“I had what I might almost call, without conceit, a success in London,” her mother went on. “And there was no doubt at all that my father was proud of me. When the Duke of Avon proposed, he was delighted and accepted the offer of marriage on my behalf without even consulting me.”

“Without even asking if you wanted to marry the Duke?” Gretna enquired.

“I was just told I was to be married,” Lady Rosemary said, her voice suddenly a little frightened as if the memory of that dark hour came back to her all too vividly. “The Duke was not only much older than me, but the licentious wicked life he had led had made him almost as repulsive in appearance as he was in character.”

She paused before continuing,

“He was a bad man, Gretna. I had known it from the very first moment I saw him and 1 had done my best to avoid him on the few occasions when he had singled me out for his attentions. But his Grace was very rich. He was also a very powerful man and my father was quite right in saying that it would have been, from the worldly point of view, a brilliant match for me.”

“What did you do, Mama?” Gretna asked.

“I could do nothing,” Lady Rosemary answered. “My father announced that the Wedding would take place in six months’ time and my mother started to prepare my trousseau.”

“Were your gowns very lovely?”

“Very magnificent,” her mother answered. “But I hated every one of them not only because of the long hours I had to stand fitting them but because I knew that they were to be worn for the delectation of a man I detested.”

“Could you not have refused to marry him?” Gretna wanted to know.

Her mother shook her head.

“In my home no one refused to do anything if my father wished it.”

“Then what did you do?”

“It was during those six months when I was choosing my trousseau that I met your father. The very moment I set eyes on him I knew that he was the one man whom I loved and whom I should always love. And he felt the same way about me.”

“Did he tell you so?”

“Not at once. No, he tried to behave honourably, to go away and to avoid seeing me again. But Fate flung us together.”

Lady Rosemary gave a little sigh and then a smile lit her face as if it was a lamp shining through the clouds.

“I shall never forget when we first admitted that we loved each other. And I was desperate when your father told me that the only decent thing he could do was to go away and never see me again. But he was not strong enough, thank God, to do that.”

“And what did you do?” Gretna enquired. “What did you do, Mama?”