‘I must think. I must plan. I must – not give up. I must fight!’ Gretna thought and then a sudden longing for the Marquis swept over her.

Why was he not here? Why could she not run to him, as she had done before, and hide her face against his broad shoulder? He was angry with her, she knew that.

And yet in such circumstances as these she knew that he would save her, he would hold her closely to him, she would be safe, safe in his arms although the Devil himself threatened her.

She felt herself longing for him with such intensity and with every fibre of her body that she felt as if the very urgency and desperation of her need must reach him and tell him, wherever he was, that she was in danger.

Then she thought perhaps he was at the theatre, waiting to take the lovely Eloise out to supper and she recognised with a new kind of despair that there was no hope for her there.

They must have been driving for nearly three quarters of an hour and from the ugly snorts beside her she guessed that Joe had fallen asleep. But the other man was still awake. She could feel him fidgeting about, moving his hands and his feet. She imagined that he was twisting his head to see if, by the light of the candle lamps, he could see which way they were going.

Then suddenly she felt a rough hand touch and grasp her ankle. She gave a scream and kicked violently with her other foot to dislodge her hands, which to her relief set her free.

“She’s alive!” came a triumphant cry.

“ Now ’ere, what’s up?” Joe woke from his sleep.

“She’s alive.”

“Of course she be alive. We ’ad no instructions to finish ’er off, did we? Likely as not ’e’ll be a-waitin’ to see her. Stow your gab till we be there.”

The carriage was going downhill and then it came suddenly to a standstill.

One of the men had opened the window and Gretna felt the rush of cold air against her feet.

“There be the boat,” Joe remarked. “Bring the fancy mort along.”

She wanted to struggle then, but it was too late. Rough arms picked her up as if she was a baby and carried her from the carriage across the cobbled stones of what she imagined might be a quay.

She knew then that she was to be drowned, taken out in a boat, weighted perhaps and dropped overboard. She tried to scream and tried to cry out.

But no sound came from her throat.

She felt herself put down with a bump and knew that she was lying on the floor of a rowing boat. She could feel the movement of the water and hear the oars being brought out.