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Eliza struggled to sit up, her eyes squinting against the bright morning. ‘I think so. It’s hard to tell until I stand.’

‘Good. If you are well enough, the gentlemen thought they would set off back to Town once breakfast was finished.’

Eliza climbed out of bed and found the early sun almost too dazzling.

Stretching, she rubbed her eyes and stood by the window.

‘Storms are always followed by a new-swept day,’ she said to Polly while looking out on the deer park luminous in the sparkling light, its ancient oaks spreading their branches low over the tussocky grass.

A herd of deer sheltered in their wide embrace and she watched a leash of hares bounding across the sward back to their forms, to snooze away the day.

As Eliza gazed out on this pastoral scene she began to feel the seduction of rural life lift her mood.

She would be happy living here, and could not prevent an idle curiosity entering her mind – what kind of estate was Lord Purfoy’s?

, she wondered. She knew it was in Hertfordshire and had heard the men talk about its attractions but how its noble owner was so much a creature of the Town that he rarely visited.

She suddenly wished to see it, but now never would.

She sat before the looking glass so Polly could help with her hair; even the tangle after the drenching of the previous day did not seem to daunt her busy fingers.

She brushed and plaited and pinned and within a short time, Eliza was looking an elegant young lady once more.

She had dressed rather hurriedly in the blue cambric in which she had travelled down and Polly fastened her ultramarine wool spencer over the top for warmth.

Eliza pinched her cheeks to try and look a little less pale and then descended the stairs, drawn towards the conversation that floated from the breakfast room.

As she stood on the threshold she surveyed a comic tableau of young men paying the price for the night’s excesses.

All were pale and hollow-eyed, their host Ferdinand Shilton’s skin so transparent it had a greenish hue as he stretched with a shaky hand for his cup of strong coffee.

Zadoc Flynn had celebrated Ohio’s triumph into the night and was looking tousled, his eyes bloodshot, as he slumped in a chair, chin on his hand.

Only Alick Wolfe, always more steady, appeared as usual, but pale and barely able to do justice to the table groaning with the Shilton cook’s largesse: bread, a hock of ham, beef in aspic, sweet pastries and candied fruit were glistening in the morning sun.

He got to his feet and met Eliza’s eyes with a smile.

‘Good morning, Miss Gray. You look better than most of us feel!’

Both Ferdy Shilton and Mr Flynn stood up to greet her and pull out a chair.

Alick said, ‘We have much to thank you for. We all made money yesterday betting on Ohio, such an outsider with long odds. We didn’t know until the finish line and Raven flew into high dudgeon that it was you riding the mare.

’ His face registered his amusement. ‘Corinna will reprimand me for not taking greater care of you in her absence.’

Ferdy Shilton was disapproving and said in a weak voice, ‘I’m too nauseous to remonstrate, but really, Miss Gray, it’s no way for a lady to behave.

I only lent my clothes to Corinna when I thought she was a lad; I’d never knowingly approve of a young woman wearing them.

I’m with Purfoy. No wonder he’s left in a fit of the blue devils. ’

Before Eliza could answer, Zadoc Flynn interrupted. ‘It’s entirely my fault. I put pressure on Miss Gray to ride Ohio for me as I was too heavy for the mare. When Miss Gray tried to back out of our agreement, I wouldn’t allow it. I owe her a public apology.’ He took her hand and bowed over it.

Eliza’s voice was expressionless. ‘I must apologise to you, Mr Shilton, for upsetting proprieties when I was taking advantage of your hospitality, and you too, Mr Wolfe, who with Mrs Wolfe have shown me the utmost care and generosity. My deceit may have been necessary but that does not make it any less reprehensible. My sincerest apologies to you all.’ She had made up her mind about her next move and added, ‘I will be making other arrangements when we get back to Town, and so will no longer be taking advantage of everyone’s kindness. ’

The men looked abashed. Alick Wolfe was quick to say, ‘No, no, Miss Gray, you are no burden on any of us. It has been the greatest pleasure to be able to help you find your family and work out your plans.’

Cups of coffee were once more poured and handed around. Zadoc Flynn said, ‘In two days, Alick, I’ll no longer be in your hair. I’m off on the next stage of my tour of this island race. I’m off to Ireland in search of my people.’

Ferdinand Shilton snorted. ‘When you see the poverty there, you’ll be grateful to your papa that he took the King’s shilling to fight in America’s Revolutionary War.’

Zadoc Flynn had been born after his father had begun to make his fortune as a fur trader in New York and had never known poverty.

However, like the scion of many an immigrant family, he had been brought up on nostalgic tales of home.

He had a proud look in his eyes as he said, ‘I’m told ’tis the country of poesy and music, where faeries and leprechauns live by the hearth and in the woods.

But the people are ferocious as wild beasts and no government can subdue them. ’

‘Well, sir, you’d better take your pistol then,’ said Ferdy Shilton with a shudder. ‘Nothing is more ruinous to civility than brutishness and violence.’

Eliza had retreated into her own thoughts while she nibbled on an almond cake.

Alick broke into their reveries. ‘If we wish to get back to Brook Street well before the light fails, let’s be ready to leave in an hour.

’ Everyone prepared to return to their rooms where their valets and Polly were packing the valises.

There was a light knock at the door and the Shilton butler appeared, imperious in his formality.

He wore a powdered wig and the frock coat of the previous century in the Shilton colours of blue and yellow.

In his white gloved hand was a silver salver on which lay a letter sealed with scarlet wax.

‘A missive for Miss Gray,’ he said in a dulcet voice.

Eliza was startled. She immediately recognised the bold, black-inked letters and her hand trembled as she took the folded paper.

The wax was impressed with his seal, the ancient Purfoy motto clear in the morning light.

Not wishing to read the contents in public, she ran up the stairs to her room.

Unfolding the paper, she thought of the meaning of that motto, translated by Taz for her and since graven on her heart: Venus, like Fortune, favours the bold.

How sorry she was that Lord Purfoy’s boldness and her own had been washed away in the storm.

She read his letter with trepidation.

My dear Miss Gray,

My apologies for our rude parting but perhaps if you can forgive The Corsair you may forgive me too? Lord Byron says it more eloquently than I managed.

And She – the bright and solitary Star

Whose ray of Beauty reached him from afar,

On her he must not gaze, he must not think –

There he might rest – but on Destruction’s brink.

I just wished to assure you it is my deficiency of heart not yours.

Then he signed it with a large single P.

Eliza could barely control a sob. Lord Purfoy’s nobility of spirit, even in the face of disappointment and betrayal, touched her to the core.

His taking the blame for their parting filled her with even greater shame.

Employing Lord Byron’s poetry just amplified the message and speared it straight through her heart.

* * *

The large Shilton travelling coach was pulled up outside the portico, its team of horses snorting, ready for their return journey.

Once again Eliza and Polly sat together and the three men were ranged opposite.

Everyone was subdued, the men still queasy and tired, Eliza thoughtful and tense about what lay ahead.

The storm-swept brilliance of the light and the burgeoning countryside was lost on them as they slumped in their seats, drowsy, distracted, inward-looking, while outside the coach windows the market gardens and villages were bright in the noonday sun.

When the carriage wheels eventually rumbled over the cobbles of Brook Street, everyone was relieved to disembark and reacquaint themselves with the Wolfes’ homely mansion again.

Eliza stole a quick glance at the neighbouring house, hoping to catch a glimpse of its noble occupant, but the windows met her eager eye with a blank stare.

As they entered, Corinna appeared, carrying Emma, and ran into Alick Wolfe’s open arms. ‘I have missed you both so,’ he said, lifting Emma into the air and slipping an arm around the child’s mother. ‘I hope you have been well,’ he murmured into her hair.

‘You have much to tell me,’ she said smiling, and led him through to her studio where she quietly shut the door.

The men went through to the kitchen to scavenge some food from Cook and Eliza ran upstairs to read her letter once more.

She knew the passage Lord Purfoy quoted and pondered how the words made their separation a matter of his survival.

She could not argue with something so momentous but, on an impulse, took a piece of paper from the drawer and picking up the quill and ink pot that lay beside it, scratched her riposte, again from the poem they were both reading:

How strange that heart, to me so tender still,

Should war with Nature and its better will!