“Yes, indeed. Mistress Fitzherbert told me that she is holding a dinner party and that you are all going on afterwards to a gaming party given by the Duchess of Devonshire.”

“Oh, are we?” Gretna was surprised. “I had no idea.”

“If there is dancing, and there usually is at Devonshire House, will you dance with me?” Sir Harry asked.

Gretna was just about to answer him when Maria came into the room. She looked slightly surprised to find Sir Harry still there and he made his adieu rather quickly and went away.

Maria touched Gretna’s cheek with her hand.

“So you have made a new conquest,” she smiled. “He is a charming boy.”

“But only a boy,” Gretna answered.

“Well, I am sure he says nice things to everyone, but particularly nice ones to you.”

She sat down in her chair and opened the marquetry workbox that stood beside it and drew out her embroidery.

“It’s delightful to have a few moments to ourselves,” she said. “I seem to get so little time for my needlework these days. It would be pleasant, dearest, if you would read to me. We could choose a book that we both enjoy.”

“I should like that,” Gretna agreed. “But I wonder if you would think – that I read well enough.”

“I am sure you read beautifully,” Maria Fitzherbert answered. “You have a sweet voice just like your mother’s. I always thought that one of the most attractive things about Lady Rosemary was her voice.”

“If it comes to that, my father once said that you had a voice like a nightingale that had been fed on honey!”

Maria clapped her hands together.

“What a splendid compliment and from your father, who never paid one unless he really meant it. I had the deepest admiration for him, you know. When he was so ill, he never complained and I think it was because he loved your mother too much to distress her with his sufferings.”

“They were so happy together, they really were?” Gretna said with a little sob in her voice. “They lived a very quiet life with no money and very few friends and yet I don’t think they would have changed places with anyone.”

“They were the luckiest people I know,” Maria Fitzherbert added. “Neither money nor friends are necessary to love if two people love enough and can be together.”

There was no mistaking the wistfulness in her last two words and Gretna suddenly stepped forward and knelt down beside her friend’s chair.

“It must be very difficult – for you,” she whispered softly.

“It is, because we cannot always be together,” Maria answered. “And when we are, there are always people there too. The most precious of all the moments to be treasured are when we are alone and there are so few of them.”

She bent her head and then raised it again and Gretna saw that her eyes were like tear-drenched violets.