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action, opening the door, leaping out and letting down the steps for Anna and Jane. After assisting Anna, he leant wordlessly into the carriage, offering his hand to Jane. With only a slight hesitation she placed her own in his and balanced herself as she stepped down onto the pavement. Instead of releasing her, Jonathan drew her arm through his as he escorted her to front door, where he rapped loudly on the lion’s head door knocker. He took her hand from his arm and raised it to his lips, pressing a kiss onto her finger tips. Jane gasped in surprise as she felt his soft lips against her skin and tried to pull her hand away. She felt a slight resistance before it was released. Startled by his behaviour, Jane peered up at his face, searching for a clue as to whether he was amusing himself at her expense. Before she could determine his meaning the door opened, breaking their steady gaze at each other. Anna slipped into the house murmuring her thanks to Lord Dalton.
    “May I call on you in the morning Miss Brody?” he asked.
    “You may, but why?”
    “Does a gentleman need a reason to call on you?” She could see his smile spread to his eyes.
    “Why no, of course not, but I thought you may have wanted to discuss our women’s rights cause.”
    “Ah yes, of course. We may continue that discussion.”
    “Is there anything else you would wish to discuss with me, my lord?”
    “Perhaps.” He took her hand again and bowed over it. “Sweet dreams Miss Brody.”
    Jane watched him stride to his carriage and swiftly step up into it, to his patiently waiting sister. She turned and entered the house through the door still held open by the housekeeper. Jane halted in amazement as she climbed the long staircase to her second floor room – she was looking forward to Lord Dalton’s promised morning visit.

 Four
    Jane woke with a start. Bright light was shafting through the curtains she had carelessly left slightly apart after watching Lord Dalton’s carriage sweep around the corner of Harley Street.
    This morning her small writing desk with its neat piles of fresh paper, quills, ink and her cherished nib pen didn’t draw her hasty steps. Instead she lay staring at the muslin bed canopy above, reliving the wonders of the ball. She always enjoyed dancing but it had never filled her with the wonderment of new emotions. Last night… As she danced again with Lord Dalton she could feel the fine texture of his coat beneath her fingers, smell his crisp scent, hear his deep mellow voice and see his teasing smile with its accompanying crinkle at the corner of his eyes.
    Jane revelled in her nostalgia for a few minutes more before she remembered the looming deadline for her latest pamphlet. She threw back the covers and scrambled out of bed and into her old morning dress.
    As Jane wrote about education suitable for girls who were to take up their rightful places as men’s equals, she realised that all this attraction to Lord Dalton was pointless. It couldn’t possibly come to anything. He needed a conventional wife, urgently, to provide him with a hostess and an heir or two and she remembered why she was never going to marry.
    Jane relived the last hours of her mother’s life as if it was yesterday rather than eight years ago. She stood in the darkened room that was her mother’s bedchamber. The brocade curtains were pulled closed across the windows in the middle of the day because the sunlight hurt her mother’s eyes. A fresh breeze still forced its way into the room, partially relieving its stuffiness. Jane felt aged with the tiredness of unrelieved care.
    She saw herself lift her mother gently to place another pillow beneath her head and shoulders. Jane didn’t trouble her with words requiring an answer, just told her what she was doing. The exertion caused her mother to gasp for breath. Jane waited patiently for her mama to return from her black world of suffering. It took a few moments for the pain to subside and for her