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began to laugh again. ‘The discussion will begin in another five minutes or so. I do hope that you will be happy to contribute.’

      ‘I fear in this room, Mrs Bassingstoke, that my opinion will not be popular.’

      ‘Oh, you might be surprised. The tolerance is as remarkable here as the range of opinions. Indeed, sometimes I think Parliament might do well to mimic us.’

      ‘I will make sure to relate that to Lord Grey next time I see him.’

      ‘Little voices can hold as much sway as more important ones.’

      ‘A sentiment I would never question.’

      ‘Even with the weight of privilege full upon your shoulders?’

      ‘Such a bigot, Mrs Bassingstoke.’

      Her giggles were like a fountain of joy ringing around the room and chasing away the darkness and her touch upon his arm was taken with the ease that it was given.

      Not forced or obtrusive, but natural and easy.

      The shadows of many people swirled around him, the timbre of voices attesting to a very large number. He did not recognise any of them. The occasional accent was of a member of the trades or a dweller from the parts of London that were considered undesirable by the ton, though Beatrice made no mention of occupation or their standing in society as she introduced him.

      Finally they stopped and the room seemed to quieten. Whether she had raised her hand he could not tell because she had moved away from him now and Jack was once again at his side.

      ‘The place is full to bursting,’ his friend said quietly. ‘Cowan is here and Lansdowne, and the wife of Lord Drummond is sitting with her sister in the corner.’

      ‘A rather eclectic bunch, then,’ Taris returned.

      ‘With little differentiation between those who are gentry and those who are not! There are four women standing at the back who look like servants and they have a glass in their hands as everyone else here does.’

      Taris began to smile. ‘The egalitarianism of the Americas has come to London?’

      ‘At least the debate on property rights should prove interesting. Some here look so formidably righteous that I hope they are not heiresses.’

      ‘Excuse me, my lord.’ Taris turned to the voice at his left shoulder. ‘Mrs Bassingstoke asked me to bring you this drink.’

      ‘Thank you.’ He took the glass in his hand and sipped a fine smooth brandy. Not the fruit punch that he had expected, he ruminated, as he leant back against the wall next to Jack, listening to Beatrice call the discussion to order.

      Half an hour later Taris realised that indeed this room was a hot bed of liberalism and that at least on the subject of matrimonial property rights the opinion here was swayed very firmly towards the viewpoint of the hard-done-by bride. Finally he had had enough.

      ‘The presumptive legal unity of husband and wife can cut the other way too,’ he began when there was a second of space in the heated argument, and he felt the room take in a collective breath before turning its attention to him. The heavy censure made him smile. ‘With marriage a bride and groom become one person and the husband is held legally liable for any debts and civil wrongs his wife may have incurred.’

      Beatrice leapt into the fray. ‘I hardly think that the virtual loss of a woman’s property on marrying can be compensated by the unlikely event that if she breaks a law her husband may take the blame for it.’

      Taris was beginning to feel the flimsiness of his arguments, but pressed on regardless. ‘Female capriciousness is well documented and some might say that the art of marriage is nothing more than an economic transaction tied to the protection of the great estates.’

      A murmur settled around the room, and he realised he had probably used the wrong word when describing the changeable character of women. Beatrice’s quick reply was well worded.

      ‘Others would argue that it is nothing more than a sham to allow men the right of power over something that was never theirs in the first place, Lord Wellingham.’

      ‘ Yet you do not take into account that economic manoeuvring favours a bride as well as a groom if the financial aspects are considered openly. The benefits of a well set-out investment can hardly be to the disadvantage of either party.’

      ‘Well set out for the husband, my lord. Should he wish to confine her against her will and administer any properties himself he is well within his rights to do so.’

      ‘Our world is not peopled with characters from Samuel Richardson’s Clarissa, Mrs Bassingstoke, and the “vile Lovelace” exists only in a story.’

      Laughter resounded and Taris fought to hear Beatrice’s voice above it.

      ‘Any husband may “correct” his wife should he wish to do so and the tales of such cruelty are certainly not solely the preserve of popular fiction.’

      There was a tone in her voice that was not simply academic, a tone that trembled beneath the tenets of truth and chased away any desire he might have had to keep such a disagreement going.

      ‘Touché,’ he returned with a smile as he leant back against the wall and took a sip of fine brandy. ‘I concede my case entirely.’

      ‘It’s not like you to give up a fight, Taris?’

      Jack’s question a few seconds later held a warning within it that he did not like as the chatter around them grew more general.

      ‘You are beginning to sound just like my brother.’

      ‘And your week is beginning to ring with the dubious clanging of firsts, my friend.’

      ‘How so?’ Finishing his brandy, Taris knew exactly what was coming.

      ‘The first waltz, the first concession of an argument you could have won had you truly wanted to…’

      ‘You read too much into these actions.’

      ‘Do I, indeed? Your Mrs Bassingstoke is coming towards us, by the way, and she looks like a cat who just swallowed the cream. Perhaps your reasoning in playing the “honourably beaten” was sounder than I gave it credit for, after all.’

      Taris shoved his glass into Jack’s hand. ‘Get me another drink, will you?’

      ‘I will do so only because I detect your desire to be alone with the clever widow,’ he returned, laughter imbued in his retort.

      ‘Lord Henshaw looks as though he is enjoying our soiree,’ Beatrice said less than a few seconds later. ‘I hope that you are too?’

      ‘The debate is all that I imagined it to be.’

      Her answer was worried. ‘I think our discussions go better when the opinion for and against them is more evenly divided.’

      He laughed. ‘You won the argument, Bea.’

      ‘But not well. I think you gave up on me for some reason.’

      He felt her hand on his arm, the pounding awareness between them blotting out all other noise.

      ‘Could I speak to you alone? After this is over?’

      ‘Yes.’ She gave her promise easily and as the world and its noise and need cascaded again on to them she was claimed in speech by another before disappearing into the crowded room.

      Taris Wellingham had spoken carefully and well in the debate, she thought. A man who was confident in his ability to woo a crowd and gracious in defeat.

      He was nobody’s man save his own, the one concession to his limited sight an opened hand that lay on the wall behind. He always did that, always created an anchor to the environment around him. The fence at the park, the ledge of the window in the carriage, his foot against the edge of the ditch in the snow

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