“I will send a maid to you. You will find my bedroom a little way down the passage at the top of the stairs. Don’t hurry unduly. My hairdresser always takes an unconscionable time.”

“Your hair is so pretty,” Gretna exclaimed. “But you are arranging it in a new fashion.”

“Yes, and we must see if yours can be done the same way,” Maria answered. “It is called à la hedgehog, it is amusing.”

“It is very becoming,” Gretna said in admiration and Maria bent to kiss her cheek before she hurried from the room, leaving a faint fragrance of expensive perfume behind her.

Gretna had no time in the next few hours to think about the Marquis or what he must suppose from her second hurried departure.

It was only when finally Maria Fitzherbert had left for Carlton House, carrying a fan glittering with brilliants and looking so beautiful in a huge looped gown of pale blue brocade with a diamond necklace that Gretna could only stare at her as if she was a being from another world, that at last she could consider her own reactions.

The house seemed empty without her. It was as if it was suddenly hushed, although the echo of Maria’s laughter and her gay voice seemed somehow to whisper in the silence.

Gretna went slowly up the stairs. She had said that she would prefer to have a bowl of soup and perhaps a dish of chicken on a tray in her bedroom. She was apprehensive of the formality that she might find in the dining room.

She had never expected that Maria would have a whole army of butlers and footmen, housekeepers and maids to attend her wishes. And now Gretna realised that she would have to readjust her whole idea of the life that they were to live together.

Indeed she must alter her ideas on many things for while she was dressing Maria had said to her,

“Don’t worry what people will think of your mother’s escapade all those years ago. Why, I assure you, it will add considerably to the interest you will arouse.”

“Will they not be – shocked?” Gretna asked.

Maria had laughed that free untrammelled laugh, which seemed to ring out like the tinkle of silver bells.

“But of course not, you stupid child. They will only think it romantic and exciting as it must have been. I always envied your mother so much that wild adventure, especially because it brought her such unadulterated happiness.”

“So much happiness,” Gretna murmured slowly, “that without Papa she did not wish to go on living. They had always been so close to each other – so utterly happy together.”

“I shall never forgive myself for not knowing what was happening,” Maria sighed. “But I was abroad and the letter relating your father’s death never reached me. I moved from place to place rather quickly and left no address behind. There were reasons for my doing that.”