But I knew the boats would be leaving soon. The sixteenth of October. That’s what they’d printed in the pamphlets and it was only six days away. He might not want to rush me but no sea captain would delay a trip across the ocean while a girl made up her mind. I wasn’t ready to say yes. But my answer wasn’t an outright no either.

‘We are close to finding the Leopard Lady. I know that is your dearest wish,’ Lucien said. ‘Once she is safe, may I ask you again?’

He was disappointed, that much was plain from his voice, but he was prepared to be patient. That he knew what was important to me, and wanted to support me in it, was another good sign.

‘I would like that very much,’ I said.

Barky had left the key under the flowerpot for me again and I slipped in quietly. He was sat at the kitchen table, his head nodding over a half-eaten plate of bread and cheese. He looked tired.

‘You want tea?’

He started to get up, but I stopped him.

‘I’ll make it,’ I said.

In the cupboard over the sink there was a jar half-full of dark brown leaves. I spooned two measures into Barky’s silver teapot and poured on water that had warmed over the fire. I brought the pot to the table and sat down to let it brew. My first sip was perfect. Much better than that coffee muck at Hussmann’s.

‘You shot off after rehearsals. You weren’t out with him again, were you?’

Just ‘him’, not his name, as if it sullied his mouth to say it.

It threw me off and when I replied it came out all defensive. This wasn’t how I’d been expecting things to go.

‘I went to a coffee house,’ I said, thinking it better not to say which one.

‘He took you to a coffee house?’

‘I take it you don’t drink coffee, then?’

Barky sniffed. ‘Back when it was in style, maybe. I’m surprised; I wouldn’t have thought a coffee house was a place for the likes of you.’

Where had that come from? I expected this from Ellen but not Barky. What was for us? Not coffee, not drawing rooms. Where could we go to just be? Barky saw the look on my face.

‘The likes of you meaning women, Zillah. I’d have known you’d been around that Black even if you didn’t tell me. He makes you ever so touchy.’