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Lord Davenport smirked. ‘Pray, accept my apologies, Miss Gray.’

Mr Flynn extended his hand in his genial way. ‘Zadoc Flynn, visiting from the Americas, taking advantage of the hospitality of my kin, the Wolfes of Brook Street.’

‘I’m pleased to make your acquaintance, Mr Flynn.

I hope you’ll be accompanying your hosts to the Bassett ball tomorrow night.

Our enervated nobility could do with some new blood.

’ Davenport’s laugh expressed neither warmth nor delight.

He lifted his hat in farewell but as Eliza turned to meet his gaze for the first time, her face was lit up in a shaft of sunlight that made vivid her unusual eye colour.

Lord Davenport paused, looking at her intently.

His face visibly drained of its remaining colour before he wheeled his horse around and spurred it into a canter.

‘Do you know that scoundrel?’ Lord Purfoy’s voice was harsh as he addressed Eliza, indicating Lord Davenport’s receding back.

‘No, but he recognised me from seeing me ride at Prebbles.’

Raven Purfoy’s voice was sarcastic. ‘Oh, I forgot. That’s when my tiger brought my name into disrepute by indicating he was prepared to horsewhip him.’

Eliza lifted her chin, feeling protective of Taz – not that he needed anyone to fight his corner. ‘He was just defending me, my lord.’

His lordship’s glittering dark eyes held her gaze as he drawled, ‘Miss Gray, you seem to have an unerring capacity to unsettle any custom and every equilibrium.’ Eliza could not read whether it was amusement or exasperation in his voice.

‘I’m ready for breakfast,’ he said as he turned Horatio and headed for the Grosvenor Gate.

Eliza, Zadoc Flynn and Taz followed in his wake.

It was the first time Eliza had had an opportunity to see Horatio’s movement as he cantered with his master elegantly poised on his back.

Man and horse moved as one and it excited her to see such fluid symmetry and consummate skill.

As they entered the mews, Taz leapt down to take the horses’ reins and Lord Purfoy dismounted and walked round to offer a hand to Eliza.

With a mischievous chuckle, Taz said, ‘Miss Gray don’t need yer help, m’lord. She can somersault to the ground!’

Eliza coloured. ‘You are mistaken, Taz,’ she remonstrated as she noticed Lord Purfoy’s eyes register surprise.

‘I wouldn’t attempt a somersault in these clothes!

I’m practising being a lady,’ she said, unhooking her leg from the pommel and slipping down Clio’s side to take Raven Purfoy’s proffered hand.

‘I’m gratified to hear that,’ he murmured.

‘On past performance, it seems you have a deal of practising still to do.’ He continued to hold her hand as he looked deep into her eyes.

‘Who are you, Miss Gray? Where do you come from? A changeling left by the fairies? Your distinctive appearance might suggest as much.’

‘I too would like to know.’ Eliza’s response was subdued.

Before their conversation could continue, Zadoc Flynn strode through the arch dividing the mews.

He walked up to his lordship. ‘Purfoy, I’ve decided to buy a fine stallion of the best racing stock to ship home.

For my breeding mares back in Kentucky. May I have your permission to ask Taz to accompany me to the sales at Tattersalls?

I would appreciate his experienced eye.’

A fleeting look of irritation crossed Purfoy’s face before he regained his composure and the courtesy befitting his rank. ‘Of course, Mr Flynn. Check with Taz when he may have some time to spare. Early morning is best, is it not?’ He turned to catch the eye of his groom, busy unsaddling Horatio.

Despite Taz being unimpressed with this visitor, the chance to handle some top-class bloodstock never failed to thrill. ‘’Tis true, guv’nor,’ Taz said, not wishing to give away his delight at the prospect.

His lordship continued, as if musing to himself.

‘Of course, you couldn’t do better than buy Davenport’s beautiful grey.

As fine as any I know. But you’d have to wait for that blackguard to beggar himself at the gaming tables before you could acquire it, the only living creature he loves.

’ He had released Eliza’s hand and she turned and crossed the garden to enter the Wolfes’ house.

He watched her small, graceful figure until she was out of sight.

The fibres of an unseen chord dragged at his heart.

How dangerous, how foolish, the senseless, pitiable folly of allowing himself to stray into such perilous waters again!

* * *

After Mrs Wilson’s dancing lesson, Eliza was feeling confident that she would manage to acquit herself perfectly well.

Mr Flynn was less proficient but of a more devil-may-care character, unconcerned at how he might be judged.

Eliza thought that growing up with the comfort of great wealth had made him attractively immune to self-doubt and the anxieties of less fortunate citizens.

She also admired his utter lack of interest in trying to be an English gentleman; he was happy in his own skin, and that appealed to the rebel in her.

In a thoughtful mood, she dressed carefully for her first visit to Marina Fairley at her grandmother’s house. It struck Eliza as novel and intriguing to have a grandmother, to have family to whom one bore a likeness and belonged, and she was excited at the thought of this expedition.

The afternoon was bright and warm as she and Polly set off on foot, turning left into Bond Street.

This shopping area was always busy with people coming and going, chatter, horses, carriages and every kind of spectacle.

Tantalised by the passing show, the young women paused to gaze in shop windows until the ogling and comments by saunterers and dandies hurried them on.

Soon they’d reached Grafton Street and then, there it was, the grand edifice of Miss Fairley’s grandmother’s house at the corner of Albermarle Street.

The door swung open to reveal a hallway painted canary yellow, an imposing but grimy chandelier hanging from the ceiling and the walls lined with portraits in gilded frames.

The summery colour lifted Eliza’s spirit.

The old retainer, also dressed in yellow but the fabric faded and slightly frayed, seemed to be expecting them and led the way towards the back of the house where a large panelled mahogany door opened to the library.

Marina Fairley met her at the threshold, her glossy brown hair piled on her head in an untidy bun.

‘Good afternoon, Miss Gray. I’m glad to see you again.

Come in and meet my grandmother.’ In a spontaneous gesture she grasped Eliza’s hand and walked with her arm in arm towards the fireplace while Polly disappeared down the back stairs to the kitchen quarters.

Eliza stood before an elderly woman sitting by the fire with a book in her hand and a pair of wire-rimmed spectacles on the bridge of her thin nose.

‘Grandmama, this is my new friend, Miss Gray.’ Then, as Eliza extended her hand and dropped a small curtsey she added, ‘Miss Gray, this is my dear grandmama, Mrs Penrose.’

Eliza was reminded of a bird, but not of the garden variety. Mrs Penrose had the striking presence of a raptor with the far-seeing eyes and calculating stillness of a hawk.

These steely eyes were sizing her up, then in an instant they softened and the hawk became a twinkly grandmother.

Eliza sat in the chair opposite while Marina Fairley headed for the door, saying over her shoulder, ‘I’ll just ask Cook for tea and biscuits.

’ Eliza was intrigued by the surprisingly dark room.

The only light came from a single large window, veiled with the soot of ages, falling dimly on walls lined with handsome mahogany shelves filled to overflowing.

Books were everywhere; they lay open on all available surfaces, bright fabric ribands marking the page, and were stacked in small piles on tables and chairs, green and red leather spines glowing in the crepuscular light.

For a young woman who had had to snatch what reading matter she could and indulge in secret, such an abundance quickened her imagination.

Lettice Penrose noticed her wide-eyed interest in the room and held up the book in her lap. ‘Do you know this? An acquaintance of mine, Mrs Carter, some years ago translated and published the works of the philosopher Epictetus, and this is the result.’

Eliza had neither heard of Mrs Carter nor of Epictetus and was relieved when her friend returned.

Marina had caught the last of her grandmother’s words and laughed, ‘Miss Gray, my grandmother is one of the old bas bleu . She belonged to the Society of Blue Stockings when she was my age.’ She sat down beside the elderly lady and took her hand.

‘She is a great supporter of me against my mama whose prosaic views of life and women’s place in it need to be resisted. ’

Eliza had heard of the bas bleu , admittedly as a derogative description of a woman writer in The Sporting Magazine , and also recalled one of her favourite novels.

She asked, her eyes shining, ‘Mrs Penrose, did you ever meet Mrs Thrale? I loved Evelina. I found a copy and managed to read it when everyone else was asleep.’

‘But why so clandestine, child?’

‘I wasn’t encouraged to read books.’

‘Why heavens not?’ Mrs Penrose looked disbelieving, as if a life without books were unimaginable.

Eliza coloured. It was always nerve-wracking revealing her irregular past but she sensed, and hoped, Marina Fairley and her grandmother would be sympathetic and accepting. She took a deep breath. ‘I was lost as a child and taken in by a circus family and trained as a dancer with horses.’