“’Er! Oh, I knows where ’er lives right enough. Who don’t? And if you didn’t know, you’d only have to follow ’Is Royal ’Ighness ’ere from Carlton ’Ouse Terrace. That’d tell you.”

He started to laugh at his own joke and then fell to coughing.

“Perhaps you will be kind enough to drive me there,” Gretna said with what dignity she could command.

She closed the coach window with a little bang.

As she sat down on the seat again, her eyes were wide with dismay. It could not be true! It could not! There must be some mistake. That Aunt Maria should be spoken of in such a manner, she who had always been so quiet and so fastidious.

Gretna tried to reconcile these stories that she had heard with her own faith and trust in the woman she had loved ever since she was a baby.

The Prince of Wales might love Aunt Maria – that was understandable enough, although it was difficult to think how she could have met him, living as quietly as she did.

But even if he loved her, there would have been no excuse for such rumours to have gone about such as Lord Wroxhall had repeated. It would be impossible for Aunt Maria to marry him and never, never would she stoop to occupying any other position. Gretna was sure of that.

As she thought of it, her chin went up, as if her own pride and honour were at stake. Aunt Maria would never live under the protection of any man – not even if he was Heir to the Crown of England.

She was so convinced of this that she was smiling again as the carriage halted and she alighted.

The house they had stopped at surprised her. It was large, one of the largest houses in the square, and it was with some trepidation that Gretna walked up the stone steps to raise the brightly burnished silver knocker.

The door was opened immediately. A footman stood there and Gretna knew at once that she had come to the right place. He was wearing livery that she had seen so often when Maria Fitzherbert had visited her parents at Brambridge, green and gold with silver buttons.

It was quite familiar, but she had never before seen Maria Fitzherbert’s servants in white silk stockings and powdered wigs.

“I wish to see Mistress Fitzherbert,” Gretna asked in a low voice.

“Madam is not receivin’ this afternoon,” the footman replied in what seemed to Gretna a very aloof almost insolent manner.

“Even so, I am sure she will see me,” Gretna insisted. “Please to tell her Miss Gretna Hayden is here.”

“Madam is not receivin’,” the footman persisted. “If you will call tomorrow, she may be able to see you then.”

He made as if to close the door, but Gretna was not to be intimidated.

“Kindly tell Mistress Fitzherbert that her niece is here,” she commanded.