“I don’t rightly know. I’m not the caretaker, me brother and his wife ’as the job, but they’ve ’ad to go to the country, ’er Ma’s bin taken bad. I’m only ’ere to ’elp out till they returns.”

“But you must know where Mistress Fitzherbert is living now,” Gretna said desperately. “If she has left the house, surely she would have left an address?”

“I don’t rightly know. me brother did say summat, but I can’t recall what it was ’e said,”

“Think, please think,” Gretna begged him.

“Ah, yes, I know. St. James’s Square, that’s where she ’as gone. St. James’s Square.”

The man then closed the door with a bang, leaving Gretna staring rather helplessly at the brass knocker. This was something that she had never anticipated for one moment.

Then suddenly she realised with a sense of horror that Mistress Fitzherbert had never received her letter telling her that she was arriving.

She had addressed the letter to this house in Park Street, but it was quite obvious that the man she had just spoken to would have been quite incapable of forwarding it on.

Somewhere in St. James’s Square! What an impossible position for her to be in – to look for someone and not even know the number of the house.

She would just have to ring any bell chosen at random and ask if they knew where Mistress Fitzherbert was likely to be residing.

The first thing was to find a Hackney carriage. She went down the steps and stood on the edge of the pavement.

Carriages were passing, but none of them looked the type of vehicle that could be hired. There were big coaches with painted crests on their panels and there were smart curricles driven by supercilious grooms or smart young dandies with their beaver hats at an angle.

Gretna found herself staring at them too interested at the moment to remember her own carriageless plight.

Then suddenly a coach that had just driven past her was drawn up sharply a little further up the road. She hardly noticed it, except to be aware that it was a private vehicle until a voice beside her made her start.

“I thought it must be and now I am sure! Miss Gretna.”

She started round, her eyes wide, and saw Lord Wroxhall standing there, raising his hat with one hand and holding a gold-handled cane in the other. He was in his elegance and his dark leering eyes the embodiment of everything she hated and everything she feared.

“Can I perhaps be of assistance?” he asked.

“No, thank – you, my Lord,” Gretna replied stiffly.

“You are waiting for someone?”

There was so much insinuation in his voice that she had to answer him with the truth.

“I am waiting for a Hackney carriage.”