‘Mr Savill,’ I began, ‘while your feelings do you credit, sir, I would not wish to inconvenience you with such a matter as this . . . which I dare say will be easily remedied as soon as I arrive at Paris. Why, I anticipate that upon my arrival, Lord Gower will direct me to his lordship and I shall discover it all to be some . . . some . . . unfortunate misunderstanding.’

But my noble Irishman would not hear of it. The greater my protests the more he insisted. No, it would be ‘the most considerable honour to facilitate a reunion between you and your beloved husband’, Mr Savill declared, ‘and furthermore, as I am possessed of many connections in the highest circles, it would please me vastly to make your introduction to them. Why, I shall begin by delivering you directly to Lord Gower,’ he determined. And so the matter was fixed, as if set into the mortar of my lies.

I made a pretence at a smile, before slowly bowing my head in a show of gratitude. Unbeknownst to my rescuer, it was only then that my anxieties truly began to mount.

Chapter 4

I HAD NO cause for concern, or rather, I ought not to have. When I had quit the comforts of life beneath Madame Vanderoi’s roof and set out upon the road for Paris, it was in the belief that I was certain to meet with Allenham at the embassy in that city. As his business lay in matters of diplomacy, to where else might he have repaired?

I turned these thoughts over in my mind, repeating the words to myself like a silent rosary. When I took my leave of Brussels I possessed not a single apprehension as to the correctness of my course but, curiously, in encountering Mr Savill, a seed of doubt had been sown between my reason and my conviction. I had not even been acquainted with the ambassador’s name until the Irishman offered it to me: Lord Gower, His Majesty’s ambassador to France. All would be revealed upon my arrival there, when Allenham gazed upon me with the same bemused delight that he had displayed at our first reunion.

The hooves of Savill’s six horses seemed to beat out his name as his coach shuddered along the road from Saint-Quentin to Noyon, from Noyon to Compiègne to Senlis to Paris. Lord Gower. Lord Gower. Lord Gower.