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Lord Purfoy was unfazed by the umbrage of his friends and continued, ‘You should have heard the way she talked to me before she realised who I was and that I had not come to rob her. She told me to get my hands off her using the salty language of the street. Mind you, I was attempting to check her pulse. But I’m right, am I not, my little Miss Spitfire? ’

Eliza knew he was right. She had inadvertently revealed just what disreputable company she had kept since she was a child and it was already clear to her that Lord Purfoy’s narrow eyes and penetrating mind never missed a thing. The dangerous thought made him more appealing.

Ferdinand Shilton changed the subject. ‘Al, this American cousin of yours. When do you expect him?’

‘Any day now. He’s doing the Grand Tour before he settles down with a wife and family back home.’

Lord Purfoy asked in a sly voice, ‘Which part of the big, bad, Wolfe family is this? The criminal branch, deported to the New World this last century for mayhem and murder?’

Alick Wolfe was the most genial of them all and rarely took offence. ‘Actually, you aren’t far wrong, Rav. His father was a soldier who went to the Americas to fight in the Revolutionary War under General Cornwallis and decided to stay.’

Ferdinand Shilton said, ‘There’s probably a woman at the heart of it. Why else live in that benighted country?’

‘No doubt there’s a woman to blame. Isn’t it always our fault?’ Corinna said with a laugh.

Alick took her hand. ‘Be that as it may, I think Mr Flynn made a fortune trading fur and opium and it’s his son Zadoc who will be coming to stay.’

‘That’s quite a name to conjure with,’ Ferdinand Shilton said. ‘I thought our own “Raven” was exotic enough.’

Alick laughed. ‘He probably had a fanciful mama.’

Lord Purfoy put down his glass and uncrossed his legs to walk to the window and gaze out on the mews. ‘Well, Mr Handel certainly liked it – named his finest anthem “Zadok the Priest”.’

‘When should we expect him?’ Corinna looked at her husband, thinking of which of the bedrooms she should ask the housekeeper to prepare.

‘Depends on the Atlantic winds, but I would think very soon. His packet boat has probably already come to port at Falmouth. He intends to travel from Devon to London in stages.’

Corinna laughed in exasperation. ‘I wish you men were better at communicating practical details. I hope he thinks to send a message once he lands.’ She was ready to begin work and asked Eliza if she’d like to see her studio at the back of the house.

As the two women left the library she spontaneously grasped her husband by the arm and kissed him fleetingly on the lips.

Once the door was closed, Lord Purfoy expostulated. ‘You two! There’s something improper about such uxorious love. By now, I’d hoped you’d be indifferent to each other, if not actually ruing the ball and chain.’

Alick chuckled. ‘Rav, it’s time you discovered for yourself the settled pleasures of married life.’

Lord Purfoy’s handsome face was spoiled by a sneer.

‘Save me from the thin gruel of settled pleasures ! What can marriage offer me? I have hazard and Burgundy, hunting, racing and riot. And when cupidity raises its siren head, I have the comforts of the beauteous Mrs Cornford. What more do I need?’ His eyes were cast down as he stretched his legs towards the fire.

‘Certainly not bawling brats and a cold, complaining wife!’ He looked up, a roguish expression lightening his face.

‘Not that you could ever call Corinna that, the only woman I came close to wishing to marry, but you nabbed her first!’

Alick sprang to the offense. ‘Don’t blame your lack of agency on me, Rav. It took me an age to realise the woman I loved was right under our noses. You could have sued for Cory’s hand any time.’

‘Ah, but you captured her the moment we met when you played Sir Galahad.’ Ferdy Shilton smiled.

‘After that we didn’t have a chance.’ They all recalled with nostalgia and amusement how the friends had first come across Corinna on her way to London, a penniless orphan, dressed as a boy so she could travel alone.

And how it was Alick who, with one blow, felled the brawling carter to protect her from his belligerent fists.

Alick was gazing into the fire. ‘Sometimes we need the threat of loss to make us realise what has always been in our hearts.’

Purfoy’s mood also turned ruminative. ‘How I miss those days when she was just one of us! What fun we all had before she revealed she was really a gal, and we men had to be more careful with a female in our midst.’

Alick took Raven Purfoy’s arm. ‘As Corinna often says, we know you as the most loyal and warm-hearted of friends, the best of men. Why not drop your cynic pose? Don’t you think there comes a time to marry and create your own family?’

Their eyes met as Raven said, ‘My only family are my friends and my horses. As long as I have you all, and Taz caring for my prancers, I have all I need.’ He sank back into his chair and toasted his friends with his glass.

* * *

The women walked down the hallway and Corinna opened the door into a small sitting room that to Eliza’s eyes was an almost magical space.

The light was diffuse and cool, illuminating with a silvery sheen the canvases stacked against the walls and a large easel standing before the window.

Through the glass could be seen the garden and the mews beyond.

The floor was bare with just a canvas covering to protect the wooden boards from paint.

Most distinctive to Eliza was the smell of turpentine and oil that reminded her of the circus and everything she had left behind.

Corinna pulled a chair forward and gestured for Eliza to sit. She smiled as she said, ‘I hope you don’t mind my looking at you closely. I need to see the distinctive planes of your face and the set of your features.’

Eliza sat in the pool of light and the women met each other’s gazes. Corinna slipped into a sleeved pinafore to protect her clothes, placed a medium canvas on her easel and picked up a stick of charcoal, talking as she worked. ‘You have an unusual beauty, my dear.’

‘I’ve never really considered myself much.

There were few looking glasses where I lived.

’ Corinna glanced at her quizzically. Eliza regretted that she had let this slip and so wished she could confide in this competent, affectionate woman about who she was and where she’d come from, but was afraid of being cast back into the life she had escaped, or into a life she could not know.

‘Have any memories returned of your life before the accident?’ Corinna asked gently as she started sketching out the shape of her sitter’s head, so delicately poised on her slender neck and shoulders.

Eliza thought it was perhaps safe to talk of the distant past which she could barely remember or understand herself.

‘I lived in a big house when I was very young but all I recall clearly was the large orangery. Unripe oranges and lemons sometimes fell to the ground and I’d collect them to throw like bowls along the marble floor towards the doorway to the garden. ’

‘That’s a nice memory. Did you have siblings?’

Eliza had often wondered this, but no memory had ever surfaced of another child; however, she smiled as she recalled her loyal companion, Lucy. ‘Only a little black and white dog,’ she said.

Corinna was sketching Eliza’s large almond-shaped eyes. ‘Did you know you have different coloured irises?’

‘Yes, but I’ve never thought much about it,’ Eliza replied truthfully.

Corinna stood up and led Eliza to the window.

‘Well, I think it’s quite remarkable. I knew there was something very striking about your gaze when I first saw you.

But let me see in the full light.’ She peered close.

‘Your right eye is violet-grey and your left eye an amber-green. They are beautiful and only really obvious when you properly look.’

Eliza shuddered. She suddenly recalled being mocked as a changeling child when first taken to the circus by Mrs Prebble.

Only now did she realise that it was probably the sight of her unmatched eyes combined with her unusually pale hair which reinforced in the Prebble entourage the uncomfortable feeling she was not at all like them.

Corinna put a hand on her arm. ‘Miss Eliza, it is a rare characteristic but not something to be ashamed of. You are a beautiful young woman and your eyes give your looks even greater distinction. I see a face filled with dreams but allied with unwavering will and courage.’

In a rush of emotion, Eliza felt the rare pleasure of having someone interested in her spirit, and the sense of being understood, something she had never known before. Corinna returned to her easel and cast a cloth over the beginnings of her drawing. ‘Let’s do this again tomorrow, if you’re happy?’

As they walked back to the library the men were about to leave.

Ferdinand Shilton was the first to take both women’s hands and bow.

‘Farewell, Corinna, Miss Eliza, I do hope you are going to grace the Bassett ball. In that throng of Society absurdities, it is consoling to find a few lovely faces one knows.’

Corinna turned to her companion. ‘Would you consider accompanying us, Miss Eliza?’

Lord Purfoy was slipping on his coat as he drawled, ‘Miss Mysterious has probably forgotten how to dance.’

Eliza found this unexpectedly funny and laughed, ‘I probably have!’ She had never been taught the formal ballroom dances but incorporated much of the improvised steps into her routines in the ring.

Corinna was pleased and said, ‘Well, you’ve got a dancer’s way of moving. I should think you’ll quickly pick it up again. I have a very good teacher, a Mrs Wilson, I’ll ask her to attend you here.’