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‘I might ask my latest acquaintance, the Hussar Captain I met this morning. That should make her glad. Every gathering these days is enlivened by a dashing Hussar, home on leave from the war. Although he’s about to return to the Peninsula in a sennight or so.’

As Sybella left the dining room in search of her son, a thought made her turn. ‘Don’t forget, Lucie, if you have the time there’s also the Egyptian Hall, almost next door to Hatchard’s. It’s newly built and has caused something of a stir. I read it’s a wonder to behold and I must take James to the museum there.’

Lucie decided that she and Alice, as countrywomen, used to walking up hill and down dale, could easily manage the walk to Piccadilly: after all, it was not even a mile and the weather was beginning to feel more like spring. She went in search of her maid. She had decided to wear her new pelisse in sky-blue velvet trimmed with fur and Alice had laid it out on the bed. She had blue kid boots which were comfortable to walk in and chose a becomingly trimmed Angoulême straw bonnet with a cream ostrich feather waving gaily over her head. Alice had inherited one of Lucie’s old pelisses in dark blue and a matching bonnet and was very pleased with her outfit.

‘Let’s walk down to Grosvenor Square. We’ll continue south through to Berkeley Square and then be almost there.’ The two women set off in high spirits. The weather was brisk with a hazy winter sun that glinted from the windows and burnished the cool Portland stone on the grander terraced buildings. It was thrilling to be part of the daily life of a wealthy district in a great city like this. Tradesmen were delivering their wares down the front stairs to the basement kitchens, young men and women were busy on their own errands to mantua-makers and tailors, jewellers and the lending libraries. All were dressed in their finery, even the children were tricked out in velvet and lace. Through the streets there was the constant clip clop of horses’ hooves, with solitary riders in the saddle or harnessed to tradesmen’s carts, humble gigs or the bang-up-to-the-mark curricles, phaetons, barouches and chaises that belonged to members of the Quality.

Lucie also had an eye for horseflesh and noticed especially the finest beasts, most often ridden by dashing gentlemen or harnessed in matched pairs to the smartest carriages. The young women walked through Grosvenor Square, one of the most modish addresses, with grand mansions built in terraces round the square. She remembered Mr Brabazon had told them he had a house there and she wondered which was his. Some were exceedingly imposing, with dressed stone to the first-floor balustrades, four windows across, framed by four Corinthian columns rising from the first floor to the fourth.

The large garden in the middle of the square was a welcome sight of grass and trees with flower beds filled with daffodils just beginning to bloom, but the space was reserved for the use of the residents and Lucie and Alice walked round the east side on their way to Berkeley Square. Just before arriving in Piccadilly, they cut through to Albemarle Street and Lucie’s keen eye for a horse was struck by a magnificent pair of greys attached to a spankingly smart black and red curricle. The high-bred horses were being walked up and down by the liveried groom to keep them warm, while they waited for their master to complete his business elsewhere.

As the young women passed, a tall figure emerged unhurriedly from a house on the corner of Albemarle and Piccadilly. He replaced his curly-brimmed beaver hat at a rakish angle on his dark hair and adjusted his driving coat, flicking the capes back from his shoulders. He was pulling on his gloves when Lucie suddenly recognised him. At the same moment, Mr Brabazon looked down the road and caught sight of her. His rather saturnine expression changed momentarily, and she was uncertain if it was amusement or embarrassment which made his lips curl. He walked towards her, swept off his hat and bowed. ‘Miss Carey, what a pleasant surprise. Are you on your way home? May I take you and your maid up in my curricle and deliver you?’

‘No indeed, Mr Brabazon. But thank you for your kindness. We’re on our way to Hatchard’s.’

‘What a sensible destination on a day as bright as this. Is there any book you are particularly hoping to find?’ His black eyebrows lifted sardonically.

‘I’m looking to buy Lord Byron’s Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage.’ She felt suddenly shy and school-missish.

‘As does half of London,’ was his dry reply. ‘I’m afraid he’s another scapegrace boy, deprived too young of a father.’

Lucie knew Mr Brabazon was thinking of his ward but was taken aback that the shooting star of the literary world should be so described. ‘But Lord Byron is being hailed as England’s greatest poet.’

‘That may be so. But he’s also a turbulent profligate, with his pockets to let.’

‘Why so censorious, sir?’

‘My apologies, Miss Carey.’ He inclined his head in a quick bow. ‘I seem to be in the grip of the blue devils this morning and it has nothing to do with you or the noble poet. Enjoy your visit to Hatchard’s. May your quest be successful.’ He touched the brim of his hat in a salute before swinging himself elegantly into his curricle. While his groom still held his greys’ heads, he turned to address Lucie with a sudden question. ‘Tell me, Miss Carey, did your sister exercise her black stallion in Hyde Park this morning?’

‘Why yes, she took Scipio out to blow away his blue devils.’

He looked at her quizzically, not certain if she was teasing him. ‘Perhaps that’s just the treatment I need, too.’ He doffed his hat again and turning to his groom, said, ‘Let ’em go, John.’ The greys sprang forward eagerly, leaving Lucie and Alice gazing after them as they quickly disappeared down the road.

Within a few paces, Lucie and Alice were on Piccadilly, a busy thoroughfare filled with carriages of every sort, bustling with mercantile life. Almost immediately, the fantastical façade of the Egyptian Hall dominated their view. The two women stood before it, almost deprived of speech. It overpowered the plain Georgian façades of the terraced brick-faced buildings on either side with its two monumental carvings of a naked Egyptian god and goddess, standing over the portico. This was held up by broad-based columns unlike anything of the classical, with the visual intimation at window level of massive pylon and ziggurat shapes, the whole covered in hieroglyphs. Such exoticism in the middle of a London street astounded both the mind and the eye.

They could not stand forever gazing upwards as the crowds milled past them, so Lucie thought it would be fine if she left Alice to explore the interior while she walked the few paces down the street to the bookshop. ‘I’ll come and collect you, Alice, in a half hour or so. Are you happy with that?’ Alice could only nod, still gazing up at the extraordinary façade.

Hatchard’s Bookshop, with its enticing double shop window, was easily found at 189 Piccadilly, just ten buildings or so away. Lucie entered with a palpitating heart. So many pristine books were displayed on the shelves and tables. She was excited by the thought of all these wider worlds captured in words and contained within the covers. And she could take any one of these worlds home. She gazed around her. Men and women browsed and discussed their choices. A young male shop assistant approached her. He pointed out the poetry section and there in the middle of the display was a pile of Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage, a Romaunt alongside a printed engraving of the handsome, pouting author.

On publication, the noble poet had caught the imagination of his public with the first cantos, detailing the travels of a disillusioned libertine in search of meaning. The image of the poet captured Lucie’s romantic heart. His dark hair was tousled, perhaps artfully so, an effect the beaux and dandies of the ton laboured to achieve, and his deep soulful eyes and straight nose were dominated by the voluptuous curve of his lips that made him look so poetically, sulkily melancholic. She thought she was in love.

While she was standing there with a copy of his book in her hand, there was a stir in the shop. She looked up to see two young men framed in the doorway. One dark and dashing, as romantic in looks, it seemed to Lucie, as the great poet himself; she recognised Lord Lynwood at once. The other was quite ravishingly beautiful, with a face so perfectly proportioned it looked as if he was fashioned by a Renaissance artist. His hyacinthine curls of dark burnished gold framed his face to perfection, but there was nothing marble-cold and unseeing about his eyes: they were of the most intense blue and sparkled with a mischievous charm. Lord Lynwood caught sight of Lucie and hailed her across the shop. ‘My arboreal saviour!’ he cried as he wended his way towards her, the angelic vision in his wake.

‘My lord, how good to see you.’ She held out her hand and smiled with genuine pleasure.

But before he could respond, they were interrupted by his friend. ‘Let me embrace my sister. How uncanny the likeness! We must have been separated at birth.’ He took her hand with the lightest of touches and kissed it, his eyes brimming with merriment.

Lord Lynwood laughed. ‘Don’t be such a gudgeon, Val! Let me introduce you to Miss Carey, she’s in Town with her sister for the Season. Miss Carey, this is my dear friend, Lord Ravenell.’

But the young lord had not let go of Lucie’s hand. He drew her to his side. ‘I am ecstatic to meet someone so familiar to me. How can it be? To look so similar, made in the same mould, yet broken asunder? But you are now here. It entrances my being to be no longer alone in this world.’ Mesmerised by his gaze, Lucie believed these words came from the heart and were not just the poetic hyperbole of a young man about Town.

Lord Ravenell suddenly looked at her more intently. ‘Was it not you, my Artemis, alone on the road in deepest Wiltshire when I so rudely passed you in my curricle? I was sure then I had found my twin, but I could not stop and claim you. I had wagered I would race another foolish friend of Freddie’s.’ He called Lord Lynwood over. ‘I must quiz my dear papa about whether this goddess is my twin, separated from me at birth.’ He smiled the sweetest smile at them both that instantly banished Lucie’s recent admiration for the dark brooding beauty of the noble poet.

This young man had appeared like a radiant star in the shop and his presence seemed to dower everything with an effervescent joy. Suddenly nothing mattered but basking in the warmth of his personality. Other customers were drawn in, an eager young bookseller hovered close, and Lord Ravenell embraced him too with his brilliant charm. Bowing, he asked for a copy of Lord Chesterfield’s Letters to His Son on the Art of Becoming a Man of the World and a Gentleman, and he laughed at the title. ‘I have a desire to give my dearest Pater an improving book, and think this might suffice.’

Lord Lynwood protested. ‘Your papa is the nonpareil of fathers. He has no space for improvement. I have neither father nor mother, only my wicked guardian. Doesn’t Lord Chesterfield argue that the highest art of a gentleman is to please others? Devil take it! Brabazon doesn’t have the first fancy of how to please anyone. Perhaps I should get him a copy too?’

‘Freddie! Mind your language in front of my sister.’ Lord Ravenell tucked Lucie’s hand into his arm and drew her away.