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escort me home, not far, but far enough for us both to struggle against the conditions. His only conversation was, ‘Mind…take care…hold on…you all right?’
    Standing under the porch before the door, I thanked him.
    â€˜Stay at home till it clears,’ he said. ‘I’ll contact you as soon as I can get through. See Brierley if you need anything. He’ll help.’
    I nodded and watched his effortless leap into the saddle, wheeling away as if the snow was no more than a mild shower. Across on the other side of Blake Street, the lights in the workroom, more properly known as Follet and Sanders, Mantua-maker, Milliner and FabricEmporium, had been extinguished earlier than usual to allow the girls to get home, though I knew that Prue Sanders would still be working at the back of the shop on the new year’s orders, the alterations on ballgowns, fur trims and muffs. The cold weather had swept in from the north-east with a vengeance that year, and I had ordered that the fire in the sewing room should be kept burning constantly to keep the place warm. It was an expensive luxury I had not budgeted for, and my recent assurances that I could manage were not nearly as certain as I’d made them sound. But not for any reason would I have accepted a penny from him. Prue and I would have to manage on what the business earned.
    * * *
    That evening, however, my thoughts were in turmoil, for although my contacts with Lord Winterson had always been as brief as I could make them, this was the first time he and I had spoken about what had gone before, about his claim to Jamie, or about my feelings on the matter. As long as Linas lived, the subject had been studiously avoided, and now the impromptu unveiling had shaken me, if only because I had believed until then that he and Linas were alike in refusing to discuss things they found too uncomfortable. I had been proved wrong.
    Only a day after his brother’s funeral, Winterson had brought out our shameful secret for its first airing, along with the reason for it and the well-planned result of it. My Jamie. He was right: I was angry, not because I was mistaken about his motives—for those I knew by then—but because he had known how easily I wouldgive myself to him that night, repeatedly, willingly, and with little conscience. He had known, and my pride was wounded to the quick that all our mutual antagonism had been so easily suspended in the face of a temptation like that. How shallow he must think me. How disloyal. How easy.
    What he would never know, though, was that I had fed off that experience since it happened, savouring it every night through each amazing phase, knowing that it would never be mine again. And since he had been unconvinced of my dislike of him before the event, I must of necessity try harder to convince him of it afterwards. His accusation about keeping Jamie at a distance from him was a part of my strategy but, with him now as Jamie’s guardian, I would find that more difficult, thanks to Linas.

Chapter Two
    T hanks also to the weather, that part of my plan held up well when all the traffic in and out of the city was stopped for more than a week until men could shovel paths through the deep drifts, allowing access to the suburbs. We heard reports of farmers losing sheep, of snow burying hedges and cottages, trapping the mail-coach miles away with all its passengers, and the drowning of some young lads who had played upon frozen ponds. Fresh falls of snow added more depth to the fields each morning and broke branches off trees, the dropping temperatures killing everything that was too old, frail or poor to keep warm. The thermometer in Linas’s hall registered thirty degrees Fahrenheit, and a few days later we had twenty degrees of frost. I had never experienced such cold.
    All through the freeze, my daily visits to Stonegate continued, partly to check on the remaining servants and partly to mentally mop up