I thought of Weir’s words when I heard Bridgerton had been sexed-down: meaning there are only three minutes of sex across all episodes, compared to almost 20 minutes of bedroom antics in the first eight. It’s fair to say series one didn’t make viewers work too hard for their pleasures. Every time I turned on there seemed to be male buttocks centre-screen, or a harlot pleasing a rake. It was frothy more than tacky, which suited lockdown well, but I can’t say it gave me little goose-bumps of sexual frisson – unlike the famous 1995 Andrew Davies’s adaptation of Pride and Prejudice, the mothership of TV drama from which this Regency tribute surely flows.

What I really love about the second season is that producer Chris Van Dusen channels Pride and Prejudice in endeavouring to steer the hero and heroine (Jonathan Bailey as the Viscount, Anthony Bridgerton; Simone Ashley as Kate Sharma) away from any form swift erotic consumption or easy resolution. On top of that, Sharma is committed to her younger sister’s quest for a husband and has resolved to remain single herself. As is only traditional with this kind of romance, they are downright hostile to one another at first.

I must admit I’m also a sucker for any storyline that mirrors Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing, in which committed bachelor Benedict and confirmed spinster Beatrice engage in verbal jousting as a form of well-concealed foreplay. The rule of thumb is this: the meaner the combatants are to one another, the greater the passion when they’re finally forced to confess their attraction.

It also means small moments get imbued with incredible sexual resonance, because they are symbolic of volcanic feelings boiling away under formal demeanours. Thus, in season two, there’s a viciously competitive game of Pall-mall (a precursor to lawn croquet) where Viscount Bridgerton and Kate Sharma exhaust every visual metaphor about knocking balls through hoops that a lustful soul could hope for. They even end up propelling each other’s balls far from the manicured lawn and into some wild undergrowth where they end up separated from the other players.

Jane Austen would recognise this as a neat way of suggesting that they are stepping ever further into uncharted terrain of the heart. Another pulse-raising, symbolic moment happens when Bridgerton takes Sharma on a shoot and helps her steady her shotgun while squatting behind her. Naturally, his hand ends up covering hers while both are wrapped around the gun’s barrel. I put it to you that this scene is far more suggestive and sexy than any number of steamy clinches on marble staircases or swinging from chandeliers.