‘Good Lord, madam!’ Her eyes widened. ‘Victoire!’ She called for one of her servants. ‘Victoire, you must make up a compress for this lady’s injury, and bring some hartshorn . . . and some brandy . . . at once!’ Her arms then flew about me, one around my waist and the other at my elbow. ‘There now, there now,’ she purred as she led me through to a sofa in her drawing room. Only two of the candles had been lit, which led me to conclude that she had been preparing to pass the evening elsewhere until I had intruded.

‘My dear, I do believe you have had a most frightful shock. Have you been robbed? Are you in need of a physician?’ She placed herself beside me and gathered my small hands into her elongated fingers. ‘Dear Lady Allenham, I implore you, you must inform me what has occurred . . .’

Had you seen her expression, you would have perceived beneath her paint and powder that she possessed the purest, most saintly countenance. Her gentle eyes beguiled me with their warmth. Such a look of kindness had not been directed at me for many weeks. I exhaled in a slow sigh and carefully met her gaze.

Chapter 2

IT WAS IN April of 1792 when I found myself in Paris. Of course those were the days before the gas lights arrived, before the tyrant Napoleon rose and fell. It was after the Bastille was stormed, after the constitution was drawn up, after the court was forced from Versailles and locked into the Tuileries Palace.

I need not recount to you the events of the French Revolution. I would wager you have read enough of that in newspapers and chronicles to know something of its horrors. The devil himself could not have devised the scenes of bloodshed and murder enacted upon the streets. There was such suspicion, such fear; neighbours betraying neighbours, servants betraying masters, all in the name of the Republic. The worst of it was the dreaded pounding at the door. It might arrive by day or by night. The guards would not scruple to turn over an entire house, rummage through every drawer, poke at every mattress had they reason to suspect conspiracy. The denounced were routinely pulled from their beds, husbands torn from their weeping wives, and mothers from their babes. They were marched away through the streets, more often than not to a certain death at the guillotine.