her beady eyes glinted greedily.

‘Really, Connie, you are more conniving than I.’ She smiled hungrily and put a cigarette to her lips.

I could see her busy mind whirring with possibilities.

‘Lester and Esme Aldershoff. Why did I not think of that myself? She has enough money to put an entire new roof on Broadmere! Can you imagine how fabulous it will be when my Lester, Viscount Ravenglass, and his lovely viscountess explode upon the New York scene?’ She turned to me with great affection.

‘Why, Connie, my dear, you are truly wonderful. Wonderful! What would I do without you? Yes, Lester and Esme Aldershoff. Fortunately, she is a beauty. Why, I have already heard him comment on that. We are halfway there. Let us not waste a moment. They must come and stay, at the soonest. I will write to Mrs Willesden at once!’’

Now my mind is whirring with possibilities.

If Lester and Esme decide that they like each other, then a trip to New York will be a certainty and I shall go with him.

I will see that it happens. Bertha loathes travelling and will not accompany him.

That leaves me. My excitement is growing already.

Now I need to focus my attention on Esme and encourage her to fall in love with Lester.

She must know only of his advantages and none of his shortcomings.

When he wants to, he can turn on the charm.

No one can resist it. It is important, therefore, that Lester and I are friends.

I will call a truce and argue with him no more.

In fact, he will find me most agreeable. Au travail!

Tuesday, 11th July, 1911

At last, Orlando has come to Broadmere! I am proud to show off our family home.

It is, indeed, magnificent. We took a carriage drive around the estate and he was charmed by the beauty of the gardens, the park and the lake, designed by none other than Capability Brown himself.

I think that impressed him more than anything else.

Mrs Willesden said that she had never seen a more lovely view when we picnicked on the hill overlooking the Test. Esme likened it to a ribbon of silver and Lester, who I believe is quite taken with her, declared that she must surely be a poet.

His mother must have had a word with him for he is very attentive to her.

I have not yet managed to get Orlando on his own, for in typical Bertha style, the house is full of London’s most dashing and there is so much going on – croquet, tennis and other games.

But I am gradually making his acquaintance.

He does not talk about himself and I sense that he would not want one to refer to his late wife.

Poor motherless child – my heart does go out to his daughter.

How difficult her life must be without a mother to guide her.

I cannot help but imagine myself in that role.

I think I would rise to the occasion most successfully.

I do not take to small children – they are always under one’s feet – but an older daughter would suit me well.

She is still young enough to be moulded to her best advantage.

With a little help, she could be quite pretty.

I have not breathed a word about women’s votes, and Lester and I are getting on well.

Esme likes him, that is plain to see. Her winsome blue eyes light up when she looks at him and the colour flourishes on her cheeks.

She is lovely to look at and has an air of nobility.

She will make a perfect viscountess – and keep her wayward husband in the style to which he is accustomed, and his mother too, of course.

What a pair they are, but I think young Esme Aldershoff might very well be their saviour, and mine, because no place is dearer to my heart than Broadmere.

Golden memories shine out of every corner – my darling brother’s memory being the brightest of them all.

How I miss him. How he would suffer to see his home threatened by his wife and son’s excesses.

Had the estate been left to me, I would have run it wisely.

But even if I had been born first, it would have passed into George’s hands because he was a boy.

There is something fundamentally wrong with a society that so woefully neglects one half of its population.

We are all equal in God’s eyes – why not in man’s?

Wednesday, 12th July, 1911

I finally managed to get Orlando on his own and for long enough for me to make a good impression.

He wanted to ride and I volunteered to accompany him in order to show him more of the estate.

I am an accomplished horsewoman, and he was impressed when I showed him that I am not afraid of galloping at a pace.

I grew up on a horse. Sitting in the saddle is second nature to me.

As we walked side by side, I asked him about his tour of Italy.

It sounds as if they have had the most wonderful time.

He was entertaining when it came to Mrs Willesden.

She sounds bossy, not that he made the slightest accusation.

Only she insisted on the girls having tutors wherever they went.

Apparently, it is important in her eyes that they grow up to be ‘renaissance women’, by which she means receiving a well-rounded education.

In the words of his daughter, in Florence she hired the ‘enthusiastic’ Signor Pazzi to teach them painting, ‘dull’ Signor Bardi to enlighten them in monotone about architecture, and ‘doddery’ old Professore Antinore to lecture them on literature.

He laughed and said that by the end of each day, the girls’ heads were dizzy with so much information they were likely to soon forget.

‘It was just as bad when we got to Rome.’

He asked me what it was like to grow up here, in this beautiful place, and I told him about my brother and laughed fondly at the games we had played as children.

He, also, has experienced too much loss.

I could see the anguish in his eyes. He was attentive and sympathetic in the way only someone who has suffered can be.

I did not bring up the subject of his wife.

I don’t know him well enough. It would not have been appropriate, but I long to kiss away his sorrow.

He is devastatingly attractive, but not in the way my usual paramours are.

He is reticent, quietly spoken, guarded.

He doesn’t prance and show off. There is a depth to him, an inner strength, a gentle confidence.

He feels not a need to impress. But he does impress, simply with his charisma and charm.

And he has gravitas, a weight about him, that is irresistible.

I find him most sincere and intriguing. I think he is very intelligent and wise, which is more than I can say for my recent amant .

I want to see more of him, but he is leaving for New York in a week. Given the opportunity, I think I could well and truly lose my heart to him.

Thursday, 13th July, 1911

I am growing immensely fond of dear Esme.

She is a delight. Innocent, sweet with a wonderful sense of humour and charme .

She has fallen in love with Lester – that is blindingly obvious.

I do hope he reciprocates in the same tone.

I would hate for her tender heart to be broken.

She is na?ve and idealistic – must be a Pisces!

She is wealthy, that is not in doubt, but she has qualities that an older person such as myself is equipped to appreciate.

I do hope Lester appreciates those qualities too and that he isn’t just seeing a lovely pot of gold. She deserves better than that.

I notice in her a fine intelligence, which, if honed, might grow to be formidable. We discussed women’s right to vote and she was very interested in what I had to say. I was careful, however, not to fill her young mind with too many ideas, knowing as I do how opposed Lester is to such concepts.