“Would it not be best to go away – and forget him?” Gretna asked almost in a whisper.

It was the pain on her friend’s face that gave her the courage to speak the words.

Maria looked at her for a moment incredulously and then she said,

“Oh, no! You don’t understand, I love him and he loves me. That is all that matters. Any suffering is worthwhile because of that, any discomfort and any insults. It is all of little consequence beside the greatness of our love.”

There was almost the sound of rapture in her tones and Gretna felt that there was nothing more she could say. Yet she could not help a prayer in her heart that Maria would never be disappointed or hurt by the man she loved.

The Prince was so young, so gay and so surrounded by alien influences. She had thought privately that there could be nothing more frightening than to love him or even to be loved by him.

Maria then drew her down and kissed her cheek.

“It is so wonderful for me to have you here,” she said softly. “And now, dearest, find a book and read to me, for if we talk of ourselves my work will not only never be finished it will never be begun.”

She took up her embroidery frame resolutely as she spoke and Gretna picked up the books that stood on a side table and read out their titles one by one.

“Is this Miss Burney’s latest novel?” she asked. “I would love to read it.”

“Then start it right away,” Maria suggested “I find Miss Burney’s tales entrancing and Sir Joshua Reynolds told me that he had sat up all night to read Evelina.”

Gretna settled herself in the corner of the sofa. She was glad that Maria had not chosen one of the Classics or a book with erudite unusual words that her tongue would trip over.

She had often read aloud to her father, but this was something different and, although she loved Maria, she was very conscious of how much cleverer and better educated the older woman seemed.

“Cecilia or Memoirs of an Heiress by Fanny Burney,” she read aloud. “Volume II, Chapter One – ”

She could go no further before the door opened and the butler intoned,

“There is a gentleman here, madam, who wishes to see you alone if it is convenient. He says it is of the utmost importance.”

“And what is his name?” Maria asked.

“The Marquis of Stade, madam.”

Gretna gave a little gasp and dropped the book she was holding onto the floor. It fell with a dull thud. She let it lie and turned to look at Maria.

For a moment there was a pause and then Maria said in a firm and resolute tone,

“Will you show the Marquis in?”

“No, Maria! No!” Gretna intervened only to be silenced by an almost imperious wave of Maria’s hand.