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       Copyright

      Published by HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd

      1 London Bridge Street

      London SE1 9GF

       www.harpercollins.co.uk

      First published in Great Britain by HarperCollinsPublishers 2018

      Copyright © Dilly Court 2018

      Cover photographs: Front © Gordon Crabb/Alison Eldred (Girl); Background © Shutterstock (ships/harbour)

      Cover design by Claire Ward © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2018

      Dilly Court asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

      A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.

      This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

      All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

      Source ISBN: 9780008199609

      Ebook Edition © January 2018 ISBN: 9780008199616

      Version: 2017-12-06

      Contents

       Cover

       Title Page

       Chapter Eight

       Chapter Nine

       Chapter Ten

       Chapter Eleven

       Chapter Twelve

       Chapter Thirteen

       Chapter Fourteen

       Chapter Fifteen

       Chapter Sixteen

       Chapter Seventeen

       Chapter Eighteen

       Chapter Nineteen

       Chapter Twenty

       Chapter Twenty-One

       Chapter Twenty-Two

       Chapter Twenty-Three

       Chapter Twenty-Four

       Chapter Twenty-Five

       Chapter Twenty-Six

       Read on for an exclusive extract of the next book in this brilliant new series – The Summer Maiden

       Discover other bestselling novels from Dilly Court

       About the Author

       Also by Dilly Court

       About the Publisher

       Chapter One

       Limehouse Hole, London, 1854

      Essie Chapman pulled hard on the sculls as she rowed her father’s boat towards Duke Shore Dock. It was dark and the lantern on the stern of the small, clinker-built craft bobbed up and down, shedding its light on the turbulent waters of the River Thames. Essie fought against the tide and the treacherous undercurrents, but she was cold, wet and close to exhaustion. Her mysterious passenger had not spoken a word since she had collected him from the foreign vessel moored downriver. The task would normally have fallen to her father, Jacob, but he was laid up, having slipped on the watermen’s steps the previous evening. He had fallen badly and had been carried home to White’s Rents on an old door, the only form of stretcher available to the wharfinger’s men at the time. He had lain on the sofa like a dead man for twenty-four hours and when he awakened he could barely move a muscle.

      ‘You’ll have to do my next job for me, Essie, love. It’s a matter of life and death.’

      His words echoed in her mind as she battled against the elements. By day Jacob’s small craft scurried up and down the river doing errands considered too small by the lightermen and watermen, but by night things were different. Sometimes it was the odd barrel or two of brandy that had to be sneaked

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