Excerpt from The Hourglass Factory by Lucy Ribchester, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

'What the devil…?'

The maid whispered, 'It's a gem-wood cabinet. Turkish bath.'

Twinkle's head snapped around. 'Page. Quickly girl, I'll lose the train of thought. Hello, Puss.' The maid scurried over to the cabinet and ran the next page along the ribbon.

'You're not going to make me get in that.'

'And why not? You could do with one.' Twinkle looked at the maid. 'No, dear, not tea, I want gin. We want gin, don't we, Puss?'

The maid retrieved a bottle of Old Tom and a couple of crystal sherry glasses from a side table. With a weary heart Frankie knocked back a couple of swallows. Twinkle had the maid pour the gin straight into her mouth. The sight reminded Frankie of the Holloway feeding tubes. She suddenly sat up straighter.

'Twinkle, do you know a trapeze girl?'

Twinkle's eyes had gone glossy with the hit of alcohol. 'I know a dozen. I think it's time to get out, turn around, Puss.'

'But do you know one called Ebony Diamond?'

'Name rings a bell,' she grunted. 'No, not that way, I'll never get my feet through that hole. Are you simple?' Frankie realised she could still see Twinkle in the mirror, heaving herself in a pink satinette robe with the maid fuddling over the ties.

'She's a suffragette.'

'Well they've got bats in the belfry if you ask me. Who wants a vote anyway? Next they'll be expecting us to sit in that dull parliament, stinking of men. Now,' she wriggled her arms down into the sleeves.

Frankie closed her eyes for slightly longer than a blink. 'She's a gypsy. You'd know her if you saw her.'

When Frankie opened her eyes she saw Twinkle had turned to face her. Her gaze was cold. 'Why do you want to know, Puss?' She batted a hand at the maid. 'No, leave my hair, just fetch the cold cream, will you?'

'It's Mr. Stark, he wants me to do a portrait of her.'

'Really?' There was a sour note in Twinkle's tone. 'How strange.'

'Well she's on at the Coliseum tomorrow. And—' she broke off, seeing the hard bright smile on Twinkle's face and felt herself treading on thin ice. 'Do you mind if I…?' She reached for the Old Tom bottle.

Twinkle smiled, deliberately wide. 'Not at all, Puss. Pour me one too, there's a dear.' She said at a dressing table and began rubbing grease on her face. The maid had scarpered. Frankie passed across a glass, then knocked back her own and poured another. It was hot, herbal, pleasant. She felt it swimming up to her brain.

'She's interesting. She wears these black corsets.'

Twinkle turned on her stool and stared again at Frankie. 'Really, these Sapphic obsessions of yours are so dull.' Her eyes, though sunken among folds of skin, had a ball-bearing of steel to their core. 'Now that you mention it, I do think I know her. Quite the Gibson girl, as I recall.' She sucked in her cheeks and put her hands round her waist. 'Out of fashion now, of course. It's all thick waists and skinny hips these days. But she must have had a fun time in Holloway. Hunger striking would be positively up her strada.' Suddenly Twinkle spun round, her face lit up like the moon. 'That's it, Puss. That's the column. Starvation fashion. Get the suffragette waif look without setting foot in Holloway. I love it, it's brilliant, you're a genius, Puss.'

'But Ebony…' she tailed off.

'Yes?'

'She'll kill me.'

'Since when was Frankie George frightened of a suffragette? Do you remember that day we dressed up my cockatoo to look like Christabel Pankhurst?'

Excerpted from The Hourglass Factory by Lucy Ribchester. Copyright © 2016 by Lucy Ribchester. Excerpted by permission of Pegasus Books. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.