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But it was a panicked anxiety about who had her book and who might be reading it that overlay her other worries. Exhaustion eventually overcame her and she fell into a fitful sleep.

In the darkest hours of the night, when she was lost in deepest dreams, Madeleine heard a floorboard creak. Startled into wakefulness, every sense was alert. Somebody was in her room. The light had a different density, as if absorbed by an alien shape. She was in that liminal state, not fully awake, her nerves fraught but her consciousness still drowsy with sleep. Seized with terror, she whispered, ‘Who are you?’

A dense shadow of nightmare proportions loomed over her. Unable to properly see, she felt especially vulnerable wearing just her night chemise and trapped between the wall and her bed.

Madeleine surreptitiously put a hand out for her candle, but her fingers did not find the tinderbox, and without the embers of the fire, she could not even light a taper. The figure seemed to stumble, then she felt the weight of something collapsed on her bed. The dark shape then spoke. ‘Maddie, I’m so drunk I’m quite off my hinges.’

She sat up, flooded with relief, and expostulated, ‘Edwin, you scared me half to death!’

Lord Lockhart had misinterpreted her relief for welcome and, smelling strongly of brandy, he lunged forwards to kiss her. Taken unawares, Madeleine recoiled at his proximity and the fumes of alcohol on his breath. His mouth, wet and malodorous, half met hers as he scrabbled for her breasts. How outrageous, even dangerous, the situation had become. What made him think he could treat her like a Covent Garden maid?

‘Edwin, no!’ She shrank away, her arms pushing him back with all her force. ‘You shouldn’t be here. Just think of your mother, the servants! What would they think?’

The young man’s voice was slurred. ‘I’ve had enough of Mama. Why won’t you marry me, Maddie?’ His voice turned self-pitying and wheedling. Madeleine could just make out his face in the thinning dark. He seemed to be pleading. ‘We could suit each other well enough, couldn’t we? The whole estate would be mine again and, best of all, I’d toss the old dragon off my back.’

‘You know I can’t marry you.’ Madeleine’s voice was panicked. She wasn’t strong enough to physically expel him from her room, nor did she want to draw attention to the scandal of the young lord’s presence there by screaming for help. Lady Lockhart would refuse to believe that she had not led her blameless son on; family mattered first and she had never truly belonged. Madeleine knew she would be turned out without ceremony and so had to have her wits about her and get Lord Lockhart to leave of his own accord.

‘But why not? I’m not repugnant to you, am I?’ Lord Lockhart had laid his head on her breast and continued in an incoherent mumble, ‘Went to the club last night and am cleaned out. I need your help, Maddie. I’m devilish-broke, plucked to the bone. Can’t play again until I’ve cleared m’debts.’

‘In heaven’s name, get up!’ Madeleine sounded harsh. She could only just wriggle free from under his bulk and knew she had to get him to his feet before he fell into a drunken stupor. Standing over him, she pulled his arms with all her strength, but he was a dead weight. In desperation, she slapped his face as hard as she could, hoping this would rouse him enough to stand.

With a cry, Edwin Lockhart put his hand to his cheek and sat up, but the blow seemed to reawaken his ardour, for he stumbled to his feet to take her in his arms. ‘Oh what a little spitfire you prove to be! Methinks we would get on wondrous well, my dear.’ He grasped her in his arms and she was aware of just how tall he was, and how strong. She was more fearful of having to deal with him on his feet than comatose in her bed.

Trapped in his embrace, Madeleine managed to kick him on the shins with her heel and as he momentarily relaxed his hold, she slithered under his arm and darted away towards the door.

‘Come back to me, Maddie,’ he mumbled and as he reached for her, she sidestepped and deftly opening the door, propelled him over the threshold. There was no lock, but she pulled the heavy chair from the corner and wedged it. Madeleine then sat down to add her weight to the barricade.

Her heart was beating so fast, she tried to calm it by slowing her breath and reciting to herself what she could remember from her favourite children’s book, The Comic Adventures of Old Mother Hubbard and her Dog. She liked the fact the dog behaved like a human and smoked a pipe.

Madeleine’s ears strained for any movement beyond the door, but Edwin Lockhart seemed to have returned upstairs to his own room, hopefully to sleep off the liquor. She was overtaken by an irresistible fatigue. Still sitting, she rested her face on her hand and promptly fell asleep.

* * *

Less than half a mile to the south of the uncomfortably sleeping Madeleine was the Payton house in South Audley Street. Lord Flambard had chosen this night to do what he could to promote the happiness of his dear friend Ferdy Shilton. His usual habit when visiting Amelia Payton was to climb the ancient wisteria to her bedroom window and, before dawn, leave by the same unorthodox route. Then he could sleep half the day away in his comfortable set of rooms at Albany. But this was the day when he intended Hester Payton, Mr Shilton’s betrothed, to discover his true identity and his presence in her mother’s bed.

It was early in the morning and Mrs Payton stretched languorously and slowly opened her eyes, expecting to be alone. The pale sun slanted across the quilt, but the usual silence was disturbed by another’s breath. Her nerves suddenly taut, she turned her head and was startled to see Max Flambard’s dark, handsome face and tousled hair still on the pillow beside her. Panic gripped her. ‘Wake up, Max. You must be gone before Hester or the servants are up!’ She shook his shoulder and attempted to push him out of bed.

He awoke suddenly like a cat. His dark eyes were on her flustered face and he chuckled. ‘Don’t worry, my love. I’m going to have breakfast with you and Hester and tell her who I really am. And also that I intend to make an honest woman of her mother, make her a “lady” in fact.’

Amelia Payton gasped in horror and, propping herself on her elbow, looked down at his satyric face. ‘You cannot decide for your own reasons to fire off such a blunderbuss in the heart of my family! Hester will never speak to me again and she will hate you for ever.’

‘Don’t play the tragical queen, it doesn’t suit your beauty.’ He was tracing with a forefinger a blue vein that crossed her creamy bosom.

Amelia Payton pushed his hand away. ‘Max, I’m serious. You don’t know what furies you’ll unleash.’

‘Leave the furies to me, my dear. Your daughter has to know some time that I wish to marry you. I think I’ve waited too long. Such nettles have to be firmly grasped if they are not to sting.’ He met her eyes with his smouldering gaze and laughed. ‘Not that you are anything like a nettle, my dearest one; more a ripe peach, overdue the plucking.’

Mrs Payton had sat up to get out of bed and looked at him with exasperation. ‘You know, my lord, every man has his element and yours, indubitably, is hot water!’

She attempted to reach for her silk wrap when Flambard caught her arm and pulled her back beside him. ‘My dearest Amelia, don’t hide your beauty from me. You weren’t made for modesty and propriety, you know. Forget the dressing gown.’

Mrs Payton wriggled free, then turned and flicked his nose with a playful finger, asking him in an arch way, ‘Anyway, what makes you so sure that I will marry you?’

With a quick, powerful movement, he reached across for her and pulled her down into his arms. ‘Because, my naughty puss, every letter you sent me in Paris suggested it: all your actions since I’ve been back tell me in no uncertain terms that you will not let me escape your toils.’ He was murmuring into her hair.

‘Shame on you, Max! That’s not true, it’s just not true. I know what a profligate life you were living in Paris.’

‘Ah, but not one of those Frenchy light-skirts displaced your primacy in my heart. You were my first and my only love, Amelia.’ He buried his face in her breasts, and with a muffled voice continued, ‘I’ve never stopped finding you irresistible, you know.’