Miss Jubbles looked around in a dazed way at what she had always thought of as ‘her room’.

‘Becket will drive you home.’ Harry opened the window and called down to Becket, who was sitting in the car outside, to come up.

‘Becket will call at your home tomorrow with your three months’ pay,’ said Harry.

Miss Jubbles stood up. She collected her hat and coat from the hat stand and put them on. Then she suddenly fell to her knees and held her hands up as if in prayer.

‘Don’t send me away. I love you!’

‘I’ll pretend I didn’t hear that,’ said Harry. ‘Ah, Becket, will you please drive Miss Jubbles home?’

Then he turned away and walked into his office and shut the door behind him.

Rose sat silently throughout dinner, her brain in a turmoil. To tell a rebellious spirit like Rose that she was no longer expected to marry made her long to do the opposite. For all her scorn of the season being nothing more than a cattle market, she did nourish romantic dreams of some intelligent man who would sweep her off her feet. Her thoughts strayed to Harry. He never seemed to regard her as a woman. She had a good mind to flirt with him and see if she could break his heart.

CHAPTER SEVEN

He gave way to the queer, savage feeling that sometimes takes by the throat a husband of twenty years’ married, when he sees, across the table, the same face of his wedded wife, and knows that, as he has sat facing it, so he must continue to sit until the day of its death or his own.

Rudyard Kipling

Lady Polly had just risen as a signal to Rose and Daisy to join her in the drawing-room and leave her husband to his port when Brum, the butler, announced the arrival of Superintendent Kerridge.

‘We’d better all hear what he has to say,’ said the earl, getting to his feet.

Both Kerridge and Inspector Judd were waiting in the drawing-room. ‘This is a bad business, my lord,’ Kerridge was beginning when Harry was announced.

‘Ah, Cathcart,’ said the earl. ‘Come in. Kerridge was just about to start his report.’

Harry stole a glance at Rose. He thought she was looking remarkably beautiful in a dinner gown of oyster satin with white lace panels, despite the bruise on her check.

Kerridge waited until Harry was seated and began again. ‘We raided The Grange and found eight people there, all female. They were in a dreadful condition. Most were full of drugs. There was one, a Miss Callum, who had been admitted only the week before. Turns out her parents died and she inherited a considerable estate. Her cousins conspired with McWhirter to have her committed. All ladies have been transferred to Saint George’s Hospital for observation. Some were half-starved.