“It must be profitable,” Sissons continued, urgency rising in his voice, his face pink.

“Well, I imagine with a couple of factories, you are in a position to know.” The Prince smiled pleasantly, as if to conclude the matter.

“No!” Sissons said sharply, taking a step forward as the Prince took one away. “Actually three factories. But what I meant was not that it was profitable but that there is a great obligation upon me to make it so, otherwise over a thousand men will be thrown out of work, and the chaos and injury that would result from that would be appalling.” His words were tumbling out at increasing speed. “I could not even venture a guess as to where that would end. Not in that part of the city. You see, there is nowhere else for them to go.”

“Go?” The Prince frowned. “Why should they wish to go?”

Vespasia felt herself cringing. She had a very vivid idea of the soul-destroying poverty of parts of London, most especially the East End, of which Spitalfields and Whitechapel were the heart.

“I mean for work.” Sissons was becoming agitated. It was plain in the beads of sweat on his brow and lip, which were glistening in the lights. “Without work they will starve. God knows, they are close enough to it now.”

The Prince said nothing. He was clearly embarrassed. It was a most unseemly subject in this gorgeous, lavish display of pleasure. It was poor taste to remind men with glasses of champagne in their hands, and women decked with diamonds, that within a few miles of them thousands had not food and shelter for the night. It made them uncomfortable.

“It is necessary I stay in business!” Sissons’s voice rose a trifle, carrying above the hum of other conversations and the beat of the distant music. “I have to make sure I collect all my debts… so I can keep on paying them.”

The Prince looked bewildered. “Of course. Yes… it must be. Very conscientious, I am sure.”

Sissons swallowed. “All of them… sir.”

“Yes… quite so.” The Prince was looking decidedly unhappy now. His desire to escape this absurd situation was palpable.

Randolph Churchill took the liberty of interrupting. Vespasia was not surprised. She knew his relationship with the Prince of Wales was long and had varied. It had been one of extreme hatred over the Aylesford affair in 1876, when the Prince had actually challenged him to a duel with guns-to be fought in Paris, such a thing being illegal in England. Sixteen years ago the Prince had publicly refused to enter the house of anyone who received the Churchills. Consequently they had been almost entirely ostracized.

Eventually it had all died down, and Jennie Churchill, Randolph ’s wife, had so charmed the Prince-apparently enough to become one of his many mistresses-that he willingly dined at their home in Connaught Place and gave her expensive gifts. Randolph was back in favor. As well as being appointed leader of the House of Commons and Chancellor of the Exchequer, two of the highest offices in the land, he was the closest personal confidante of the Prince, sharing sporting and social events, giving advice and receiving praise and trust.

Now he stepped in to relieve a tedious situation.

“Of course you have to… er… Sissons,” he said cheerfully.

“Only way to conduct a business, what? But this is a time for enjoyment. Have some more champagne; it’s excellent.” He turned to the Prince. “I must congratulate you, sir, an exquisite choice. I don’t know how you do it.”

The Prince brightened considerably. He was with one of his own, a man he could trust not only politically but socially.

“It is rather, isn’t it? Did well there.”

“Superbly,” Churchill agreed, smiling. He was a beautifully dressed man of average height with regular features and a very wide, turned-up mustache which gave him a distinguished air. His manner was one of unquenchable pride. “I fancy it calls for something succulent to eat, to complement it. May I have something sent for you, sir?”

“No… no, I’ll come with you.” The Prince grasped the chance to escape. “I really ought to speak to the French ambassador. Good fellow. Do excuse us, Sissons.” And he turned and went with Churchill too rapidly for Sissons to do anything but mutter something unheard and take his leave.

“Mad,” Somerset Carlisle said softly at Vespasia’s elbow.

“Who?” she enquired. “The sugar man?”

“Not so far as I know.” He smiled. “Tedious in the extreme, but if that were insanity, then I should lock up half the country. I meant Churchill.”

“Oh, of course,” she said casually. “But you are far from the first to say that. At least he knows which side his advantage lies, which is an improvement on the Aylesford situation. Who is that very intense-looking man with the gray hair?” She half looked into the distance to indicate who she meant, then back again at Carlisle. “I don’t recall having seen him before, and yet he exudes a kind of passion which is almost evangelical.”

“Newspaper proprietor,” Carlisle replied. “ Thorold Dismore. I doubt he would approve your description of him. He is a republican, and a convinced atheist. But you are quite right, there is something of the proselyte about him.”

“I have never heard of him,” she replied. “And I thought I knew the newspaper proprietors in London.”

“I doubt you’d read his paper. It’s good quality, but he is not averse to allowing his opinions to shine through rather clearly.”

“Indeed?” She raised her eyebrows questioningly. “And why should that prevent me from reading them? I have never imagined people reported the news unfiltered through their own prejudices. Are his any more powerful than usual?”

“I think so. And he is not averse to advocating action in their cause.”

“Oh.” She felt it as a breath of chill, no more. She should not have been surprised. She looked across at the man more closely. It was a strong face, sharp, intelligent, moved by powerful emotion. She would have judged him a man who yielded no ground to anyone, and whose overt good nature might very easily mask a temper that could be ugly if roused. But first impressions could be mistaken.

“Do you wish to meet him?” Carlisle asked curiously.

“Perhaps,” she replied. “But I am quite sure I do not wish him to know that I do.”

Carlisle grinned. “I shall make sure he does not,” he promised. “It would be grossly presumptuous. I shall certainly not allow him to affect airs above his station. If it is contrived at all, he will believe it was his idea and he is profoundly grateful that I have accomplished it for him.”

“ Somerset, you verge on the impertinent,” she answered, aware that she was very fond of him. He was brave, absurd, passionate about his beliefs, and beneath the flippant exterior, pleasingly unique. She had always loved eccentrics.

It was after midnight and Vespasia was beginning to wonder if she wished to stay much longer, when she heard a voice which dissolved time, hurling her back about half a century to an unforgettable summer in Rome: 1848, the year of revolutions throughout Europe. For a wild, euphoric time-all too brief-dreams of freedom had spread like fire across France, Germany, Austria-Hungary and Italy. Then one by one they had been destroyed. The barricades had been stormed, the people broken, and the popes and kings had taken back their power. The reform had been overturned and trampled under the feet of soldiers. In Rome it had been the French soldiers of Napoleon III.

She almost did not turn to look. Whoever it was, it could only be an echo. It was memory playing a trick, an intonation that sounded the same, some Italian diplomat, perhaps from the same region, even the same town. She thought she had forgotten him, forgotten the whole tumultuous year with its passion, its hope and all the courage and pain, and in the end the loss.