He rubbed his eyes. What an extraordinary vision, witnessing the young woman stretched across the balcony, arms and legs spread like a spider. Her dress had hitched up as she inched across, clinging to the stone balustrade, using the columns as footholds, her banner clutched in one gloved hand. He had to commend her daring, even if it was sheer idiocy.
Then she had fallen into his arms. The feel of her as she landed right in them. Instinctively he’d leapt forward as she tumbled to where he guessed she’d land and caught her like a fish in a net.
He wouldn’t forget how she’d felt in his arms.
He scratched his head. Her brown hair was glossy, her eyes bright blue. When she’d realised that she had the wrong address a smile had curved her full cheeks, filling her eyes with laughter. Not beautiful, but pretty.
And soft. That’s what he’d felt, when he caught her. Frills and lace and, beneath it, soft, warm flesh. But her spirit—no softness there. She radiated strength and a cast-iron determination.
He had to admire that kind of female determination. His younger sister, Jane, had strength of character, too, although it was still developing. So did his elder sister, Arabella, but since their father had died the family relied on Adam for everything. Every decision, every penny.
Adam set his jaw. He didn’t resent the responsibility, but he had to make some hard decisions now. Damned difficult, sometimes, being head of the family.
‘There’s no need to swear!’ an irate voice echoed in his head. He frowned. She had an unusual accent. Northern, he guessed, beneath the carefully enunciated vowels. She wasn’t, as some of the more unpleasantly snobbish acquaintances of his mother would have put it, ‘one of us.’
His frown deepened as he stared at the shabby front door of their London home. Being ‘one of us’ took a lot of upkeep. The black paint was peeling on the wrought iron and the black front door needed a lick of paint, too. The marble steps leading up to the threshold were dull and dirty. The servants travelled back and forth with them, to and from Beauley Manor. He couldn’t afford to keep staff in both homes. The London mansion needed much more than a good clean, never mind what a country estate like Beauley Manor needed. Then he had to add what his mother and Arabella and Jane needed, too. They would be back in London to attend a ball tomorrow night. Neither of them had asked for new ball gowns that could cost a fortune.
A fortune he didn’t have.
From the corner of his eye he noticed something fluttering from the plane tree near the streetlight at the corner.
He strode over and pulled it down from the branch. It tore as it came free.
In his hand the banner unfurled. Purple, green and white. Under the streetlight he examined it more closely. It was made of silk, not cotton or sensible broadcloth. The tricolours were sewn together lengthways in somewhat imperfect stitches. In the corner of the white section was embroidered a tiny purple violet.
Scrunching up the silken banner in his fist, he shoved it inside his coat.
The sight of her, inching across the balcony, her suffragette banner aloft in her hand...
For the first time in months Adam laughed aloud.
* * *
Violet sighed over her embroidery as she unpicked a crooked seam. She’d been distracted ever since she fell off the balcony into the dark-haired stranger’s arms the night before. He had held her only for a moment or two, yet she had felt so comfortable, so secure in that strong grip, though a tremor of danger had run through her veins. It had been the most peculiar sensation. Still, it was unlikely she would ever see him again. Her heart gave a strange squeeze of regret.
She poked her needle, threaded with purple, into the white silk and put it aside into the sewing pouch on its polished rosewood stand. She needed to make another banner quickly. The only advantage of being able to sew was that she used her skill to make her suffrage banners, not that her mother knew that to be the reason, of course. She’d wondered recently, though, what had happened to all the purple silk.
‘I’ve been wondering if we should change your name.’
In astonishment Violet turned to her mother, who lay on the velvet chaise longue reading an illustrated fashion paper. ‘What on earth do you mean, Mama? Change my name? What’s wrong with Violet Regina?’
‘Just the spelling,’ her mother said hastily. ‘We could make it French-sounding. Violette.’ She added a trill to the final syllable. ‘French is quite the fashion.’
Firmly Violet shook her head. ‘No, Mama. No. We are who we are. I love my name.’
‘You’re named after a chocolate,’ her mother protested.
‘And a pretty little flower,’ said her father, coming into the drawing room and knocking over the porcelain shepherdess by the door, as he always did. The vast space was absolutely crammed with china ornaments. They, too, were the latest fashion, her mother insisted, whenever Violet suggested removing one or two.
‘What’s all this about, then?’ her father asked, replacing the shepherdess on the stand and giving it a cautious pat.
‘Oh, Papa.’ Violet leapt up, ran across the room and hugged him tight. It was becoming harder to wrap her arms around his waistcoat, she thought with a smile. He’d always been shaped like a barrel, but now he was like a barrel about to burst. ‘I thought you went up to Manchester, to the factory.’
Her father squeezed back. ‘I put off the trip north until next week. Your mama has persuaded me to stay in London and come to this dance tomorrow night.’
‘Ball,’ her mother put in from the chaise longue.
Her father winked at her mother. ‘Aye, we’ll have a ball, my beautiful Adeline.’
‘Reginald.’ Her mother pursed her lips, but her cheeks flushed pink.
‘So, do you have the most beautiful gowns money can buy?’ Her father beamed. ‘I want my girls to look fine.’
The final touches had been put on her own gown that morning at the dressmaker’s in Bond Street. Even such a gown didn’t alleviate the sinking in Violet’s stomach. If only her parents weren’t so eager. Still, she’d have to make the best of it.
‘My dress is beautiful,’ she replied. ‘White lace with a violet sash.’
‘The best Belgian lace,’ her mother added.
‘The best.’ Her father rubbed his hands together delightedly. ‘That’s right. Nothing else for the Coombes. The best.’
Violet picked up her needle and smiled at him. Not for all the lace in Belgium would she have told her father just how much she dreaded the ball.
Only the thought of what she planned to do there spurred her on.
‘To alien ears, I did not speak to these’
—Alfred, Lord Tennyson: ‘Love and Duty’ (1842)
‘What’s wrong with these fellows, not asking my daughter to dance? Can’t they see the prettiest girl in the room?’
Across the small table Violet squeezed her father’s hand. Through her white kid gloves his hand was damp and hot.
From his evening coat he pulled a spotted handkerchief and wiped his brow. ‘Upon my soul, it’s stifling in here. Perhaps it’s a good thing not to be dancing, Violet, out in that crush.’
Violet stared into the ballroom. Across the polished floor couples swirled, the men in black and white, the women in a rainbow of