Mrs. Swan was pleased. “That’s convenient, dear, nice and close.” She was threading colored silks on to fine needles. “You tell him, dear, that if he wants any embroidery then he doesn’t have far to go.”

So, on her second afternoon in London, Campion walked to the Strand. She dressed soberly, her hair covered with a bonnet, but even so she was conscious of the glances men gave her and glad of the company of the tailor. Jacques was elderly and fine-mannered, helping her across the busy Strand, gracious in his words to her. “You will find yourself successfully home, Miss Slythe?”

“You’ve been very kind.”

“No, no, no. It is not every day that I walk the streets with such beauty. You have given me pleasure, Miss Slythe. This is it.”

Cony’s house was not as large as some on the Strand, not to be compared with Northumberland or York House, but it was impressive nonetheless. It was built in dark brick, its stories rising to a high, stone balustrade with carved beasts guarding the corners. The tall mullioned windows were masked by velvet curtains. The door to the house was guarded by an armed man, a pike at his side, who smirked at Campion and was rude to Jacques Moreau. “What do you want?”

“The lady has business with Sir Grenville.”

“Business, eh?” He looked Campion up and down, taking his time. “What sort of business, eh?”

She had come determined to be humble, a favor seeker, but the man’s attitude annoyed her. “Business Sir Grenville would not want discussed with you.”

It was evidently the right answer, delivered in the right tone, for he sniffed, jerked his head toward the side of the building, and spoke with a little more respect. “Business is down the alley.”

She said farewell to the tailor on the corner, then went into the narrow, high alleyway. It ran to the river, and she could see the sheen of the sun on the water and, beyond it, the dreariness of Lambeth Marsh.

A small porchway was two-thirds of the way down the alley, close enough for her to smell the river, and she presumed this was the door where those with business visited Sir Grenville Cony. There was no guard here. She knocked.

No one answered. She could hear voices from the Strand, the sound of wheels on stone, and once there was a splash from the river, but the house seemed to exude silence. She was nervous suddenly. She felt the seal beneath her dress, and the touch of the gold on her skin reminded her that this house might hold the secret of her future, the secret of the Covenant that might free her from her father’s stranglehold imposed by his will and marriage settlement. Emboldened, she knocked again.

She waited. She was about to knock a third time, indeed was looking back into the alley for a loose cobble-stone that could make more noise on the wooden door, when a tiny shutter banged up.