‘I believe His Lordship wanted me.’

She raised an eyebrow. ‘I’m sure you call him Vincent, don’t you? No need to pretend. You might be wearing a maid’s outfit but I know about you. All men have their follies when they’re young. Vincent’s getting a little too old for it really, but frankly I see no need for him to give you up if it saves me from certain unpleasantness.’

She looked me up and down, for all the world like she was one of the punters at the theatre. I could see the same fascination in her eyes.

‘I bet your mother was a slave, wasn’t she?’

The heat rose to my cheeks. How dare she. For a moment, I wished I really was Amazonia in her skins, ready to rip her bloody like a dog. Henrietta wouldn’t dare question me then. But it’s true, though, isn’t it, came the voice inside my head. You’re slave stock, and you can be with Vincent all you like but that won’t change it.

It’s nothing to be ashamed of, said another voice. Lucien’s.

‘You weren’t a servant at the Woodward house to begin with, were you? I’ve been there, you know. Darling little place,’ Henrietta said.

I shook my head, but said nothing. Vincent had told me his family home in Surrey had four floors and eighteen bedrooms. How rich was this woman that she would speak of it like a costermonger’s cottage? And who was I to think myself a rival to her?

‘I spent all my summers there when I was young. Our families have always been close,’ she added.

Her face was smooth but she pasted on her paint quite thick. I guessed she was slightly older than me. Twenty-four or twenty-five years old perhaps, a little younger than Vincent; old not to be married, though, in her circles. Her blue eyes were sharp and knowing. She moved closer and lowered her voice, though we were quite alone in the dim corridor. Over her shoulder the light shone from the drawing room and there was a burble of conversation. I wished I had stayed safe upstairs in the bedroom.

‘What I really want to know is how you get away with it?’

I was taller, stronger than her, but as long as I played the maid she had the better of me. This was why my mother had insisted I make my own way.

‘I don’t know what you mean,’ I said.

‘Why, your act of course. The Great Amazonia, they call you, don’t they? Crillick tells me you’re quite the draw at his Variety Theatre.’

I froze, unable to keep the hate from my eyes.