My dear Constance,

I have just received word that there has been a fire at the American shipyard. If you will remember, I told you that Quinn had some trouble with a man named Luke Baker before he came to England. Baker may have been involved. At this point, I have no report on the extent of damages, but, regardless, duty dictates that I return home with all possible speed.

It is with regret that I leave my work unfinished here at the London office, but I trust you understand that I have no other recourse.

My warmest regards to Noelle. I have placed £500 in your name in the company account so you can administer her salary until my return.

Simon

Furious at the impersonal tone of the missive, Constance tossed it in the fire.

As the days went by, callers continued to arrive, more and more impatient to catch sight of the mysterious Miss Pope, but Noelle always managed to avoid them. At the first sound of carriage wheels crunching on gravel, she would seal herself in her room with her studies or slip out the back door and into the countryside.

With Christmas came another tutor to instruct her in piano and voice, as well as dance. It was at the latter that she excelled. Her step was light and fanciful, and it was not long before she outgrew her instructor.

Each day, Constance found time to instruct Noelle in the social graces. She learned to pour tea without spilling a drop, play whist, and use a fan. She could also effect a proper introduction and curtsy gracefully.

Noelle decided making polite conversation was, by far, the most difficult of the skills she had to learn until the time came when Constance told her she must be able to embroider. After a week of crooked stitches and tangled threads, Noelle uttered the foulest of oaths and tossed the wretchedly abused piece of fabric into the fire, declaring that she would begin to wear her knife again if she were forced to sew another stitch. Constance hastily surrendered.

Her progress with her studies was remarkable. Although Percy Hollingsworth was not an experienced tutor, even he recognized that she was an extraordinary student with keen insight and an exceptional memory. She spent all her spare time reading- devouring books, one after another.

The modern poets captivated her, and she loved to read their poems aloud to Constance. Her voice was low with a trace of huskiness that was appealing and strangely compelling. "The Prisoner of Chillón," "Endymion," "Kubla Khan"-they all whispered to her of mystery and beauty, and she would lose herself as she read.

She was living in a silken cocoon, and it was only in the darkest core of night that the careful insulation sometimes fell away, and the past crept upon her. When the nightmares plagued her, they were inhabited by the haunted phantasms she had left behind: the children, the withered old hags of the alleys, the poverty, stench -and, sometimes, the face of the man who was her husband.

She spent one February day studying the legend of Agamemnon, the king who sacrificed his daughter, Iphigenia, to the gods, only to be murdered for his deed by his wife, Clytemnestra. When night came, she paced the floor of her bedroom until she was exhausted, knowing that a nightmare lurked on the other side of her consciousness.

Finally she sat at her desk and tried to put into words what churned inside her. She wrote:

Hatred coils inside my heart; Untempered by sunlight, it is wedded to my spirit, Waiting like vengeful Clytemnestra for the time When, unfettered, it will be set free to play its part.

When she finally fell asleep, it was only to become a victim of the nightmare she had feared. But, instead of the avenging Clytemnestra of her poem, she was Iphigenia, the virgin sacrifice, clutching at the robes of a faceless father, only to be torn away and held aloft over an altar. As her robes were ripped from her body, she felt herself being lowered to the altar. But in her dream it was not cold stone that met her naked flesh. It was a cloying, enveloping softness that sucked her into its depths and held her limbs captive. Helplessly she watched a swarthy figure approach her, his eyes of bitter black pushing her deeper into the suffocating mass. And then he was beside her, spreading gold coins on her body. Across her lips, her nipples, her stomach…

"One hundred pounds," he sneered, "one hundred pounds for the virgin."

She jolted awake, sweat drenching her body. The poem she had written was lying on the carpet. Springing from her bed, she tore it into tiny pieces and buried her words in the ashes of the fire.

Chapter Eleven

Watching from her bedroom window, Noelle saw the trim carriage come into view around the curve of the driveway. A sharp gust of April wind, reluctant to abandon the bite of March, threw itself against the rig, making it shudder as it approached the house. Inside the carriage were three people Noelle had never met: Mrs. Sydney Newcombe, her daughter, Margaret, and her son, Robert. Today, more than a year after Noelle had arrived at the white stone house, she was to take her first tentative steps into the world of the fashionable by having tea with Constance and the Newcombes.

"I confess that Mildred Newcombe is not my favorite acquaintance," Constance had said when she issued the invitation, "but she'll do very well for our purposes. She is so taken with her own opinions that she rarely notices anything else. So, if you do make a slip, it will undoubtedly pass her by. I've observed that her daughter is cut from much the same cloth."

Of course, when Constance had extended the invitation, she had not realized that Robert Newcombe, whom she had never met, had arrived from London to visit his mother and would be accompanying her here today. Still, Noelle knew she could not seal herself away forever. A disconsolate Percy Hollingsworth had left last week to take a new post; it was time for her to put to use what she had learned.

From below, she could hear the sounds of the Newcombes alighting from their carriage. To bolster her lagging self- confidence, she mentally catalogued her accomplishments: her table manners were flawless; she could dance exquisitely, play a simple tune on the piano, and speak without her accent or grammar betraying her. It was true that mathematics and needlework had escaped her; however, any well-bred young woman might be expected to have some failings, and thanks to the efforts of Constance and Mr. Hollingsworth, hers were few. She was even becoming proficient at making polite conversation, although it was frustrating to be restricted to such uninspiring topics as the weather or Mrs. Ann Radcliffe's latest romantic novel when she would much rather discuss more interesting subjects.

Noelle sighed as she thought of how much more there was for her to learn and wished she were curled up in the library, reading one of the books on the reading list Percy had left instead of standing here trying to get up enough courage to go downstairs. She moved to the mirror and checked her tawny hair. It was just long enough for her to catch up loosely off her neck with a satin ribbon. Wispy escaping curls brushed the ñapé of her neck and feathered charmingly around her face. Reluctantly she picked up a paisley shawl and draped it around the shoulders of her well-fit bottle-green cashmere dress.

"I'm ready, lions." She smiled ruefully to herself as she slipped out of her room and prepared to step into the arena.

Robert Newcombe was bored. Dash it! He should have never let his mother talk him into coming with her today. Not that Mrs. Peale wasn't a pleasant surprise, but even she wasn't quite enough to make up for that cursed carriage ride, where he'd been captive to the incessant chatter of his mother and sister. Damn! He'd like to jump on a horse and ride to the nearest posting house for a full tankard of ale.

As the door of the drawing room opened, any serious intention Mr. Newcombe might have had of actually fleeing the Peale residence vanished instantly. Entering was a creature so exquisite, he could only stare speechlessly at her slender form.

"Dorian! Come in, my dear, and meet our guests."

The creature smiled charmingly as Mrs. Peale presented her to his mother and sister. Then she was standing in front of him, their eyes nearly level.

"And this is Mrs. Newcombe's son. Mr. Newcombe, my ward, Miss Pope."

The vision extended her hand and bestowed a smile so dazzling that for a moment Mr. Newcombe had difficulty finding his voice. "Delighted, Miss Pope," he finally managed as he took her hand and touched his lips to it.

Margaret Newcombe darted an angry look at her brother. He thought himself to be such a man of the world just because he had come of age and had his own lodgings in London. Well, if he could see himself now, he'd find that he looked like nothing so much as a love-sick calf! Obstinately she placed herself in his path as he tried to maneuver next to Miss Pope on the settee and seated herself there instead. She ignored the furious glare he shot at her and jealously studied the young woman who sat beside her.

Mrs. Newcombe, in the meantime, was proudly displaying a gaudy ruby and diamond bracelet to Noelle. "My husband is such a generous man. He felt it was the least he could do, as I have been so wretchedly plagued with illnesses lately. I tell you, Miss Pope, shortness of breath is well known to be the first sign of consumption. It quite terrifies me."

Observing the florid hue of the woman's complexion, Noelle thought it more likely that she was suffering from too tight lacing of her corset, but she wisely did not voice this opinion.

"Miss Pope, I understand you've lived most of your life in India!" Mr. Newcombe took advantage of the slight lull to inject himself into the conversation.