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offer of the end of his tie to wipe my face with. He never had a handkerchief either.
    “Oh, Shelley!” I said, when I could speak. “Are these beautiful verses to be published?”
    He was sitting cross-legged as usual, looking for all the world like the poor boy Aladdin from the Thousand and One Nights . Unkempt, expectant, on the verge of discovering treasure in an unexpected place. He folded the poem and put it in the pocket of his jacket which lay beside him on the grass. Then he caught me round the waist very tightly, so that I could not push him away. He pressed my head to his chest. Beneath my ear, through the thin linen of his shirt, I felt his heart’s regular beat, and the rise and fall of his chest as he breathed.
    “No, they will not be published. As long as I have a wife living, anyway,” he added, and kissed me.
    I received the kiss, feeling hot. I wished he would not hold me quite so tightly. My corset was digging into my flesh and I could not get my breath. But Shelley did not appear to notice my discomfort. He brought his face close to mine.
    “The fact that I am much more in love with you than I could ever be with Harriet, or any other woman, will not hinder the progress of scandal. So, my dearest Mary, these lines are ours, and ours alone. They mark today as a special day, which I would not want the public to have knowledge of.”
    I swallowed. I still could not breathe freely. But I could not move, and had abandoned all thought of doing so. “A special day?” I echoed.
    “Yes…”
    He kissed me again. This kiss was more purposeful than the previous one. My head felt heavy, and full of some substance which obscured my wits. I could not think. I could not find my conscience. I saw his smile widen. How happy and beautiful he was! Desire rushed over my body, as recklessly as a stream splashes over rocks.
    “Today is my birthday,” he said, laughing. “I am twenty-two today.”
    He took my face in his hands. My unbalanced brain did not work properly. I found myself trying to kiss his fingers, though my lips could not possibly reach them.
    “Can you imagine what is the very best, the most beautiful birthday present you could give me?” he asked.
    I was too close to him to see what he was doing, and too intoxicated to protest. My dress disappeared from my shoulders. I was sure I had not loosened it, nor taken the pins from my hair.
    “I will remember this day for ever, dearest girl,” he told me, and pushed me gently backwards on the grass.
    I had lost my powers of reasoning. I was beyond resistance. Shelley and I were the only living things in a world full of unfeeling creatures. The grass and trees, the churchyard, even the sky, disappeared. I was not aware of pain, or even of the ecstasy Jane had unreliably informed me I would feel at this moment. I was aware only that I was with the man I loved in a place from which there was no escape.
    And all the time Shelley and I were celebrating his birthday, Jane sat, waiting in the church porch without her bonnet on, her small, finely-shod feet crossed and her ringlets resting innocently against her cheek.

MASTER
    O ur idyll was short-lived. No more than a month later I was summoned to the drawing-room to hear that someone – nameless, of course – had seen me walking in the churchyard with Mr Shelley, unchaperoned.
    I could not tell which face was redder: my stepmother’s quivered with anger, but the origins of my father’s heightened colour lay in embarrassment. I was sorry for him, but I was stubborn too.
    “I do not deny that I sent Jane away,” I declared. I had no wish to fuel my stepmother’s fury by implicating her daughter. “She is not to blame. And I am not afraid to admit my feelings for Shelley. As for his feelings for me…”
    “They do not exist, I tell you!” broke in Mama. She was in distress, her hands clutching at her gown. “He asked to call, he brought you a book, he wandered in the square and the churchyard with you