As we took the path away from the beach, I turned to see him watching us go, waved and was pleased to see him wave back. And then he turned and was gone, and we took the steps toward the cliff top, the Dover lighthouse as our guide.

Though I'd been told the carriage ride to London could be hazardous thanks to highwaymen, our journey pa.s.sed without incident and we arrived to find London a very similar city to the Paris I had left behind, with a blanket of dark fog hovering above the rooftops and a menacing River Thames crowded with traffic. The same stink of smoke and excrement and wet horse.

In a cab, I said to the driver in perfect English, "Excuse me, monsieur, but could you please be transporting myself and my companion to the home of the Carrolls in Mayfair."

"Whatchootalkinabaht?" He peered at us through the hinged communication hatch. Rather than try again I simply pa.s.sed him the piece of paper. Then, when we were moving, Helene and I pulled the blinds and took turns hanging on to the communication hatch as we changed. I retrieved my by-now rather creased and careworn dress from the bottom of my satchel and instantly regretted not taking the time to fold it more carefully. Meanwhile, Helene discarded her peasant's dress in favor of my breeches, shirt and waistcoat-not much of an improvement considering the dirt I'd managed to accrue over the last three days, but it would have to do.

Finally we were dropped off at the home of the Carrolls in Mayfair, where the driver opened the door and gave us the now-familiar boggle eyes as two differently dressed girls materialized before his very eyes. He offered to knock and introduce us but I dismissed him with a gold coin.

And then, as we stood with the two colonnades of the entrance on either side, my new lady's maid and I, we took a deep breath, hearing approaching footsteps before the door was opened by a round-faced man in a coat, who smelled faintly of silver polish.

I introduced us and he nodded, recognizing my name, it seemed, then led us through an opulent reception hall to a carpeted hallway, where he asked us to wait outside what appeared to be a dining room, the sound of polite chatter and civilized clinking of cutlery emanating from within.

With the door ajar I heard him say, "My lady, you have a visitor. A Mademoiselle de la Serre from Versailles is here to see you."

There was a moment of shocked silence. Outside in the hallway I caught Helene's eye and wondered if I looked as worried as she did.

Then the butler reappeared, bidding us, "Come in," and we entered to see the occupants seated at the dining-room table having just enjoyed a hearty meal: Mr. and Mrs. Carroll, whose mouths were in the process of dropping open; May Carroll, who clapped her hands together with sarcastic delight and crowed, "Oh, it's smell-bag," and the mood I was in, I could just as easily have stepped over and given her a slap for her troubles; and Mr. Weatherall, who was already rising to his feet, his face reddening, roaring, "What the b.l.o.o.d.y h.e.l.l do you think you're doing here?"

11 FEBRUARY 1788.

My protector gave me a couple of days to settle in before coming to see me this morning. In the meantime I've borrowed clothes from May Carroll, who was at pains to tell me that the dresses lent to me were "old" and "rather out of fashion" and not really the sort of thing she'd be wearing this season-but would be "fine for you, smell-bag."

"If you call me that one more time, I'll kill you," I said.

"I beg your pardon?" she said.

"Oh, it's nothing. Thank you for the dresses." And I meant it. Fortunately, I have inherited my mother's disdain for fashion so although the out-of-fashion dresses were evidently designed to irritate me, they did nothing of the sort.

What irritates me is May Carroll.

Helene, meanwhile, has been braving below-stairs life, finding that the servants are even more snooty than the aristocrats above. And, it has to be said, hasn't been doing an awfully good job when it's come to masquerading as my lady's maid, performing strange, random curtsies while shooting constant, terrified glances my way. We'd have to work on Helene, there was no doubt about that. At least the Carrolls were so arrogant and pleased with themselves that they simply a.s.sumed Helene was "very French" and put her naivety down to that.

Then Mr. Weatherall knocked.

"Are you decent?" I heard him say.

"Yes, monsieur, I am decent," I replied, and the protector entered-and then immediately shielded his eyes.

"b.l.o.o.d.y h.e.l.l, girl, you said you were decent," he rasped.

"I am decent," I protested.

"What do you mean? You're wearing a nightdress."

"Yes, but I am decent."

He shook his head behind his hand. "No, look, in England, when we say, 'Are you decent?' it means 'Have you got your clothes on?'"

May Carroll's nightdresses were hardly revealing, but even so I had no wish to scandalize Mr. Weatherall, so he withdrew and some moments later we tried again. In he came, pulling up a chair while I perched on the end of the bed. The last time I'd seen him was the night of our arrival, when he'd gone a shade of beetroot as Helene and I entered the dining room, both of us looking like-what was the expression Madame Carroll had used?-"like something the cat had dragged in" and I had quickly spun a story about having been held up by highwaymen on the road between Dover and London.

I had cast my eyes around the table seeing faces that I had first laid eyes on over a decade ago. Madame Carroll looked no different, the same for her husband. The two of them wearing the usual bemused smile so beloved of the English upper cla.s.ses. May Carroll, though, had grown-and if anything looked even more tiresomely haughty than she had when we had first met in Versailles.

Mr. Weatherall, meanwhile, was forced to pretend that he was aware of my upcoming arrival, masking his obvious surprise as concern for my well-being. The Carrolls had worn a selection of bemused looks and asked a number of searching questions, but he and I had bluffed with enough confidence to avoid being ejected there and then.

To be honest, I thought we'd made a good team.

"What the b.l.o.o.d.y h.e.l.l do you think you're playing at?" he said now.

I fixed him with a look. "You know what I'm playing at."

"For crying out loud, Elise, your father is going to have me killed for this. I'm not exactly his favorite person as it is. I'm going to wake up with a blade at my throat."

"Everything has been smoothed over with Father," I told him.

"And Madame Levene?"

I swallowed, not really wanting to think about Madame Levene if I could help it. "That too."

He cast me a sidelong glance. "I don't want to know, do I?"

"No," I a.s.sured him. "You don't want to know."

He frowned. "Well, now you're here, we have to . . ."

"You can forget any thoughts you have of sending me home."

"Oh, I'd love to send you home if I could-if I didn't think that by sending you home, your father would want to know why, and I'd get in even deeper trouble. And if the Carrolls didn't have plans for you . . ."

I bridled. "Plans for me? I'm not their serf. I am Elise de la Serre, daughter of the Grand Master, a future Grand Master myself. They have no authority over me."

He rolled his eyes. "Oh, get over yourself, child. You're here in London as their guest. Not only that, you're hoping to benefit from their contacts in order to find Ruddock. If you didn't want them to have authority over you, then maybe it would have been best not have placed yourself in this position." I began to protest, but he held up a hand to stop me. "Look, being a Grand Master isn't just about swordplay and behaving like Charlie Big Potatoes. It's about diplomacy and statesmanship. Your mother knew that. Your father knows that and it's about time you learned it too."

I sighed. "What then? What do I have to do?"

"They want you to insinuate yourself into a household here in London. You and your maid."

"They want me to-what?-myself?"

"Insinuate. Infiltrate."

"They want me to spy?"

He scratched his snow-white beard uncomfortably. "In a manner of speaking. They want you to pose as someone else in order to gain entry into the household."

"Which is spying."

"Well . . . yeah."

I thought, and decided that despite everything, I quite liked the idea of it. "Is it dangerous?"

"You'd like that, would you?"

"It's better than the Maison Royale. When am I to find out the details of my mission?"

"Knowing this lot, when they're good and ready. In the meantime I suggest you spend some time licking that so-called lady's maid of yours into shape. At this moment in time she's neither useful nor ornamental." He looked at me. "Quite what you did to inspire such loyalty I don't suppose I'll ever know."

"Perhaps best you don't know," I told him.

"Which reminds me. Something else while on the subject."

"What is that, monsieur?"

He cleared his throat, stared at his shoes, worked at his fingernails. "Well, it's the crossing. This captain you found to bring you across."

I felt myself redden. "Yes?"

"What nationality was he?"

"English, monsieur, like you."

"Right." He nodded. "Right." He cleared his throat again, took a deep breath and raised his head to look me in the eye. "The crossing from Calais to Dover takes nothing like two days, Elise. It's more like a couple of hours if you're lucky-nine, ten at the outside if you're not. Why do you think he kept you out there for two days?"

"I'm quite sure I couldn't possibly say, monsieur," I said primly.

He nodded. "You're a beautiful girl, Elise. G.o.d knows you're as beautiful as your mother ever was and let me tell you that every head turned when she walked into the room. You're going to meet more than your fair share of rogues."

"I'm aware of that, monsieur."

"Arno awaits your return, no doubt, in Versailles."

"Exactly, monsieur."

I hoped so.

He stood to go. "So exactly what did you do for two days on the English Channel, Elise?"

"Swordplay, monsieur," I said. "We practiced our swordplay."

20 MARCH 1788.

The Carrolls-that little cabal of Monsieur, Madame and May-have promised to help find Ruddock, and, according to Mr. Weatherall, this puts a network of spies and informants at our disposal. "If he remains in London, then he'll be found, Elise, you can be sure of that." But, of course, they want me to accomplish this task.

Of course I should be nervous about the a.s.signment ahead, but poor Mr. Weatherall was nervous enough, constantly fretting at his whiskers and worrying aloud at every turn. There wasn't enough anxiety for us both.

And anyway, he was right to a.s.sume I found the idea exciting. There's no point in denying it, I do. And after all, can you blame me? Ten years of the drab and hateful school. Ten years of wanting to reach out and take a destiny that remained just inches away from my fingertips. Ten years, in other words, of frustration and longing. I was ready.

Over a month has pa.s.sed, of course. I had to write a letter which was then sent to Carroll a.s.sociates in France, who sealed it and forwarded it to an address here in London. While we waited for a reply, I helped Helene with her reading and taught her English, and in doing so, polished my own skills.

"Will this be dangerous?" Helene asked me one afternoon, using English as we took a turn around the grounds.

"It will, Helene. You should remain here until I return, maybe try to find employment at another house."

She switched to French, saying shyly, "You're not getting rid of me that easily, mademoiselle."

"It's not that I want to get rid of you, Helene. You're wonderful company and who wouldn't want a friend who is so warm and generous of spirit. It's just that I feel the debt is paid. I have no need of a maid nor want the responsibility of one."

"What about a friend, mademoiselle? Perhaps I can be your friend?"

Helene was the opposite of me. Where I let my mouth get me into trouble she was more reticent and days would pa.s.s when she'd barely say more than a word or two; while I was demonstrative, as quick to laughter as I was to temper, she kept her own counsel and rarely betrayed her emotions. And I know what you're thinking. The same as Mr. Weatherall was thinking. That I could learn a thing or two from Helene. Perhaps that's why I relented, just as I had when I first met her, and on several occasions since. I allowed her to stay with me and wondered why G.o.d has seen fit to favor me with this angel.

As well as spending time with Helene, not to mention avoiding either of the conceited Carroll ladies, I have been spending my time by practicing sparring with Mr. Weatherall, who . . .

Well, there's no getting round it-he's slowed down. He is not the swordsman he used to be. He's not as fast as he used to be. Not as clear-eyed. Was it age? After all, some fourteen years had pa.s.sed since I first met Mr. Weatherall, so undoubtedly there was that to consider. But also . . . At mealtime I watch him reach for the carafe of wine before the serving staff can get there, which doesn't go unnoticed by our guests, going by the way May Carroll looks down her nose at him. Their distaste make me feel very protective of him. I tell myself he still mourns Mother.

"Perhaps a little less wine tonight, Mr. Weatherall," I joked during one session, when he bent to pick his wooden sparring sword from the gra.s.s at our feet.

"Oh, it's not the booze that's making me look bad. It's you. You underestimate your own skills, Elise."

Maybe. Maybe not.

I also spent time writing to Father, rea.s.suring him that my studies were continuing, and that I had "knuckled down." When it came to writing to Arno I paused guiltily as I found my thoughts returning to my charming smuggler Byron Jackson. For a moment I considered telling Arno-and then reconsidered. It would break his heart. It would change everything. And why do that? Why do that when the upshot of "liaison" with Byron had not, as you might expect, taken my heart away from Arno. Rather it had made my affection for him even stronger, my gut feeling that he is "the one" merely confirmed.

All right, Elise, I decided, take that tryst and keep it secret-keep it to within the pages of this journal and instead of allowing it to be a destructive thing, something that pulls you and Arno apart, make it positive. Make it something that brings you together.

And so, though the letter I wrote to Arno was by necessity not exactly the most honest account of my present situation, there was one major truth among the fabrication and that was that I loved him. Never before had I written a letter of such affection to him. True, though the sentiments were born of infidelity (and that guilt my soul would just have to bear) they were true, and when I signed off by telling Arno I hoped to see him soon-in the next couple of months or so-I had never written words more true in my life.

So what if my reasons for wanting to see him were selfish? That I see him as an escape from my everyday responsibilities, a ray of sunlight in the dark of my destiny? Does it matter when my only desire is to bring him happiness?

I have been called. Helene informs me that a letter has arrived, which means it's time for me to squeeze into a dress, go downstairs and find out what lies in store for me.

EXTRACT FROM THE JOURNAL OF ARNO DORIAN.

12 SEPTEMBER 1794.

Though I still kept in contact with Francois de la Serre, who was something of a surrogate father to me, by the time of Elise's visit to London I had moved away from the de la Serre estate to digs in the village, where I spent my days and nights drinking, playing cards against the likes of Victor and Hugo and . . . yes, entertaining women, too.