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The young woman was dressed in a shimmering costume of leaf-green sarsenet scattered with small primrose-yellow roses made of ribbon. She looked Madeleine up and down and, with a smile, said, ‘I can make Miss Rose a much better gown. Dawn-pink gauze with a pale green lining. That would suit.’

Madeleine was taken aback, but also strangely excited. The mention of the colours and the fabric, so different from the dyed old muslin she was contemplating, thrilled her.

Dot laughed. ‘I forgot to mention, Miss Madeleine, Susie is a wondrous seamstress, more skilled than any Bond Street modiste.’

‘I would love nothing better,’ Madeleine said, her eyes shining. Then the smile faded from her face. ‘I probably don’t have enough money. How much would such a gown cost?’ She was ashamed to admit to how little she had.

Susie was unembarrassed. ‘The fabric is offcuts from the mantua makers in Mayfair. I can make you such a gown for twenty shillings.’

Madeleine gasped. This was almost in reach. She rummaged in her reticule and brought out every coin she had. Counting it, her heart once more fell. It only amounted to fifteen.

The girl was unabashed. ‘Ye a friend of my friend. Pay me the extra when ye receive the gown. I like to sew for those who appreciate what I make.’

Madeleine handed over her coins and inclined her head in thanks, her face alight.

Dot looked delighted too. ‘Susie is so clever, she does the measurements by eye.’

The girl laughed. ‘Not so clever. Miss Rose is much the same height and build as me, so ’tis easy. I’ll make the garment in a sennight and bring it to Grosvenor for yer.’

Madeleine heard the church clock chime. It was already seven o’clock and she had to be home before her cousins had a chance to discover she had been away. So, bidding a hasty farewell to Susie, she and Dot retraced their steps. They were just walking up Bond Street as the fancy shops were opening their doors, minions sweeping dust and dirt of the previous day from the front steps and pavement outside.

As they entered the house quietly through the kitchen, an exultant feeling rose in Madeleine’s chest. She had had an adventure, all the more exciting for being clandestine, she had discovered a new world and inspiration for her story, and had been promised the first gown made especially for her. She hugged herself with glee.

* * *

Ferdinand Shilton had had a restless night. He did not like confrontation. He tried not to disappoint anyone and he knew he had kept Miss Payton in the dark about Lord Flambard’s plans and his own part in them. Above all, he hated being implicated in subterfuge and deceit. He rose from bed feeling unaccustomedly jaded and, after being shaved by Gordon, and washing and dressing minimally in breeches and linen shirt, he slipped on his blue brocade dressing gown and embroidered slippers and descended the stairs to breakfast. He had to suppress a longing to see his old friends’ faces; how he wished that Alick Wolfe and Raven Purfoy would be once more sitting round the table in the late-morning sun, reading their respective newspapers and laughing at the previous night’s absurdities.

But the breakfast room was silent and empty. A hearty repast of meats and pastries of various kinds was laid out on the sideboard, but Ferdy did not feel up to helping himself to any more than a currant bun and a cup of coffee. He was rifling through the pages of The Times, noting how many felonies seemed to be committed by wounded and destitute ex-soldiers long returned from the battlefields of the Peninsular War and Waterloo but still without work or means of support. He was distracted for a moment by the distant rumble of carriage wheels, then his attention was once more on his paper and the news. Within a minute, there was a quiet knock on the door and Maltby stood there as disdainful as his master had ever seen him. ‘Lord Flambard for you, Sir.’

Ferdy barely had time to rise to his feet before a large, impressive figure with a dark and brutally handsome face pushed past the old butler into the room. He had the extravagantly saturnine looks of a caricature rake; dark curls in disarray, the knowing sneer on voluptuous lips, and over-padded shoulders and breeches, but his eyes were neither cynical, nor avaricious and instead glittered with irrepressible humour. He strode forwards and in a thrilling voice said, ‘Shrimp, Flash is home at last!’ He ignored Ferdy’s proffered hand and grasped him in a capacious hug. ‘I can barely believe the time has come. I can pick up my old life again, and with you, the best friend a man could have!’

The two young men stood looking at each other, smiling. Ferdy had tried to get to Paris to see his old friend as often as the intervening wars would allow and he had always been surprised how little changed his old friend was from the swaggering, roguish buck he had always been. Lords Flambard and Purfoy had made Eton bearable for Ferdy, whose blue eyes and blonde curls meant, as a schoolboy, he looked even more angelic, even more of a magnet for the bullies and sadists. His natural kindness and peaceable nature too had poured fuel on the tormentors’ flame, but Purfoy and Flambard were the big boys who stepped in to protect him. They liked their roles of stalwart myrmidons to the young dandy. The relationships forged at Eton, as in the fear and brutality of war, were blood bonds closer and more unbreakable than even family.

‘Welcome home, Max,’ Ferdy said with feeling. ‘Help yourself to breakfast.’ And he pointed to the uneaten feast arrayed before them.

Lord Flambard loaded a plate with ham and jellied ox tongue, toast, pastries, cheese and pickles, and Ferdy poured out two cups of coffee. ‘Well, tell me all the gossip. How’s Rav?’

‘You would not recognise him. He’s become the most uxorious of husbands and is positively besotted with his wife and the tiny sprig in her swelling belly. He swears he will carry the mewling infant around with him, showing him the estate he will inherit. It’s a shame what love has made of him!’ Ferdy was laughing, but there was some regret behind the words.

Lord Flambard looked aghast. ‘I never thought thus of Purfoy. The most controlled and unfathomable of us all, who’d have thought some hussy would have reeled him in. I always thought it would be you, Shrimp, who would succumb first to the feminine wiles.’

Ferdy threw a bun at his old friend and said, ‘I’d appreciate it if you’d not call me Shrimp! It takes me back to less comfortable times – I know you enjoyed your school days so much you managed to get yourself expelled, but I’d rather leave those memories behind.’

Max Flambard’s mouth was full as he happily munched on the excellent Shilton repast. ‘Fair enough, old friend. I’d do anything for you, as you know. But you can still call me Flash if you like. I think it suits me.’

‘No, I don’t like. It’s too redolent of that sorry time. You will be Max to me now.’

Lord Flambard leaned back and stretched luxuriously. ‘I look forward to reacquainting myself with our old haunts – White’s, the Daffy club, Gentleman Jackson’s, you can go fencing at Angelo’s next door while I spar with the fancy.’

‘Don’t you think you should be careful not to reawaken memories of old scandals?’

‘Dammit, Ferdy! Don’t be so lily-livered. It’s been ten years I’ve been gone, who’ll remember? Don’t forget, I was barely out of school and not yet on the Town.’

‘Perhaps, but Max, old friend, while you’re under my roof, I ask for your discretion in any amatory adventures. My staff don’t like irregulars and I don’t like to see them upset.’

‘Of course, of course. Actually, when it comes to fast living, I did go a trifle wild in Paris, ’tis true. But who wouldn’t, with coquettes like that? You’ve seen ’em, Ferdy. Such impudent minxes, you’d have to have a codpiece of steel to resist. Mighty possessive husbands and brothers, though. You had to be careful.’

Ferdy sprang to his feet, alarmed by the way this conversation was going. ‘Well, it strikes me you should be careful in London too. Everyone will be gimlet-eyed, Max. Gossip grows like a gorse fire and if you give it fuel, your presence becomes incendiary. Remember you have a reputation you don’t wish to maintain.’