He took my hand and pulled me along after him. I wasn’t as convinced as Vincent was that the surprise was the end of what Crillick had in mind. To me it felt like a beginning.

The library was sumptuous. Down in St Giles a room of this size could hold four families but here in St James’s it was home only to books. Shelves lined the walls, floor to ceiling, and each was tightly packed, the volumes bound in leather and their titles etched in gold. Usually, a large globe stood in the centre of the room. When Crillick was away, I had wandered in here a few times, had liked to stroke the globe’s smooth surface and watch it spin, but tonight it had been pushed to one side. In the space left behind wooden dining chairs were set out in four rows of five, all facing towards the far end of the room, where a low stage had been made up from half a dozen wooden shipping crates.

Letting go of Vincent’s hand, I ducked into a window alcove at the back of the room, but stayed on my feet. Half-hidden behind the curtain, I wouldn’t have a great view but something told me it might be dangerous to get too close. At least no one would question me being here in my maid’s disguise. Vincent hadn’t noticed me fall back, and he took a seat in the front row. I saw him look around for me, but Henrietta stepped in front of him so he didn’t see me wave. She sat down next to him with a toss of her golden hair. From the way he’d spoken, it sounded like he had little time for her but now her fingertips rested lightly on his arm. I knew that trick, that feather touch, how it would make him think of her as dainty, delicate. Don’t fall for it, Vincent. Don’t fall for it. How close had we been only a second ago and yet you’d never know it now.

I forced myself to look around over the heads of the seated audience. Watching Vincent with that woman would do me no good. Nor would it help to watch the mother either, the old bird in her feathered turban. She mustn’t know about us. As fragile as my standing was, it gave me a petty pleasure to think the man she wanted for her daughter was already in love, with an actress no less, and a half-caste one too.