‘My angel, you must hear me,’ said he, reaching for my hand. ‘It is not possible. Mrs Elliot attempted to persuade Orléans to make for England, even to seek refuge in America, but he refused. It is now too late.’

I stared at him. I did not wish to believe it so. My mind recalled Agnès de Buffon’s cries of terror as she caught sight of Madame de Lamballe’s head and entrails dragged through the Palais-Royal: That will be my head there one day. I closed my eyes against the thought. It was precisely as she had portended; she could have no more preserved me than I could her. The machine which whirled about us was too great a force to be slowed or altered in favour of a single life. Certainly, it was this which Orléans had implied to me. He had understood from the outset that it was destined to crush him in its wheels.

‘And Mrs Elliot?’ I enquired after a spell.

‘She was arrested but last week.’

His answer startled me.

‘But you are in jeopardy now!’

‘Not upon this occasion, Hetty, no. She had no correspondence of mine in her possession, but the situation grows ever more perilous . . .’

I knew at that moment what he was about to say and I threw myself into his arms, as if to silence him.

‘I shall do whatever you bid me. Anything you bid me to do . . . so long as you return to me . . .’

He tightened me in his embrace.

‘I beg you not to reproach me, but I have made arrangements for this inevitability. You are to travel to Rome.’

‘Rome!’ I echoed with surprise, for I believed that he intended me to return to London.

‘Yes. You must await me there, until circumstances permit me to join you.’

Allenham then made plain the details of this strategy. I was to journey to Italy with a consignment of paintings and objets d’art bound for the home of the British ambassador, a Mr Thomas Jenkins. It was explained to me that in addition to being a noted dealer in such treasures, Mr Jenkins was also a spy.