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Gothic heroines had not lost their allure for Miss Fitzjames. ‘I’ve been so alarmed reading The Monastery of St Columb,’ she offered as they walked towards Berkeley Square.

‘I’ve heard Miss Roche’s powers to spin a story are failing, but not for you it seems? More amusing to me was something I’ve just finished reading. The Heroine mocks the ideal of the wilting gothic heroine.’

‘Ah, but the author’s a man. What does he know of the lives of women at the mercy of the masculine sex?’

Angelica remembered how recently Miss Fitzjames had been entirely in the toils of a cruel fate conjured by her father’s ruinous actions and the controlling power of his beneficiary. ‘Oh, Miss Isobel, I’m sorry. I had forgotten what you have suffered. But your mystery benefactor has given you back your freedom?’

They had reached the Breville mansion in Berkeley Square and collected Isobel Fitzjames’s maid from the kitchens. As they parted, Isobel answered, ‘I don’t have his name but he truly saved my life,’ she added with a catch of tragic emotion in her voice. They briefly hugged. ‘You are the noblest of women,’ she said, and suddenly shy turned away to walk with her maid the few hundred yards to Grosvenor Square.

* * *

For her ill-omened visit to the Houses of Parliament, Angelica dressed carefully in her high-necked walking dress with a matching pelisse, both in a fine emerald batiste that was sober while still managing to illuminate her dramatic colouring. She found her small portmanteau in her dressing room and crossed the landing to her mother’s room. The chest of gold coins had been stowed in the wardrobe filled to overflowing with winter pelisses. There amongst all the folds of luxurious fabric Angelica found and opened the trunk, extracting one hundred coins, glistening gold in her hands. She folded them into a silk shawl to stop them clinking, put her copy of her script at the top to disguise her bounty and descended the stairs to collect Mary.

She had asked Mr Brunner to bring the town chaise round to the door for half past two. Angelica did not expect the interview to last very long and had asked him to wait for them. Her heart was fluttering as the carriage set off towards Piccadilly. Mary sat beside her and knew her mistress well enough to understand the ordeal she faced, demanding all her wits and courage. She said grimly, ‘Miss Angelica, you don’t have to agree to anything. Make him wait for an answer.’

The carriage wheeled round towards the entrance at Speaker’s House. Once again Angelica looked at the sad state of the headless statues on the front of the building and the coats of arms, crumbling into decay. It was a bleak thought that the statues had been decapitated in the Civil War more than a hundred and fifty years before and there had been no restoration since. How unstable things suddenly seemed. She climbed out of the carriage and with Mary walked into the vast lobby, crowded with men coming and going, intent on business. A Parliamentary Officer met them and Angelica said she was expected by Lord Rackham.

After a confusing detour through the corridors, Angelica and Mary were shown into an outer office surprisingly free of books and papers, and the officer closed the door behind them. There was a console table with decanters of various liquors and a collection of glasses. A cold light fell from the small north window onto a blue sofa with a Kashmir shawl thrown across one arm. In the centre of the room was a card table with four chairs informally arranged as if the players had only just left the game. Mary took one of the chairs and Angelica sat on the edge of the sofa and waited, her portmanteau of gold coins behind her skirts.

The door opened and Cato Rackham entered as panther-like as his soubriquet suggested. ‘Miss Leigh,’ he purred. ‘Forgive my not being here to welcome you.’

She stood up and he took her gloved hand in his. He was tall and stood rather too close but the sofa prevented her from stepping back. His dark eyes were on her face and she was acutely aware of his physical presence. He seemed full of suppressed energy and the fragrant musky smell of his pomade filled her nostrils. She lifted her chin, hoping that she gave an impression of confidence.

‘Come through,’ he said abruptly and led her into his own office, closing the door smartly on Mary, leaving her to wait. Here Angelica noticed the enormous desk and wondered how it too could be so free of any evidence of work. When she had visited Mr Asprey’s offices, most notable was the sense of industry, the piles of paper, the books open everywhere on tables, pieces of paper with scrawled notes, the sense that there was urgent work being done. Lord Rackham pulled out a chair for her and another for himself. Again he sat too close, their knees almost touching.

‘Miss Leigh, perhaps you are unaware of how important a man’s probity is when he decides to embark on an unpopular mission?’ His voice drawled but his eyes were gimlet sharp as he noticed her almost imperceptible flinch. ‘Your friend, Mr Asprey, is engaged in controversial work and needs all the support from his fellow Members in the House that he can muster. Preventing brats in the middens of Yorkshire from working in the mills until they are grown past ten years old is just taking profits from the system, you know.’

Angelica could hardly bear the tension of his unsettling presence, aware of an aggression tightly sheathed, but only just. ‘I approve of Mr Asprey’s work. Why are you making such a point of this, Lord Rackham?’ She barely recognised her voice, so weak and quiet.

He had uncoiled his lean frame to walk to the window. Angelica watched, feeling the silence between them crackling with what was yet unsaid. He turned, the daylight catching his narrowed glance and making his eyes glitter. ‘I am making this point because I know just how associating with you has compromised Mr Asprey.’

So febrile were her emotions, anger flared at these words, not least because she knew their truth. It was what she feared too. She stood up. ‘Mr Asprey does not “associate” with me. I don’t care for your insinuations!’

Lord Rackham was by her side in a flash. He grabbed her wrist. ‘Don’t play the innocent with me, Miss Leigh. I know he’s the only reason your criminal father was able to avoid the law of this land, whose very laws he has sworn to uphold.’

Angelica accepted with a plunge of spirit that she was at every disadvantage; all he said was true, and it was entirely her fault that this disreputable libertine had any hold over the most admirable man she knew. ‘What are you proposing, my lord?’

He still held her by the wrist and looked down into her troubled face. ‘I’m glad you’re such a perspicacious young woman. If you wish me to ignore these glaring faults in the estimable Mr Asprey, I think we may negotiate something advantageous to us all.’ His thin smile met her defiant gaze. But his hand on her wrist could tell her heart was less stalwart than she attempted to appear and was beating out a more anxious rhythm.

Angelica pulled her arm away and walked to where her portmanteau sat on the floor beside her chair. ‘Perhaps we may. I wondered if a charity of your choosing might be grateful for a donation?’ She was shaking as she opened the bag and slipped her hand into the silken folds of the shawl, withdrawing a handful of glistening gold coin.

She did not have a chance. He was beside her before she could even turn around and pinned her arms from behind, his face close to hers, his words full of quiet menace. ‘Now you try to bribe a member of His Majesty’s Government? This alone could place you in the hell of Newgate, you sorry, stupid hussy!’

Angelica recoiled, realising how her single-minded pursuit of protecting Mr Asprey had blinded her to the danger of such behaviour as this.

Still holding her arms tight, Lord Rackham said in a voice that was smooth and urbane once more, ‘My plan is much more diverting, you know. Recall my previous offer, to save your father from a hanging? So rudely flouted, indeed. I’m prepared to offer it again, to save Mr Asprey’s precious, self-righteous skin.’

Angelica felt her colour rise and managed to wrench an arm free to whirl around and face him. ‘Why the animus against Mr Asprey?’

‘Don’t care for a man who wears his virtue on his sleeve. We’re all as wicked as each other, just some of us don’t pretend to be otherwise. If he makes a show of his heart, I am happy to be the daw to peck it to destruction.’

Angelica felt the blood pound in her ears. ‘What Mr Asprey means to do is of importance to our greater good. Children should be protected.’

She was thinking of Mr Brunner’s experiences in the mills but was cut short by his lordship’s dismissive snort. ‘Spare me the piety, my dear!’ He took her arm more gently this time. ‘You already know how you quicken my blood. From the moment I first saw you as Ophelia, in a state of undress, my heart was snared. Your beauty haunts me. And to have you here with me, your spirit bold and defiant, I find it hard not to take you in my arms right now!’

Angelica felt the net closing in. ‘Lord Rackham, what is it you propose?’

‘You know very well what I propose, my dear. The house in Albemarle Street still awaits.’