Chapter 1

1

SPRING, 1811 – EIGHT YEARS LATER

Sophie, which was not her name, stood with self-possession in front of the Marchioness, while that lady surveyed her keenly from head to foot. The older woman – she was perhaps forty, lushly beautiful, voluptuous, skilfully painted even in her own boudoir – saw, she knew, a perfect lady’s companion in every tiny detail of Sophie’s appearance. She was immaculately presented, in a demure, high-necked gown of sober grey hue, which the Marchioness might assume had been given to her by a previous employer (it hadn’t). She was of medium height, and medium build, and her locks, which were an unmemorable shade of dark brown (they were dyed), were drawn back sleekly into a bun at the back of her head. Her hair was dead straight, and did not draw attention to itself in any way, as was entirely proper. She wore no rouge or perfume; her prospective employer was wearing enough for both of them. Sophie’s eyes were large and dark, quick with intelligence, and she could hardly have appeared any more French if she had been singing the Marseillaise and waving a tricolour flag, instead of standing sedately, hands folded, in a lady’s sitting room in Brook Street. Her insistent Frenchness might have been a drawback in other circumstances, in these desperate times of war, but no; for this situation, a Frenchwoman was specifically required. She had counted on that.

She’d told the Marchioness that she’d been brought to London as a tiny infant, Monsieur and Madame Delavallois, her parents, having fled the Terror like so many others, losing everything – their modest fortune, their small estate in Picardy – except their lives. The Delavallois family had really existed, though they were conveniently dead now – all this could be checked, if anyone cared to do so, and the affecting tale, if she were in fact their daughter, would make her twenty-one. She was in reality fully five years older, but Lady Wyverne, if she noticed, didn’t appear to care. Perhaps she thought, with some justice, that such a life as Sophie’s aged a girl before her time. The lady would know more than a lady should about such matters, since it was common gossip that she’d been born in poverty and made a living as an actress of sorts before her extraordinary, scandalous marriage to a marquess.

Faux Sophie had good references, which would stand a great deal of scrutiny, though they were all of them purest fiction. The first lady she had supposedly served, when she’d been a mere girl of sixteen, had gone to India to join her parents, leaving a very affecting and entirely uncheckable testimonial behind for her young companion. (It should be affecting; Sophie had written it herself.)

Mlle Delavallois had next, so she claimed, been the chief support of the wife of a dashing young cavalry officer, left alone while her husband served overseas for prolonged periods. This lady, who did actually exist, was of high birth but recklessly impecunious. Lady Wyverne was not to know that the pressing nature of the woman’s debts put her entirely in the power of others, most unscrupulous others, and anxious to retain their favour. She had been more than happy to put her name to a reference for an employee she’d never met.

Sophie had then apparently bettered her situation by entering the household of a widow, relic of the younger son of an earl. This lady had no debts to speak of, a matter for congratulation, but she did have secrets, and a spurious letter of recommendation was a small price to pay to see that they were kept. Sophie had, she said, attended her noble employer on visits to several notable country houses, and could reassure her prospective mistress that she knew exactly how to go on there. Rosanna Wyverne had unwittingly this much in common with her supposed predecessor – she too had secrets aplenty. But Sophie knew them all already.

The Marchioness asked why Mlle Delavallois had left her most recent employment. ‘You were not dismissed, I hope?’

‘Mais non, milady.’ Sophie was very French just now. ‘Her ladyship remarried, to a country gentleman, and so was no longer in need of a companion. In any case, they intend to live a very quiet life, residing entirely on his small estate in the county of Cumberland.’ Cumberland, pronounced by Sophie, had a great many syllables, which somehow conveyed a strong impression of uncouth remoteness. ‘It was a great romance.’ Sophie produced the words ‘small estate’ as another might say ‘dung-heap’, and ‘country gentleman’ as another might say ‘ratcatcher’.

The Marchioness smiled, showing teeth. She was amused, and her silken gown – it was red, and very elaborate – rustled. ‘You do not care for small estates in the remote country, Mademoiselle Delavallois?’

‘Non, madame. Pas le moindre.’ She shuddered; it might have been considered excessively theatrical, perhaps, but she knew what was expected of her.

‘Nor do I,’ said Lady Wyverne. ‘So excessively tedious, I am sure. Setting aside my poor mother-in-law and her odd requirements, which I am sure you will fulfil admirably, I think we shall deal excellently together. Or we shall as long as you always remember your place.’ Her voice was suddenly sharp, as were her eyes, and her voice grew markedly less genteel and languid as she said, ‘You are young, but I do not think you are foolish. Do what you are employed to do, and no more. I don’t give a fig if you engage in squalid intrigues in the servants’ hall. You may take a tumble with half the footmen and all the grooms for all I care. That’s your affair entirely. But if I catch you flirting with members of the family or any of my guests, you will find yourself cast out without wages or references so fast your feet won’t touch the ground. Do you understand me, missy?’

Sophie reassured the Marchioness that she did, and she was perfectly sincere in her assurances. She wasn’t there to flirt, and had no interest in romance or any kind of intrigue. The footmen and grooms would be perfectly safe, as would the men of the Wyverne family, who were truly the last people on earth she wanted any involvement with. The woman was unnecessarily warning her newest employee off her husband, which might be considered natural enough, especially given the Marquess’s atrocious reputation, but also her stepson, Lord Drake. As all the world so shockingly knew, Lady Wyverne’s interest in him could hardly be described as motherly.

But all this scandal in high life was no concern of Sophie’s, unless it could somehow work to her advantage, which seemed unlikely. She would be a very good companion, discreet and industrious, so that the Marchioness would be entirely satisfied with her work, and very happy with her own wise choice. Until suddenly she wouldn’t be.

Everything was arranged to both women’s satisfaction, and afterwards Sophie left the tall house and disappeared into the dusk. Ladies could not walk unaccompanied about the streets of London, but Sophie was not precisely a lady, or at least not one of the least consequence. She was, or appeared to be, an unremarkable female in a modest bonnet and a simple grey cloak, and nobody paid her the least attention. She walked, and enjoyed the freedom.

The partial freedom. She was always alert, naturally. If men looked at her, she cast down her eyes meekly – not too meekly, just the correct amount of humility – and maintained her pace. She was brisk, purposeful; above all, she was not prey. Meeting anyone’s glance could be dangerous. Being a woman abroad alone could be dangerous. It was a little early for a gentleman to be drunk – no, that was ridiculous, a gentleman could be drunk at any hour. She could not afford to be careless, and was not.

Her route was somewhat circuitous, and if anyone had been following her through the darkening streets – but why should they? – they would soon have found it impossible to keep their eyes upon one nondescript little figure among all the evening bustle of the great, dirty city.

She left the fashionable part of town soon enough, and London changed as she walked eastwards. Oddly for such a respectable-seeming woman, the confidence of her posture seemed to grow when it should have declined. She was in Seven Dials now, the Rookery, a place where the constables would hesitate to go, and certainly would not go alone. But she stepped around piles of noisome refuse and groups of disreputable-looking loiterers as though she had not a worry in the world. People watched her, but did not attempt to accost her. When a drunken costermonger lurched accidentally into her path, the sharp look she sent him made him shrink away, babbling apologies.

At last she reached a low tavern, a boozing ken, the unlikeliest of destinations for an honest woman, and made her way confidently inside. The ancient, panelled room was not well lit, and very crowded, but she passed surely through the haze of pipe-smoke and tallow fumes, and when the patrons saw her they drew apart as best they could to make a path. It was odd that they should show such deference to one so unremarkable and unintimidating in appearance, for some of them, men and women both, had the aspect of creatures out of nightmare. Their persons, their faces, and above all their watchful, glittering eyes, told a disturbing story. Any objective observer with a modest degree of imagination would surely have said that the room looked to be full of robbers, whores and murderers, which indeed it was. But the young woman seemed entirely unconcerned. She slipped behind the bar, saying, ‘Hello, Fred, all well?’

The tapster – a tall, imposing man with the battered features of a former prize-fighter – nodded and let her pass into the inner room, saying, ‘He’s waiting for you,’ as he closed the scarred wooden door behind her.

She threw off her drab cloak and untied her bonnet, setting them down upon a chest beside the fire. There was a man there, seated behind a desk, looking through some papers, and he did not speak, but raised an enquiring eyebrow.

‘Yes,’ she said in response to some unspoken query. ‘She gave me the position.’

‘As we knew she would.’

‘Indeed. One of the other candidates, a young woman with excellent references who was expected an hour before me, did not appear, and sent no word to explain why. Lady Wyverne was highly vexed.’

‘Most unaccountable,’ he said calmly.

‘She wasn’t harmed?’ Hard to say if this was truly a question.

Again the mobile eyebrow shot up. ‘Of course not. She is a little better off than she was yesterday, and the next plum situation that arises will be hers. I have said so.’ This rather odd statement was uttered with supreme confidence. ‘She was… persuaded that to work at Brook Street and, most of all, at Wyverne Hall would not have suited her constitution, and given the nature of the place, this may even be true.’

‘It may not suit mine.’

‘I dare say it won’t. But you can look after yourself.’

‘As you taught me.’

He inclined his head. He was a man past his middle years, and his neutral speech – he used no low cant, just now, nor did he swear – made it difficult to place him, for anyone who didn’t know exactly who and what he was. He didn’t look or sound as though he belonged in this place, which could have been described with perfect accuracy as a notorious den of thieves. Yet this was plainly his private room, and he seemed entirely at home here. He was short, spare of frame, nondescript (this had been useful in the past). His eyes and hair were of no particular colour, and his clothes were as unremarkable as they could be. In a society where status and position were everything, he gave little away. He could have been a tradesman in a small but prosperous way, a middling clerk in some government office, a solicitor in a backwater town. A confidential servant, perhaps, to a gentleman of rank. Yes, that. He projected an air of quiet confidence, and competence. One would instinctively trust such a man.

One would be seriously mistaken.