“I doubt that,” someone else ventured. “Personally I find the fair Maria very charming. My wife refuses to acknowledge her, of course, which I hope will not come to the Prince’s ears. He takes it ill if anyone does not accept her as if she is in reality his wife.”

“I have never heard anything so nonsensical,” Lord Wroxhall exclaimed. “And, if the ladies who lead Society are prepared to have a piece of muslin foisted upon them, then it is time we men took a stand.”

“It’s all very well to talk like that,” another voice came. “But what can we do? You know as well as I do that, if Mistress Fitzherbert is not invited to dine, then the Prince will not come either. We have to accept things as they are so long as she remains his favourite.”

“So long as Mistress Fitzherbert remains,” Lord Wroxhall said slowly. “Those perhaps are the words one should remember.”

“Well, if you are going to try and get rid of her, old boy, you have set yourself a hard task,” someone laughed.

“A hard task!” a man repeated. “An impossible one!”

“Nothing is impossible,” Lord Wroxhall retorted. “Nothing”

“Well, I will lay you a wager,” another voice chipped in. “A thousand to ten that you will not be rid of Mistress Fitzherbert before Christmas. You take it, Wroxhall?”

“I’ll take and double it,” Lord Wroxhall countered.

There was something in the thickness of his voice that made Gretna sure he had been drinking. She longed to look round to see who he was talking to, but she knew that if he caught sight of her the disguise might prove as ineffective where he was concerned as it had with the Marquis.

Carefully, keeping her back to the centre of the room, she moved along the walls, ostensibly looking at the pictures and at the statues in the alcoves until she reached the door.

Then with a little sigh of relief she ran as far as she could away from that particular salon, putting almost the length of The Palace between her and that hated voice.

‘How dare he?’ she whispered to herself when finally she reached another salon where a number of people were seated round baize-covered tables playing cards. There was little noise here, only the chink of money and quiet voices calling the winning cards.

She felt herself suddenly hot with anger against Lord Wroxhall. It was typical of him, she reflected, that he should pretend to be a friend of the Prince and then decry Maria behind his back making her more enemies amongst people who otherwise might have remained impartial.

She clenched her hands at the thought of his disloyalty. It was one thing that had always shocked her father, that anyone should be disloyal to a friend or should behave in a hypocritical manner and pretending affection where there was none.