The Regency Season: Gentleman Rogues. Margaret McPhee

duty to worry over his daughter.’

      ‘And a daughter’s duty to worry over her father.’

      They laughed and talked some more. She told him that young Lord Lamerton was making enquiries as to Kit’s whereabouts. She told of her life with the Dowager Lady Lamerton, of what was the same in the ton and what had changed. But she made no mention of the newcomer Mr Stratham.

      ‘You see,’ said her father. ‘Am I not proved right? Accepting the position was the best thing to do.’

      ‘It was,’ she said, but she did not smile.

      Her last view of him as she left was of him sitting at the big wooden desk, a contented expression on his face, as he dipped his pen into the inkwell and wrote entries into the large ruled ledger open before him.

      Emma left the London Docks and headed west towards Mayfair, walking with a hundred other people across roads and along pavements. All around was the hurried tread of boots and shoes, the buzz of voices, and, louder than all, the clatter of horses’ shoes. But what she heard in her head as she walked were the words that Ned had spoken to her on a morning that seemed now to belong to another time and another world.

      I used to work on the docks... I still know a few folk in the dockyard... I could have a word. See if there are any easier jobs going.

      And she knew that it was neither fate that had rescued her father from hefting crates upon the warehouse floor, nor a miracle, but Ned Stratham.