‘You understand, dear Henrietta, that the world will ever take you for what you have become. A young lady of manners, of deportment, and such beauty as yours . . . who lives without family, without a husband, or a father, or brother to care for her . . . Why, Mr Savill guessed it through the window of your coach! There is but one other sort of woman who lives as we do, and while at thirty-seven years I may pass for a widow, you, my dear, would not. Indeed, no person in full command of their sight would believe you had not one hundred offers of marriage the very instant your husband expired.’ She laughed. ‘How else can the world account for your single state and your finery, or for the manner in which you traverse the continent without a household or letters of introduction? Come, child, you know well enough that this cannot be. It is a flight of fancy. Who will defend your interests or make investments on your behalf? You require a protector with influence as much as you require diversion, and in Paris at the present time, this is most especially true.’

I listened to her sermon with polite patience, prepared to convince her that I required no assistance of any sort. I had earned enough by my previous existence to subsist comfortably without inconveniencing a soul, so long as I chose to live without extravagance. But a gentle rap upon the door curtailed my intentions.

A housemaid slipped in accompanied by Lucy, still wrapped in her cloak. My happy expression of relief lasted but an instant, for the look on my maid’s flushed face was one which I had never before seen.

She stood with a lowered chin, her back nearly against the door.

‘Lucy,’ I called to her, rising to my feet. ‘Lucy?’

At first she would not raise her eyes to mine, and when at last she did, they were wide with dread.

Chapter 8

IT WAS TOLD to me like this: