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‘But he just talks in hyperbole. He calls her Madame Virago but I know he’s funning. I saw her at the masquerade ball but she wouldn’t have noticed me.’ Her brow wrinkled with anxiety.

Angelica turned to face her. ‘Miss Isobel, try not to be cowed. Lord Latimer has chosen you. He comes into his inheritance this summer. Eventually he and you will become the Duke and Duchess of Arlington and his mama will become the Dowager, and the power in the household then resides with you.’ Just at that moment there was a flurry of hooves and Lord Latimer on his grey stallion, Pegasus, rode up, closely followed by Dante Locke on a handsome ebony steed. The young men jumped down, swept off their hats and strode towards the women, smiling, their reins in their hands. Angelica’s breath was caught by how striking both were with the sun behind them, casting an aureole of light around Lord Latimer’s head.

‘Miss Leigh, Miss Fitzjames, the day is suddenly brighter.’

‘Oh tush, my lord, don’t waste your flattery on us,’ Angelica remonstrated with a smile. She watched them tie their horses to a tree, the reins loose enough to allow them to crop the grass. Lord Latimer turned and took both Angelica’s and Miss Fitzjames’s hands, bestowing on them his mischievous, flirtatious smile. Dante Locke bowed to both young women, his face so set his dark good looks had grown unfamiliarly thunderous. He took Angelica’s arm and folded it into his. He obviously wanted to talk to her privately and marched her off at the head of the party.

After walking a short while he said in a low voice, ‘Miss Leigh, I have told Charlie that I think he has treated you most shabbily.’

Angelica patted his gloved hand with hers. ‘No, no, Mr Locke. Lord Latimer owed me nothing.’

‘But he owed something to love!’ His voice was agitated. ‘Love is not inconstant, to be taken lightly and altered on a whim.’ They walked on, his head bowed. ‘When I love it will be for ever, how can it be otherwise?’

‘You are a poet. These things go deep for you. But Lord Latimer is not like you or me. He is born to great estate and as such his future is not entirely for him to decide.’

‘But that is fetter-bound!’

‘I doubt he sees it that way. I think he and Miss Fitzjames are very well-suited and we must be happy for them.’

‘But how can he choose to marry another when he has once loved you?’ So affected by emotion was Dante Locke that he stopped walking and swung around to face her, his dark eyes blazing. ‘More beautiful than Ophelia and more ill-used! It hurts my soul.’ Lord Latimer and Miss Fitzjames were deep in conversation and were fast approaching, unaware of the febrile nature of the discussion ahead.

Angelica took Dante Locke’s arm again and urged him to walk on, saying under her breath, ‘I do appreciate your concern for me, and for the integrity of love. Sometimes we don’t really know our own hearts, and then suddenly we do.’ Her voice had an odd catch in it and he turned, surprised to see her eyes shining, but troubled.

‘Miss Leigh, do you mean you love another?’

‘I have never loved anyone until now. But your poet’s sensibility might not accept that love can be ill-placed, and sometimes sacrifice becomes the greater art.’ Angelica realised just how willing she was to set aside her own desires in order to protect the man she loved.

There was a wildness in her look and he strove to console her. Pressing her hand to his face, he said with feeling, ‘From when I first beheld you on stage I knew joy was a flame in you. It could not be snuffed out even in the worst of storms, burning ever stronger in the following calm.’

Angelica was touched by his fervour and it comforted her to think that he might be right. That the precious flame in her own spirit could never be extinguished however hard the circumstances. They had walked in a loop round the horses when Lord Latimer and Isobel Fitzjames joined them.

Lord Latimer’s eyes were dancing as he took her aside. ‘Oh, Miss Leigh, my niece is up to something. Has she been in contact? She seems to be full of mischief and I fear it involves you!’

‘She came for a brief visit yesterday. She does think she has a particular talent for matchmaking. I have warned her about it.’ Angelica laughed quietly and continued, ‘But I don’t think it involves me, more her beloved Miss Stafford.’

‘Oh, that might explain it. She’s certainly a most managing young miss. I deplore that the female line in my family seem to suffer from a surfeit of conceit and dogmatism. Do you know, she had the temerity to suggest I would look handsomer in a coat not so closely fitted. Can you believe it? As if she knows better than my very expensive tailor, toast of the well-togged haut ton!’

‘She is a fanciful-minded girl and I do enjoy her company.’

‘She is a bore about you, you know, and is forbidden to mention your name in my mother’s company. Elinor is continuing her surreptitious campaign against my uncle’s plan to marry Lady Linus with a dark insistence she’ll run away from home and become an actress if he does.’

Angelica felt the shock of his words. She had forgotten about Lady Linus, and yet Lord Latimer implied that her place in the Asprey household was still taken for granted. His light-hearted talk had also reminded her of an actress’s place in the order of things. With a wry smile she said, ‘Ah, my profession is an effective warning against moral decay.’

Lord Latimer was quick to backtrack on his words. ‘No, no, Miss Leigh, not by me nor by Elinor. And even my forbidding uncle seems to have softened his stance.’

Angelica decided it was time to go home and restore her spirits before she faced whatever ill Lord Rackham had in mind. ‘Do not exercise yourself on the matter, my lord, but I will have to take my leave. I need to make a visit this afternoon.’

She turned to Miss Fitzjames. ‘I hope I’m not cutting short your morning too.’

‘Not at all.’ She took her arm. ‘I have an appointment with my dressmaker.’ The young men bowed, kissed their fingers and turned back to their horses. ‘Au revoir, mesdemoiselles. We’ll meet again.’

As the men mounted their horses and trotted into the sun, Isobel Fitzjames squeezed Angelica’s arm in sympathy. ‘I’m sure it’s only the Duchess who holds such severe views.’

‘Don’t concern yourself, my dear, I’ve grown used to it and am no longer upset by the judgement of strangers.’

‘So you’ve never met her?’

‘No, I don’t think she would have knowingly allowed me into her domain.’ Angelica turned and gave her friend a smile that masked the frustration and hurt that still surprised her, despite her denials. ‘Remember however, she did unwittingly share her air with me when we went to Lord Latimer’s ball.’ They walked on, chatting about the progress of Isobel Fitzjames’s new evening dress, which was in the process of creation, and Angelica’s enjoyment of Mr Asprey’s copy of Waverley.