Was that where it all came from, the explanation for her acutely observed understanding of the people of Limehouse and their like, and the terror of poverty? Was it a dreadful familiarity which set her determination, that at almost any cost she would not allow her children ever to be cold, hungry, frightened and ashamed as she had been? The squalor and despair of the Limehouse slums was huge in her memory, and no present comfort would ever expunge it. Perhaps she was the girl Mary had spoken of, who had escaped Limehouse to marriage?

“Yes,” Hester said quietly. “Yes, I see. I am sure Monk will do everything he can to prove Angus's death. And he is extremely clever. If he cannot do it one way, he will find another. Don't despair.”

Genevieve looked at her, hope in her eyes, and curiosity. “Do you know him well?”

Hester hesitated. What was the answer to that? She was not sure she even knew it herself, much less that she was prepared to share it. What did she know of him? The areas she did not know were vast, cavernous; perhaps they were even areas he did not know himself?

“Only professionally,” she replied with a tight smile, leaning back in her chair, away from Genevieve and the quick perception in her face. Her mind was filled suddenly with the memory of those few moments in the closed room in Edinburgh, of the feel of his arms around her and that one passionate, sublime kiss. “I have seen him work in other cases,” she hurried on, knowing her face was hot. Could Genevieve see how she was lying? She thought so. “Do cling onto hope.” She was talking too much, trying to turn the subject. “At least it seems he has learned the truth. He will find a way to prove it, sufficient for the authorities to-” She stopped.

Genevieve was smiling. She said nothing, but her silence was eloquent and full of pleasure.

Hester felt trapped, not by Genevieve but by herself.

“You came from Limehouse, didn't you?” she said quietly, as a matter of confidence, not accusation. Half of her knew it was an attack to defend herself.

Genevieve flushed, but her eyes did not evade Hester's, nor was there anger in them.

“Yes. It seems like another life now, it was so different, and so many years ago.” She moved a little and the lamp light changed on the planes of her face, throwing the strength into relief. “But I won't let anything drive me back. My children will not grow up there! And I won't have Lord Ravensbrook feed them and clothe them, and dictate what manner of people they shall be. I won't let him hug them, to fill Angus's place.”

“Would he do that?” Hester said slowly, picturing Ravensbrook's dark, patrician face in her mind with its arrogance and charm.