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up chunks of bread and cheese; he glanced round, coloured, bent over his task. I plucked at the E string of the violin and it broke. Cursing, I loosened the peg to
take off the broken ends.
    “Do you think he will marry her?” Richard asked.
    I hesitated. “Ord?”
    He nodded. “He has lots of money,” he said eagerly. “She’s bound to like that.” He offered a shy smile. “Julia likes money. Those ribbons she’s wearing
– the yellow ones? They have a diamond in the centre of each flower.”
    More like paste, I thought cynically, unwinding the last fragments of the broken string at last. “She might marry him, he’ll not marry her.”
    “There was talk of it in London.”
    “You saw him there?”
    He nodded. “He came to the theatre to see Julia.”
    “Did he show any partiality for her?”
    Richard sniggered. “That’s not what Ned called it.”
    “I can imagine,” I said dryly. The new string was proving recalcitrant, refusing to wind round the peg properly. And it was my last spare too.
    Richard said again, “Do you think he’ll marry her?” He was plainly not referring to Ord any longer. From the theatre behind us, we heard the tones of Ned’s voice; it was
a love scene with Julia but something had annoyed Ned – the loving words were in distinctly unloving tones. And I couldn’t hear a word from Julia – someone ought to tell her to
speak up.
    “She’s so beautiful,” Richard said wistfully, “And so kind. She’s always happy to talk to me.”
    I didn’t know what to say. Or what was the truth. “Don’t concern yourself,” I said. “He’ll come to his senses.”
    “Yes,” Richard said, sounding older than his years. “That’s what I feared.”
    I watched him walk off into the theatre, feeling sombre. My own situation with Esther was difficult enough but nothing like the difficulties Ned and Richard faced, with the full force of the law
and the revulsion of society against them. I myself found the whole affair rather odd, like a man who hates turnips stares at another who thinks them the best food in the world, but I
couldn’t for the life of me see what harm they were doing anyone.
    Which was the point, I supposed. If Ned did succeed in marrying Julia, he risked doing a great deal of harm indeed – to Julia’s happiness, to Richard’s and to his own
well-being. For I’d known Ned a long time, long enough to know that he found it dangerously easy to despise himself.
    Through the open door into the theatre, I could see part of the stage. Julia was prettily shrinking away from the unlit candles along the stage edge and saying something inaudible. Mr Keregan
was giving a fine performance totally against his own character, of the despotic father. Ned was simmering in fury even as he pronounced his undying love for the girl from whom he was about to be
parted for ever (or at least until the last scene).
    Dear God. The idea came to me with a start. Ned was set on marrying Julia, for her money and for the disguise she could give him. Mazzanti would never agree. Which meant that if Ned’s plan
was to succeed, Mazzanti needed to be removed from the scene.
    Was Ned the one trying to kill Mazzanti?

8
    All the world meets in a town of this size.
    [Letter from Lady Hubert to her sister, 9 April 1732]
    Halfway through the afternoon, Signora Mazzanti came into the theatre and sat at the back of the hall. She was accompanied by her landlady, Mrs Baker, who lets her house for
lodgings and frequently accommodates members of the theatre company. Signora Mazzanti was not fat – certainly nothing like Mrs Keregan – but the plumpness was eating into what had
plainly been a remarkable beauty. She sat well and smiled well, and moved well, and pretended that she didn’t mind the company ignoring her very well indeed.
    Mrs Baker, a comfortable homely woman of about fifty, gave me an expressive roll of her eyes. With one accord, we strolled towards the back of the theatre and met