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knee—but what if she turned him down?
    Desolation clamped in. Refusal was a very real chance: this was a hard world where marriages were largely contracted on the basisof income expectations and a lady would be considered a fool to marry beneath her station. Even were Cecilia still to bear him an affection, she had her future to consider and …
    A lump rose in his throat. It wouldn’t be long and he would know her answer—and if it was unfavourable, his heart would surely be broken.
    In a frenzy of apprehension he looked again to see if there was anything of her in the room. She must spend hours here, sitting—needlework? Not Cecilia, her mind was too active. What did other young ladies do in her circumstances? Drawing? Piano? There was neither here. He knew so little of her at home …
    What was that, peeping out from under the cushion? A book, shoved under in haste to conceal it, almost certainly what she’d been reading.
    Guiltily Renzi pulled it out. It was a novel of sorts, the cover gold-embossed with a romantic manly figure standing atop a rock. He felt a tinge of disappointment that it was a work of fiction she was reading rather than an improving classical tome. He flicked the pages to see what had attracted her to it, some with dark Gothic pictures, the text closely spaced.
    He picked a paragraph at random and began reading—he had seen those very words before. They were his
own,
damn it!
    Nearly dropping the book, he flicked hastily to the title page.
Portrait of an Adventurer
by Il Giramondo.
The peregrinations of a gentleman rogue who loses his soul to dissipation and finds it again in far wandering.
    He feverishly searched for the publisher’s name: yes, it was John Murray.
    The implications slammed in on him. He was a published author! And therefore he had an income!
    He choked back a sob, undone by the sudden reversal of Fate.
    Then a cooler voice intervened. To tell Cecilia that he had anincome as an author would be to reveal that he must necessarily be this wastrel. How could he?
    Thinking furiously, he realised he must go immediately to John Murray to ensure his identity was kept secret.
    Yes! It was what he must do—but he knew nothing of authors and royalties. Supposing the amount was a pittance only?
    Standing about would solve nothing. Only action!
    â€œOh, Mrs Kydd?”
    She came in, hurriedly wiping her hands on a cloth. “Mr Renzi?”
    â€œI’m devastated to find I forgot to attend to an urgent matter. I must deal with it—I pray you tell Cecilia that I called and that I will return. A day or two at the most.”
    â€œMr Renzi!” Mrs Kydd said, shocked. “You’re not going out in all that rain again? It’s cold and—”
    â€œI must, dear lady. I’ll take my leave now, if I may.”
    The rain continued relentlessly as the coach ground and clattered over the cobbles towards the London road at the top of the hill. Kydd hunkered down, glowering under the press of dark thoughts that crowded in. As each rose in his consciousness, he met it with a savage riposte: there was nothing he could do about it now so he must let events take their course. A logic that would undoubtedly have met with Renzi’s approval—if he had still been by his side.
    Renzi, a friend of times past. Those long-ago years tugged at him with their elemental simplicity, their careless vitality. Now his bosom friend was to be wed, settle down, have his being on the land, no more to wander. They would meet again, of course: he would be married to Kydd’s sister and she would keep in touch. But at this point their lives had irrevocably diverged.
    In a pall of depression and aching from the ride, Kydd morosely sat through the final miles into the capital, grey and bleak in rain-swept gloom. He directed the driver to his accustomedlodgings at the White Hart in Charles Street and answered the vacuous civilities of the innkeeper with