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‘I can always ask him to come back tomorrow. But if you want to see him and ask for yourself, I will stay to chaperone you.’

Angelica nodded. Her heart was beating fast, and questions and emotions filled her mind in a confused mix of shock, anger, disbelief and hope. As Prosper Crowe entered the room, she knew immediately he was related to her, but how? He looked delighted to see her and completely lacking in embarrassment or remorse. In his hand was a letter, the handwriting distinctively her mother’s, which confirmed an alternative story to the one of her tragic, fatherless childhood.

Confusion and dismay at the duplicity of both her parents overcame Angelica and she flew at him, powered by a rush of anger. ‘How could you? After all these years? How could you have let me believe I had no father?’ He caught her in his arms as she beat against his chest. ‘You left Mama and me to live in penury. She prostituted her honour so we could eat. I was hungry and afraid most nights. How could you?’ He tightened his hug so her hands flailed, powerless. She sobbed, gasping for breath.

Prosper Crowe grasped both her arms and held her away from him, a warm smile on his face, as if the words Angelica had thrown at him had barely penetrated his self-regard and unruffled good humour. ‘Oh, me darlin’ angel child! Let me look at ye! What a beauty, so like me own sainted mammy, God rest her soul.’

‘It is shameful to forsake your family!’ She glared at him. But the emotion drained her strength and she staggered, her knees buckling. In an instant, Miss Stafford was by her side and Prosper Crowe put his arm around her back to hold her upright.

‘Come and sit down, me darlin’. It don’t do, y’know, to get in such a state.’ He and Miss Stafford settled Angelica back on the sofa and Mr Crowe poured a glass of brandy from the decanter on the sideboard and pressed it into her hand. ‘I do owe ye an explanation, I know.’ He poured a glass for himself and offered one to Miss Stafford who demurred.

Angelica put her head back and closed her eyes. Barely able to speak, she asked in a small voice, ‘Why did you and Mama think it a good idea to let me think I had no father?’

‘Because I had fled into exile. You see, I faced prison, even death.’

‘But you still owed me the truth that you were alive.’ At first it was the deception that had troubled her most but into her spinning thoughts fear intruded. ‘What had you done? What could carry the death sentence?’ Physically exhausted though she was, Angelica’s mind was reeling with shock and dismay.

For the first time, Mr Crowe’s optimistic manner was partly deflated. ‘I was in serious debt,’ he muttered, not meeting her eye. But then, taking a large gulp of brandy, his liveliness returned. ‘From nothing, I then created a gaming club in Paris for gentlemen, the Dionysius in Rue Richelieu. Just next door to the famous gunsmiths, Jean le Page, which proved useful with so many customers wanting to blow their brains out. Or somebody else’s.’ He let out a snort of laughter. ‘Not called Hazard for nothing, ye know.’ His pride in what he had achieved was evident.

‘But why not share some of your good fortune with your family? It would have made all the difference.’

‘In order to escape notice by the English authorities I’d to live as if dead to everyone I had ever known.’

‘If it’s so dangerous for you to be here, why risk everything now?’

‘My darlin’ daughter was such a success as Ophelia, her fame reached Paris and I needed to see her, regardless of the danger.’

If Angelica had the energy she would have railed against him for choosing to see her only once she was famous and therefore more interesting to him, but she was too exhausted. It struck her uneasy mind that she had not been formally introduced and did not even know her father’s name. Was he a Leigh too? ‘Pray, what is your name, sir?’

‘Prosper Crowe.’

She was taken aback. It sounded so unlikely. ‘No, your real name.’ Angelica had to understand who her father really was. After all the deception, she needed that piece of information at least.

‘I cannot tell ye that. Still a warrant for my arrest.’

‘But how can I know you if you’re still masquerading as someone else?’ A sob escaped Angelica. She accepted this swashbuckling stranger was her father but feared how untrustworthy, how elusive he remained, somehow slipping through her fingers still.

‘I’ll be able to see ye again before I return to France. I want to give your mama something I owe you both, so will wait to see her next week when she returns.’

‘But where are you staying, if I need to contact you?’

‘I have befriended Mr Brunner. His maternal family is from the same village in Ireland as mine and he suggested a fellow Irishman who runs the Red Cockerel in Grafton Street. It takes me back to the old days.’

‘I don’t think you should go to Berkeley Square. It’s not my mother’s house, it’s Mr Breville’s. And he’s a decent hardworking gentleman who shouldn’t be compromised.’ Angelica felt suddenly protective of the man who had behaved more like a father to her than her own ever could.

Prosper Crowe seemed to sense something of this disparity in parental responsibility and with a dramatic gesture he pulled from his pocket a blue velvet pouch. He tossed this into Angelica’s lap. ‘I want you to have this.’

She looked up at him as she slipped her hand into the bag. Her fingers met cold, hard, facetted stone. Slowly she drew out a necklace of sparkling clear stones, set as a rivière in silver and gold. It coiled in her hands as if alive and she gasped at its coruscating beauty.

‘It’s your grandmother’s necklace,’ her father said with dramatic emphasis. ‘Her most precious possession.’ For a fleeting moment, Angelica wondered if her histrionic talents had come directly from him, and the thought was not entirely comfortable. ‘Look at the clasp,’ he said.

She gazed at a clasp set in blue stones with the initials ABC picked out in green; were they emeralds, she wondered?

‘Those are her initials, Angelica Boyle Crowe,’ he said with some satisfaction.

She gasped. It touched her deeply to think she had been named after this grandmother. Looking down at the necklace sparkling in her lap, her scepticism about him softened. ‘I’ve never had a sense of family, or in fact any real jewellery, only glass and coral beads. Is it really for me?’

‘For whom else should it be but my beautiful daughter?’ He picked up her hand with the necklace entwined in her fingers and flashing her the most beguiling smile, kissed her palm.