‘The duc believes otherwise. My duty is to keep you safe. You’re my daughter. I brought you from Martinique, offered you an education and a place in the world that not many girls like you get the chance of. You should learn to take some advice and give up this fruitless rebellion. Camille du Bugue is not half the strategist she thinks she is. Let her fail on her own. Without you to help, she’s nothing.’

Ada regarded him coolly, crushing the bread to crumbs between her fingers in barely suppressed anger. ‘You think that’s a compliment, don’t you?’

‘I always wanted a clever child, but I see now it has many challenges.’ He smoothed the greying hair from his temples. ‘When I realised what you’d got mixed up with in this game of cat and mouse with the Royalists, I had to act. They are not good men, I know that only too well. Which means the duc won’t hold back in trying to get what they want. I couldn’t risk you getting caught up in that.’

‘That’s not your choice to make!’

It was then that her father’s temper finally broke.

‘Will you stop being so thoroughly selfish! Give up this hopeless fight. Let me protect you. Please, Ada. You know you’ll always have a place with me, whatever you do.’

Ada forced herself not to flinch, to meet his yellow-flecked eyes. She remembered fighting with him as a little girl, knowing that the moment would come when his affable demeanour disintegrated, and she stared at the churning mass of emotions and impulses that lay inside him, as it lay inside all people. She wanted to demand to know what was so wrong with loving Camille. But she knew it was pointless. So she lifted her chin as she had then, defiant and desperate.

‘I think you were right about Camille, is that what you want to hear?’ she said. ‘I know she won’t pick me. But I’m okay with that. I can still choose to fight for what I believe in for my own reasons.’