‘Oh, it is quite true.’ Skiffy leaned in again, so that she could see the powder on his cheeks. ‘They all thought that something had gone wrong with the mechanism, and were after the clock-keeper’s head. The poor fellow was up to his arms in the gears when Hami – when Vincent relented and withdrew the glamour. It happened right as the fellow pulled out a gear that truly broke the clock. Do you know what your husband did then? The great curmudgeon proved that it was all an act, for he stood beneath the clock tower and retied his glamour so that it showed the clock running the correct direction. He saved the clock-keeper’s job by that, and I think it very handsome of him.’

Jane could not be surprised by the generosity her husband had shown, but her attention was drawn again to that detail of distance in Skiffy’s telling. If Vincent were able to create a clock illusion from so great a distance, perhaps he could retie the knot in the fish without drawing unwelcome attention to himself. Jane would have to stand and walk over to the section of the wall, which, besides the attention it would draw to her, would be rude to his royal highness . . . Prinny, that is.

At the foot of the table, Vincent was now engaged in conversation with Lady Hertford. He did not spare a glance in her direction. Her attempt to reassure him had, it seemed, been too successful.

Perhaps her fears were amplified by the company she kept, and yet Jane could not help thinking of the courses yet to come and estimating the time which remained for the dinner. Would the knot continue to slip, or might it hold through the meal? She pushed the asparagus on her plate, unable to think of anything else. While the question of a few fish might seem but a trifle, to Jane, placed as she was in a position above her rank merely on the merits of the work around them, the thought of having the glamour fail at this moment was a thing of horror. To be sure, knots did sometimes come undone, but the Prince Regent, for all that he styled himself Prinny, had not paid them for inferior work. Left to its own, it would come undone before the end of dinner, and it would likely damage the coral with it. The work they would have before them to have it repaired in time for the official opening of the ballroom tomorrow would be immense.

Jane bit the inside of her mouth. No. No matter how honoured they were by this small dinner, the simple fact was that her role in life had shifted from guest to artisan, and, as such, her duties were clear. She set her knife and fork on the table and lifted the serviette out of her lap.