“I don’t think it will,” Sir Harry answered seriously. “But you never know with Julien. He is a funny fellow. He takes the strangest fancies and then, when one least expects it, gets as mad as fire in a quiet deep way that shrivels a man up.”

“Has something incensed him – at the moment?” Gretna could not help asking.

“No, I don’t think so,” Sir Harry replied, but she had the idea that he was lying.

They had walked quite a long way and the Prince and Maria turned back.

As they did so, Sir Harry exclaimed,

“Look! There’s Julien, driving his new greys. Did you ever see such a pair? I am green with envy, as I have already told him.”

Gretna looked and felt as if the very ardency of her glance must draw the Marquis’s attention to them. And yet he seemed not to see them, but drove past at a spanking pace, the sunshine glittering on the silver embellishments of his curricle, the tiger at the back grinning back impudently as if he was well aware that his turnout was smarter than anything else to be seen on the Parade.

“Demme! What does he do to make everyone else seem down-at-heel?” Sir Harry asked with a wry grin and Gretna thought it was because the Marquis himself was so distinguished.

It was not merely the rakish set of his beaver hat or the cut of his coat, which fitted with never a wrinkle, or the polish on his boots, which she had learned from one of the dandies was due to champagne.

There was in addition an indefinable quality about him that made him seem superior to other men and yet it was something that one could never define in words.

“It looks as if we are going to be smart down here,” Sir Harry smiled. “The Duke of Queensberry arrives tomorrow and I hear that Sheridan is already here.”

“Oh, yes, he arrived the day after we did,” Gretna told him.

“Well, we certainly shall not be at a loss for entertainment with Eloise Jenkins giving a performance at the theatre.”

“Who did you – say?”

Gretna could not help her voice rising a little.

“Eloise Jenkins, the play-actress. It may be a hum, but I was told that she is to appear tomorrow night.”

Gretna felt her spirits drop and a sudden black depression settle on her. This was the explanation why the Marquis had come to Brighthelmstone.

She knew then the pain of jealousy, the agony of feeling frustrated and forgotten and of wanting a man who desired another woman.

‘I am a fool to mind,’ she told herself and almost uttered the words out loud.

“I say, you rather look pale,” Sir Harry said suddenly. “You are not going to have a fit of the vapours or something?”

“No, I am – fine,” Gretna managed to say and forced a smile to her lips.