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whilst
    they discussed their requirements or waited for their
    commissions to be packed. Rebecca’s uncle, who had
    run the business until his death some four months pre-
    viously, had impressed upon her the need to present
    an efficient and prosperous face to the world, no mat-
    ter the underlying truth. Prosperity begat further busi-
    ness, George Provost had told her, so the workshop
    was always swept clean and tidy, a fire always burned
    in winter and the shelves displaying the glass engrav-
    ing were illuminated by candlelight to show the work
    to advantage.
    This morning, however, there was no fire since Re-
    becca had overslept and she had had no maid to help
    her since the death of her aunt and uncle. She lived
    and worked alone, doggedly enduring with a business
    that was failing as surely as the icy rain fell on the
    London streets. First it was the apprentices and the
    journeymen who had left, shuffling their feet and
    avoiding her eye as they made excuses of better paid
    work elsewhere. She had known that they did not wish
    to work for a woman; had known that the vintner
    whose premises abutted hers on the left and the gold-
    smith who penned her in on the right were making a
    wager over who would get her workshop when she
    was forced out. The commissions had fallen off with
    the news of her uncle’s death and she had had to let
    the maid go after only a month, unable to pay her
    wages any longer. She felt nervous living on her own,
    Nicola Cornick
    41
    for although Clerkenwell was a far more salubrious
    neighbourhood than many, it was no place for a
    woman alone. Nan had told her this before and here
    she was to tell her again.
    Nan Astley swept into the workshop in the manner
    of a duchess visiting a hovel. She held her red silk
    skirts up in one dainty hand for all that she knew the
    floor was clean enough to eat her dinner off. Once
    upon a time little Nan Lowell had grown up with Re-
    becca on these streets, and these days, widowed and
    embarked on a very different life, she never lost an
    opportunity to make a fuss over her newfound position
    as the mistress of a wealthy lord. To those who looked
    askance and told her she was no better than she ought
    to be, Nan turned up her nose and swept past in a
    cloud of jasmine perfume. It was Nan who had gained
    Rebecca the precious commission from the Archangel
    Club, for she had once been one of the famous Angels
    herself before Lord Bosham had taken her under his
    sole protection. Now she viewed Rebecca as some-
    thing of a prote´geé and was determined to help her
    gain a rich protector and escape her penury. In vain
    did Rebecca argue that she would rather die then sell
    her body. Nan ignored her protests, being something
    akin to a force of nature.
    ‘Darling!’ Nan approximated a kiss an inch from
    Rebecca’s cheek. ‘You look so peaky. And here was
    I thinking I would find you already hard at work on
    the vase and rose bowl for the Archangel. Whatever
    can have happened to you that you are still in bed at
    this time?’ Her big blue eyes darted around the room
    as though expecting to find a gentleman effacing him-
    42
    The Rake’s Mistress
    self against the panelling. ‘My darling Boshie posi-
    tively forced me out of the house to call on you, Becca
    darling. Boshie, I said, nobody but nobody calls at ten,
    or at least only if they are most ill bred. But Boshie
    was very insistent.’ Nan arched a plucked eyebrow. ‘It
    is very cold in here, my dear. I shall get Sam to light
    a fire whilst you dress. Ten minutes, mind you! Do
    not keep me waiting!’
    Rebecca trailed meekly back upstairs to dress. There
    was no point in resisting Nan on the small things when
    it took all her strength to oppose her on the large ones.
    It took her a mere five minutes to dress in the plain
    brown gown she wore when working, and to bundle
    up her thick, dark hair under the old-fashioned lace
    cap. Pausing to inspect her reflection in the speckled
    mirror, she thought