Fool! Fool that she had been for one moment to think that the Prince would have sent such a message. His Royal Highness was always so punctilious and courteous in his manner to everybody, most of all to Maria.

Had he really required her presence he would surely have written her a note. He would never for one moment have thought of sending her a verbal message by a servant.

Gretna could have cried aloud at her own stupidity. How could she have been so blind, so idiotic not to have sensed that something was wrong and that something was strange in the message and in the footman’s behaviour?

If Maria had been awake, she felt that she might have been suspicious at once. And yet would she have been? How could she imagine for one moment that anyone would have concocted such a dastardly and fiendish plot as that of kidnapping her?

And yet if Gretna had not decided to go to the Prince with an explanation, if there had been writing paper in the Villa and so many other ifs and buts, Maria would be in her place now, trussed up and helpless, being carried through the night by two illiterate and murderous-minded men who were in the pay of someone else.

No need to ask who that someone else might be. Gretna knew the answer to that almost before the question formulated itself in her mind.

Had she not heard with her own ears Lord Wroxhall swear in the salon in Carlton House that he would be rid of Maria within three months? This was his plot, she was sure of it.

It only remained to be seen how he intended to do it.

Would he murder her himself or would another of his hired assailants throw her into the sea from the boat that Joe had mentioned?

Was that what he intended to do, she wondered, or had he other plans? Would he perhaps stab her to death and then throw her body overboard?

She wanted to shriek out loud as a sudden panic swept over her.

Gretna did not want to die. She wanted to live.

And it was with the utmost difficulty that she stopped herself from struggling helplessly against the blanket that covered her and making a wild hopeless effort to throw herself from the coach.

It would be quite fruitless, she knew that. It was more than likely that Joe would knock her senseless if she attempted it.

She had felt hot and suffocated before, but now she felt bitterly cold, the chill of fear creeping over her.

She was helpless and alone. There was only the darkness, these two frightening men and the clomp, clomp of the horses’ hoofs carrying her off to some unknown and terrifying destination.