She felt herself stiffen at the smile on his lips, feeling that it was somehow an insult to her mother.

And then he announced,

“So we are related.”

“Related! How do – you mean?” Gretna enquired.

“Unless I am mistaken, my grandmother and your grandmother were first cousins. That makes us, let me see, third or fourth cousins, but definitely related.”

“I think you may be – wrong, my Lord.”

“No, I am rather good when it comes to remembering my Family Tree. And I can recall, although I was only a boy at the time, the excitement your mother caused when she ran away from the Duke of Avon the night before her Wedding.”

“My mother believed that – l-love was more important than anything else, in – l-life,” Gretna said with a little tremble in her voice.

“And you believe the same?”

She would have answered him, but a suspicion that perhaps he was laughing at her made her shy.

“I think my feelings – on such a subject cannot be of interest – to you.”

“As a matter of fact they interest me strangely,” he said. “But we have other things to discuss for the moment and, as your Kinsman, I have a right to demand an explanation as to why you were masquerading as the niece of a fat farmer’s wife.”

Gretna looked down at the fountain in the garden, well aware that he was watching her profile and determined not to give him the satisfaction of seeing that she was afraid.

“It was all a – m-mistake. Mrs. Merryweather was kind enough to accompany me to London when I found I could no longer go on living in the cottage – I had occupied with my parents when they were a-alive. When we had that accident, she thought that it might be prejudicial to my good name to be travelling in such a manner and with no proper chaperone. You see, she had a rather poor opinion of – g-gentlemen of quality.”

The Marquis put back his head and laughed.

“And so to save you from the attentions of such wolves in sheep’s clothing, she presented you in a light that could not have been more damaging or reprehensible.”

“Only to people like – Lord Wroxhall and yourself,” Gretna responded hotly. “A girl from a farm should be able to travel without having – the unwanted attentions of Noblemen thrust upon her.”

“An ordinary girl from a farm would undoubtedly be able to do so,” the Marquis said coldly. “But then the ordinary girl from a farm does not look like you.”

“I think you are just making excuses for yourself, my Lord.”

“On the contrary I am making no excuses. You pretended to be what you are not. Whatever happened during that time was entirely your own fault. You invited it.”

Gretna stamped her foot with a little gesture of impatience.

“All this would have been quite unnecessary if you had not recognised me,” she replied almost petulantly.