‘Perhaps some ochre powder and rouge would disguise it?’ Mrs Elliot mused while gathering pots and peeking beneath lids. As she did so, a small book-sized portrait, which sat beside her unctions and potions, caught my eye. Its subject was a young girl with a shy gaze. The ruffle of her linen cap sat low across her light-brown fringe, a lock of which had been plaited into the frame.

‘I see you have discovered my Georgiana,’ remarked my hostess.

‘Yes.’ I smiled. ‘She is . . . your daughter?’

‘Indeed. Miss Georgiana Seymour. She is nearly ten years of age and with her father, Lord Cholmondeley – and Lady Cholmondeley – in their nursery,’ said Mrs Elliot, dropping a small silver teaspoon of hair pomade into a porcelain dish and opening a jar of yellow-tinted powder.

I observed her in the reflection. She seemed entirely unconcerned by that which she had revealed to me. Her countenance remained steady and pleasant. I returned my attention to the miniature portrait; the girl depicted in it could not have been much past her fourth birthday. She bore the look of a cornered mouse; her deep-set eyes and tight mouth seemed to beg for something. I could not but wonder at her life in her father’s nursery, a child unwished-for but nonetheless delivered. A burden laid into servants’ arms. Her expression was not unlike how I imagined mine to have been at that tender age, or indeed how I imagined the expression of another child, in another gentleman’s nursery many hundreds of miles from Paris.

I am not certain how Mrs Elliot knew my thoughts. I suppose I wore my pain so boldly upon my face that she guessed at my troubles. She stopped, laid down the porcelain dish and placed a gentle hand at my shoulder. At her touch, my eyes grew wet. She spoke softly to me.

‘You too have borne a child, Henrietta?’

I nodded and hastily rubbed the tears from my eyes.

‘He lives with Lord Bolingbroke, in his nursery.’

‘He is Bolingbroke’s child?’

‘No, madam.’ I hesitated. ‘His uncle, Mr St John, who took me in when I found myself quite reduced, believes that little George is his.’

‘You convinced him of this?’

‘Yes,’ I confessed, not daring to meet her gaze. ‘But he belongs to Lord Allenham.’

Mrs Elliot gave a mild smile and a sigh before placing herself upon a chair beside me.

‘You have lived as have I, dear child, upon the generosity of many gentlemen. You must not feel ashamed on account of that. The world is not a kind place for those who have fallen. We do as circumstance bids us.’

‘But I only ever wished for the love of one man. There is no justice in the world’s condemnation. Is there no means by which to lessen my sins?’

I knew the answer to my own foolish plea long before I watched her slowly wag her head.