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Lady Dauntsey motioned them to the chairs facing her.

She was sitting ramrod straight and fixed the young women with a hard gaze.

‘Marina knows I strongly disapprove of her father. He happened to be my brother, but all his actions scorned my religion and affronted my God.’ She turned to a locked drawer in the table beside her and took out a small package and held it on her lap.

‘As for you, Miss Gray, I cannot tell you who your father may be but I know that my brother, Lord Rotherhyde, may well have had many unacknowledged children. I live in dread of who will crawl out of the slime.’

Marina Fairley leaned forward, her voice fierce. ‘Lady Dauntsey, your language is very intemperate. For better or worse, he was my father and he may also be Miss Gray’s.’

‘Well, it is nothing to celebrate, my dear. There’s no glossing over the truth. You were both born in sin and your father died of his wickedness.’

Eliza had in her hand the portrait of the man she believed was her father and felt protective of him.

‘I thought our religion required us to practice Christian charity towards others,’ she said, trying to control the outrage in her voice.

She held out her hand with the miniature and asked, ‘Could this be your brother?’

Lady Dauntsey’s face blenched as she examined the man in the painting.

In a softer voice she said, ‘He was once young like this and the world was yet to corrupt him.’ She handed the portrait back to Eliza.

‘That is Lord Rotherhyde. I nightly pray for his soul.’ She then looked speculatively at Eliza, as if uncertain how to proceed.

With a sigh, she appeared to have made her decision and handed over the package in her lap.

‘When my brother died, his few belongings were sent back to me from Paris. This was found in an inside pocket in his coat.’

Eliza’s fingers trembled as she unwrapped the sheet of paper that was folded over something hard.

There was a small silver-framed watercolour drawing of a woman with a baby on her lap.

Was this fair-haired young woman her mother?

Was she the baby in the picture? She could barely hope that she had a representation at last of how her mother looked. Overwhelmed, she could not speak.

Lady Dauntsey said with some impatience, ‘Yes, that is Eliza, your mother. It’s how I remember her too. I presume the child is you.’

Eliza looked up and met the eyes so like her own, but hers were brimming with tears.

‘Thank you. You cannot know what this means to me. To be no longer buffetted on an ocean with neither mast nor sail. You have given me a compass and a map and now I know better who I am. Thank you.’ She handed the portrait to Miss Fairley for her to see and only then noticed that the paper that wrapped it had a line in her mother’s fine cursive hand. She smoothed it out and read:

Since your Leaving dimmed the Flame, our Child born of Love stirs these Embers once again.

Eliza’s heart stopped. She was loved. Her mother had loved her. Her father too; he had kept the portrait in his inner pocket, close to his heart. This momentous thought swept away the years of uncertainty, the loneliness and longing; her empty dreams of family had been filled and given meaning.

‘Well, Eliza, she certainly looks like you.’ Marina’s words flooded warmth into every cell of her being.

I’m part of a line of ancestors. I belong as a branch on this great tree.

Then her friend continued, holding the miniature of Lord Rotherhyde in her hand, ‘And this red-haired rogue is our father. We are sisters!’ It was confirmed.

They reached across to each other and embraced, a fountain of joy bubbling between them.

‘I’ve always longed for a sister!’ Eliza said laughing.

‘So have I! We’ve now a blood bond against the world!’

Lady Dauntsey’s face turned stony, her disapproval was implacable. ‘I think your behaviour shows a lack of moral education. Rather than unbridled delight in your parents’ licentiousness, you should exhibit modesty and shame. Neither of you are born of Christian union.’

Miss Fairley was uncowed by her aunt’s thunderous disapproval. ‘Surely the Bible teaches us: “First cast out the beam from thine own eye and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote in thy brother’s”,’ she said calmly with a smile.

Her aunt was momentarily disconcerted. Then standing to her full height, she said, ‘I wield the righteous sword!’

‘More the self-righteous sword!’ Marina muttered to her sister.

Eliza took Lady Dauntsey’s hand and gazing into those remarkable eyes, said with warmth, ‘What you have told me today has changed my life. What you have given me I shall treasure all my days. Thank you.’

The noble lady momentarily relaxed her stance.

‘I am pleased I have brought some light to your life. And it is indeed true that the sins of the father should not be visited on the child. I wish you both well, and perhaps we will see each other again. After all, our blood unites us, however shamefully.’

The young women bobbed quick curtseys and fled from the room, Eliza clutching to her breast the priceless portraits and the crumpled piece of paper in her mother’s hand.

They collected Polly from the hall and walked back to Mount Street first so Marina Fairley would not travel unchaperoned.

Marina was once more whispering in an urgent voice so Polly could not hear.

‘Sister, I meant to tell you that my despicable cousin, our despicable cousin, he who should not be named , set off yesterday in a hurry. Can you surmise where he was headed?’

‘I have no idea.’ Eliza felt the warmth of the conspiracy between them.

‘Well, he was speedily to Bath. He had heard that the Marquess was not long for this world and intended to make sure he was there at the end so nothing could come between him and his Bathwick inheritance.’

For all the new-found warmth of sisterly feeling, Eliza felt a peculiar shock that her legal father was nearing death; it was saddening to feel she had never known him and now never would.

Sad too that his estate and title would go to a distant cousin who cared not a single jot for him or the property.

She turned to Marina. ‘What will he do with the house and land? With the Bathwick jewels my mother used to wear?’

‘He’s an inveterate gambler with prodigious debts. No doubt he’ll raise money against the property. Then he can continue at the tables night after night, as is his wont.’

They embraced on the doorstep in Mount Street. ‘I am most glad to have found you,’ Eliza said into her friend’s shoulder.

Marina hugged her closer and replied, ‘You’re all and more than I could have hoped for in a sister. If you too decide not to marry, perhaps we can live together as two old maids?’ She laughed as they pulled apart and their eyes met.

Eliza said in a rueful voice, ‘The only man I have ever wished to marry does not want me, and someone I do not care to marry has made me a business-like proposition. I think your suggestion is most attractive.’ She squeezed Marina’s hand then waved and with Polly, turned for home.

As she walked, Eliza considered what lay ahead.

As the illegitimate daughter of one earl and the legal but unrelated daughter of a marquess, with neither property nor wealth, she had a circumscribed future, possibly as a lady’s genteel companion.

Living congenially with her sister was a much more appealing proposition; perhaps she could teach small children to ride?

As they entered the Wolfe house in Brook Street, a rumble of carriage wheels made Eliza pause and watch as a familiar carriage was brought to a halt outside the Purfoy mansion next door.

Her heart immediately began its hammering.

How much she hated feeling like this, her body’s reaction beyond her control.

She saw a dark figure climb out, with a certain weariness in his manner.

Not wishing to be seen, Eliza moved quickly inside as Gibbons closed the front door.

She ran up the stairs to her room, carrying her family trophies she would show Corinna later.

She flung herself on her bed and placed the two portraits together on the coverlet and gazed at them.

‘My parents. My family. With me between them.’ She then opened the paper that had wrapped the portrait found in Lord Rotherhyde’s coat, and read the lines again, written in her mother’s elegant hand.

Since your Leaving dimmed the Flame, our Child born of Love stirs these Embers once again.

She placed this and her father’s letter on her heart and folded her hands over her breast, closing her eyes and breathing slowly in and out, savouring the sense of being part of something bigger than just herself.

Eliza was so exhausted by the day’s events she fell fast asleep, only to be woken by Polly asking her if she would like to join the family for dinner. She was still deadly tired but dressed and descended the stairs where Corinna and Alick, Ferdy Shilton and Zadoc Flynn awaited.

The meal was lively but Eliza was subdued throughout and became more so when the talk between the men moved to the coming Owners’ Race.

Nobody but Corinna noticed Eliza’s silence and she drew her outside after the first course and asked her if she was well.

Eliza confided, ‘I learned the name of my true father, Lord Rotherhyde. Perhaps most upsetting is that he died when I was a baby, in exile in Paris due to his debts.’

Corinna took her hand between both of hers and squeezed it in sympathy. ‘I’m so sorry, my dear. Fate seems to have robbed you of all your closest family.’

Then Eliza’s face lightened and she smiled. ‘But I also learned today that I have a half-sister and I could not be happier to be no longer such an orphan in the world.’