She tried to think of something else. She moved across the room, stared at the pictures on the wall and the watercolours of Brambridge. She could not see the long, low comfortable house. Instead she saw two dark eyes looking down into hers and heard a voice say,

“Would it be very hard to love me, little Gretna?”

She turned eagerly as the door opened.

Here at last was an interruption to her memories. The footman stood there.

“Madam asks if you will come upstairs, miss,” he announced.

Gretna followed him up the wide carved staircase to polished doors that she was sure were the entrance to the salon. She was not mistaken and the footman threw them open.

“Miss Gretna Hayden, madam,” he intoned.

Gretna had a confused impression of lights and colours and then she saw Maria Fitzherbert, lovelier than even she had remembered her, her pale gold hair in curls all over her head, her eyes alight with pleasure and her hands outstretched.

“Gretna! Gretna. My darling!” she exclaimed as she ran towards her.

Gretna found herself clasped in loving arms, there was a soft cheek against hers and a voice asking a dozen eager questions.

Then over Maria Fitzherbert’s shoulder she saw, leaning against the mantelpiece, the handsome face and elegant figure of a young man whom, even if she had not seen his picture, she would have known to be the Prince of Wales.

CHAPTER FIVE

“I am so deeply distressed, dearest Gretna, that I never received your letter,” Maria Fitzherbert was saying for the tenth time as Gretna somewhat stumblingly related how she had arrived in London to find such a poor reception at the deserted house in Park Street.

“All the same,” she continued, “your letter should undoubtedly have been brought here to me. I will send a footman to Park Street immediately to find out what is happening. The caretaker must be told to let me know if he is ill and he cannot carry out his duties.”

“It was tiresome of me to arrive – at such short notice,” Gretna said apologetically. “But I had no idea what else to do.”

“You were quite right to come,” Maria Fitzherbert assured her. “Indeed have I not often said over and over again that I was always there if you needed me?”

“At the same time I feel embarrassed at forcing myself upon you, but Mrs. Merryweather was determined that it was the right thing for me to do.”

“Dear Mrs. Merry! How is she? In good health I trust?” Maria Fitzherbert asked.

Gretna looked abashed. She had not yet related what had happened on the journey or how she and Mrs. Merryweather had spent the night at Stade Hall.