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‘Marianne’s fatal error.’ Kitty spoke with a wicked light in her eyes that didn’t disguise a thread of tension in her voice.

‘They’re all too fashionable. As if Brummell and Princess Esterházy would lower themselves to public hero-worship like those extraordinary girls outside.

I haven’t seen anything like it since you were first on the town, and even so it’s far more intensive than the attention you and Cressida got—’ She broke off at the expression on his face, with a small, brisk shake of her head.

‘Oh, don’t. What would you prefer, that we never mentioned you and Cressida in the same breath?

It was the rest of us who had to live with the aftermath of your opera dancer and her duke, and I don’t see why I should protect your feelings now. ’

‘I’ll try to maintain a better command of my features, I promise.’

‘You should. I always have to. Anyway, Byron is far more interesting than you, and he’s scorching across the haut ton like a comet.

They’re all fascinated by him, and they’ve obviously all read Childe Harold – or pretended to – but everyone here is far too self-conscious to lower themselves to actually speak to the poor boy.

You knew him, though, didn’t you?’ Kitty’s gaze was just as penetrating as it had ever been; she’d always been difficult to lie to.

Either she really knew nothing of Lascelles’ concerns about Byron and Jamie, or had chosen to play those cards close to her chest.

‘Byron was far more a friend of Arthur Lascelles – they were in the same circle at Cambridge.’ Greville wondered idly if the traumatised maidservant had made it to the laundry room with her pile of bloodied clothing, and if his sister was even aware of the melodrama unfolding elsewhere in the house.

‘Hmm.’ Kitty picked up a madeleine from one of the absurdly small gilded china plates that had belonged to their paternal grandmother, never taking her eyes off Greville as she demolished it down to the last bite.

He waited until she’d dabbed at her mouth with a damask napkin.

‘Look at Crauford: poor thing. He’s obviously wishing the whole crowd of us to the devil.

I don’t know why he and Marianne insist on parties when neither of them really enjoy the experience.

They’d both rather be at Summercourt annoying Phelps in the garden.

Although, to be honest, Jamie hasn’t been helping. ’

‘Oh?’ Greville said, as discouraging as possible.

‘He’s got into Radical politics. You may guess how that was received.

’ Kitty glanced at their brother. Crauford stood in the corner still, eyeing Byron as if he were an unexploded grenade, unique in his ability to make a jacket tailored by Schulz look as if it had been run over by a coach and horses.

‘Kitty, Jamie’s been spouting the Rights of Man over the breakfast table since he was about fourteen. Maybe one day the force of his conviction will induce him to actually do something other than just talking about it, like actually study for his bar examinations.’

‘Obviously, but the prime minister’s just been killed.

You must have heard the rumours, that it was all part of a Radical plot,’ Kitty said; she looked genuinely worried.

‘Jamie took Chas to see Thomas Spence and Robert Wedderburn give a talk somewhere in Limehouse. Crauford was furious: Jamie might as well have indoctrinated Chas into Satanism. You won’t have heard,’ Kitty went on with a particular inflection in her voice he recognised only too well from his childhood, ‘but Chas is a little out of sorts. He won’t be at the Vennings’ drum later, poor thing, which is such a pity. ’

‘Out of sorts?’ Greville said. Their scapegrace younger brother had always been predictable if nothing else. ‘Stale drunk, more like.’

Then Kitty mouthed at him: He’s been shot.

Greville closed his eyes, very briefly. Christ . ‘Perhaps I’ll look in on him.’

‘I would if I were you.’ Kitty spoke with a creditable assumption of carelessness. She gave him a flinty smile. ‘I bet you wish you were still in Spain, don’t you?’

Greville left her on the chaise longue, in awe of his sister’s nerve as well as her ability to speak without drawing breath. Kitty was right: if she absented herself, the younger Lady Crauford’s guests would comment.

Greville had barely reached the bookshelves before he had to pass Byron, who was still examining a shelf of calf-bound Greek philosophy with a glass of champagne in one hand, as if the sweating throng of people were nothing more than smoke from a badly laid fire.

He looked up as Greville approached, all tempered aggression and well-cut plain dark jacket and breeches.

Byron lifted his gaze to meet Greville’s own and raised his glass in a silent salute, as if they were the only two men of flesh and blood in the room.

Even as a boy, he’d possessed the rare gift of bestowing the whole of his attention on a single person, making it all too easy to believe that you were the only one in the world for him.

Greville returned the salute but couldn’t ignore a cold sensation of unease.

What was it Kitty had said of George Gordon, Lord Byron?

He scorches across the haut ton like a comet.

When all was said and done, what was a comet but a star that left destruction where it fell?