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Starling listened hard for a moment. She steadied herself. There was silence from within; no sound of movement, or speech, or violence. He would be waiting in the dark, but Starling was not afraid of the dark. Jonathan Alleyn never lit his own lamps; he liked to sit as the gloom gathered around him. She’d once heard him say that the shadows soothed him. Well, she would banish them. Why should he be soothed? Behind her, the lamp on the wall made a soft tearing sound as it guttered in a draught. That same draught brushed the back of Starling’s neck, and made the skin there tingle. That’s all it is, she assured herself. Just a cold zephyr where a door has been left open. It was not fear. She refused to be afraid of Jonathan Alleyn, even though the worst and biggest thing she knew about him, which nobody else knew, was that he was a murderer.

He would be waiting within, nothing to betray his whereabouts but the ruddy gleam of the fire reflecting in his eyes. For you, Alice, she pledged silently, as she knocked smartly at the door, and went in.

Sir Arthur’s generosity extended to loaning the barouche to Rachel and her new husband for the drive into Bath for the wedding breakfast. As soon as they’d climbed down outside the Moor’s Head inn, the carriage pulled away, and her connection with Hartford ended to the sound of iron-shod hooves clattering on cobblestones. The wind funnelling down Walcot Street was brisk. Richard tipped two strong lads to carry Rachel’s trunk south to the house on Abbeygate Street, then he held out his hand to her.

‘Come, my dear. Come in out of this breeze,’ he said, wrapping her hand around the crook of his elbow. Just then, the abbey bells began to strike the hour, and Rachel paused.

‘Wait,’ she said. ‘It’s been many years since I heard those bells.’ She looked down the street into the thick of the city, where pale stone buildings clustered in all around, and the cobbled streets ran with carts and carriages, donkey traps, servants hurrying on their masters’ business. There were dowdy maids with laundry bundles, scuffing their feet along in the wooden pattens that kept their shoes out of the muck. There were housekeepers and cooks with baskets full of fresh meat and vegetables; sweating bearers carrying the wealthy uphill in smart sedan chairs; street hawkers and urchins and fashionable ladies with their pelisses buttoned tight against the weather. Rachel took a deep breath and smelled the dankness of the river; the sweet reek of rubbish in the gutter; freshly baked bread and roasting meat; a cloud of beery fumes and tobacco smoke from the inn. A mixture of smells she’d grown unused to, living in the sterile calm of Hartford Hall. ‘Not since I came here with my parents in the season. My little brother too, before we lost him.’ It was a fond memory, but Richard mistook her, and thought her sad.

‘Forget all that, Mrs Weekes.’ He squeezed her hand, pulling her towards the door of the inn. ‘I’m your family now, and this is a new beginning. For sure, Bath is much changed since you were last here – new buildings are finished all the time; and new folk come in. Fine people too, the right sort,’ Richard said, and Rachel smiled at him, not caring to explain herself.

The Moor’s Head had low ceilings heavy with beams and a red brick floor worn smooth from long years of use. There was a racket of voices and laughter already, in spite of it being just five in the afternoon, and cheering broke out when Richard appeared. He grinned and clasped hands with several men who were already well soused, judging by their red cheeks and heavy eyes. Rachel smiled uncomfortably as they toasted her with tankards of ale and shook her hand more roughly than she was used to. The smoke made her eyes sting, so she blinked frequently. Richard wore a grin from ear to ear until he glanced at Rachel and saw her discomfort. His smile faltered.

‘Sadie, is our table ready?’ he called out to the girl behind the bar, who was moon-faced, with deep brown curls, abundant bosom and apples in her cheeks.

‘Aye, Mr Weekes, just as you asked. Go on up as it please you,’ said Sadie. Just then a man came to stand in front of them; portly, with a lined face and a filthy grey wig that had slipped down over one ear. He patted Rachel’s hand clumsily.

‘Well, young sir, I declare you have done mighty well for yourself. You told us she was a beauty, but we none of us expected you could ensnare such a fine creature as this, hmm?’ said the man, slurring slightly. His breath was sour with brandy but his face was kindly, and Rachel inclined her head graciously at the compliment. Her new husband scowled.

‘Of course she is fine. Finer than me, certainly. But I hope to raise myself up, and to deserve her,’ he said stiffly.

‘You are too kind to me, and do yourself a disservice, Mr Weekes,’ Rachel told him.

‘Well, I never saw a bride so radiant. No, indeed. You are the loveliest thing to grace this poor place in as long as I can recall,’ the man continued. ‘Let me-’

‘That you could even recall the time of year would come as a surprise to me. Come, my dear. This way.’ Richard led Rachel away, as the elderly man was drawing breath to introduce himself. He looked crestfallen as they departed, and Rachel turned to smile in farewell.

‘Who was that man?’ she said, as Richard led her to the foot of a crooked wooden stair.

‘That? Oh, nobody. His name is Duncan Weekes. He’s my father, if truth be told,’ Richard muttered, keeping his hand in the small of her back to urge her onwards.

‘Your father?’ Rachel was shocked. Richard led her into a cosy room on the upper storey, where the wooden floor rolled and undulated, and the leaded windows were hazy with city grime. But the table that had been laid for them was well scrubbed, and laid with china plates and wine glasses. Rachel took her seat, and noticed that the china was chipped in places, the cutlery stained. She was proud to find herself not as disheartened by such things as she might have expected. ‘I understood you had little contact with your father?’

‘As little as I may, truth be told,’ said Richard.

‘And yet… you must have invited him here today, for the wedding feast?’

‘Invited him? No, I did not. But… we have some of the same acquaintances, perhaps. He must have heard we would be coming here.’

‘You come here often, I divine. You seem to have many friends here.’

‘Friends, some. Clients others, and some acquaintances that perhaps I once enjoyed, and now can’t quite be rid of. But never mind them – today is about us. Here, try the wine. It’s Constantia, shipped all the way from the Dutch colony on the Cape of Good Hope. A rare treasure, and I have been keeping this bottle for my bride for some years now. I can’t tell you how happy I am to finally be able to raise a glass of it in a toast to you, my love.’ He filled two glasses, handed one to her and entwined their wrists.

‘Happy to have found your bride, or to be able to try the wine at last?’ Rachel teased.

‘Both.’ Richard smiled. ‘But you are undoubtedly the greater pleasure. To you, Mrs Rachel Weekes.’

The wine sank hotly into Rachel’s empty stomach.

‘It’s delicious,’ she said, and tried not to dwell on the fact that her new name made her a stranger to her own ears. Since childhood she’d envisaged her wedding feast as a rather different affair. She’d imagined her parents with her, and other family, and a white embroidered tablecloth beneath a feast set out on silver platters and fine porcelain; herself far younger, not past her bloom at twenty-nine as she now found herself, and having endured years of the pitying looks aimed at an old maid. But she could never have hoped for a more handsome groom, nor one so devoted to her. ‘Mr Weekes, shouldn’t we ask your father to join us? Whatever has passed between you, it doesn’t seem right that he should be so near at hand, and yet excluded from our celebration,’ she said. Richard didn’t answer at once. He took a long swig of the wine and then turned the glass by its stem on the table top.