But, first, I must return.

One night, I found someone waiting in the Scarlet Room I’d never have expected. Not in a month of Sundays.

‘How’d you ‒’ I reached behind me for the knob. But then I tightened my shoulders. ‘Hello, Pru.’

‘How are you, Frances?’ She cut her eyes around the room. Mantel to bath to bed, and back again. She clutched a reticule to her chest. She’d dressed like it was an afternoon off. A grey muslin with a yellow stripe. I get every afternoon off now, Pru.

‘Madame sent me.’

‘So I see.’ And it rattled me like a door on a latch. ‘You want to sit?’

‘Oh, no, I –’ She laughed, looked down at the bed, took a little step back. ‘I’d better not, hadn’t I?’

‘Suit yourself.’

She gave me a thin smile.

‘You must take me as you find me, Pru.’

‘I know.’ She drummed her fingers against the purse.

‘Well?’

‘Madame’s sick.’

‘She can cure herself by leaving that vial alone.’

‘You have turned stony. I thought you cared for her.’

‘And I thought there’s no such thing as friendship for the likes of us.’

‘Maybe.’ She frowned. ‘But there is such a thing as decency.’ She set a folded paper on the bed, turned to go. ‘She said to give you that.’

The seal. Her initials. MD. And the fleur-de-lis pressed into blood-red wax. A letter. From her: I am unwell. And I fear only you can make me better. And I am sorry. I was mad for you once and ever will be. Will you come back? Please come. Ritte

‘Will there be any answer?’

‘No, Pru. No answer.’

But after she left, my hand shook so I could barely hold the page.

And, oh, in spite of myself, I was glad.

Levenhall

January 1826

Chapter Thirty-Eight

I climbed the stairs, snicked the latch, opened the door. There, half shadowed, head tucked onto her hands, just as I had pictured her a thousand times, there she was. My thoughts made flesh.

I crept around the bed. She was asleep, so I gazed my fill. Paced footsteps into the carpet. Bed to mantel to bed. Nerves all pins and needles, and heart pacing in its own cage. Her face was pinched in sleep, fluttering the sheets with hot breath. Drapes closed thick at the windows. The red cabinets were unlatched. No sign of any amber bottles.

I needed to busy myself. I sorted her books into piles on the tea-table and the desk, matched a glove on the mantel to one below the bed. I emptied dead roses from the vase, swept blackening petals into my palm, folded her kimono. I couldn’t stop myself searching the writing desk. Nothing from him. There was a strange smell, blood-sweet, though I’d cleared out the roses. The air was stale, and heavy on my skin. All the while she drew hitching breaths and did not wake.

I circled the room and couldn’t find my bearings. I sat, stood, sat again, until finally I stood and just stared at the woman in red.