The maid was in the room and Gretna realised that it would be embarrassing to ask what the reasons might be. But somehow instinctively she guessed that they concerned the Prince.

She could not help remembering that Lord Wroxhall in that conversation with the Marquis, which she had overheard, had said that Maria had been abroad until December.

It was after she had returned that it was rumoured that she had married the Prince.

That was, of course, impossible, as Gretna well knew. And yet if Maria was not married to the Prince, what then was their relationship? Alone in her bedroom she felt her face burn at the thought.

And then resolutely she refused to think about it. Maria had asked her to trust her. That she was prepared to do and any questions or even thoughts on the matter were treasonable.

She had her supper in front of the fire and then walked to the writing table. It was only a small piece of furniture, French in design with exquisitely inlaid panels, but there was engraved writing paper in the pigeonholes and a new quill pen standing up like a sentinel in a shining silver inkpot.

First Gretna wrote a letter to Mrs. Merryweather telling her that she had arrived safely and that Maria was in good health. She thanked her for escorting her to London and asked her to write soon and say if her health and bruises were better.

Then she hesitated for a long time. Night had fallen outside the window, but she stared out into the darkness of the square.

She was remembering a deep voice with just a hint of amusement in it saying, ‘shall I make you fall in love with me?’

And she was recalling that stupefying moment when she had felt the Marquis’s arms around her and his mouth had captured hers.

She felt herself quiver and tremble as she felt again the strange sensation that had swept over her and the weakness that had made her unable to move or cry out and which had left her helpless in his arms.

“How dared he?” she whispered aloud and yet there was no anger in her voice, only an astonishment and surprise that she had not felt more incensed at the time.

‘I must never see him again,’ she told herself and then wondered what would happen if they met at Carlton House.

There would be so many people present, she told herself quickly, that it would be easy to avoid him.

Anyway he would not dream for a moment that the well dressed Miss Hayden, whose debut was sponsored by the Prince of Wales himself, could possibly be the same as the badly dressed niece of fat Mrs. Merryweather to whom he had offered his protection.

Why should he connect the two? And who indeed would dare insult the social Miss Hayden with such a suggestion as the Marquis had made to simple Miss Gretna from the farm?