Chadworth has thought about this, with some embarrassment, more than once — because he is a widower and she is a remarkable woman and the world has a very tired script for what happens next.

But that is not what this is, and forcing it into that shape would flatten something that is actually rarer.

She is the person who runs his house and raises his children alongside him and tells him the truth, and he pays her properly for two of those things and could never pay her for the third.

What he did do, on the anniversary, was set up a trust.

It is in Rosamund’s name, it is irrevocable, and he did not tell her about it until it was already done, because he knew she would refuse.