“I have no intention of leaving here,” Gretna answered. “I am happy – very happy, and Maria has been kinder to me than I would have believed possible. Why, she has given me everything – a home, lovely clothes, this very gown I have on. Can you imagine that I should be so ungrateful as to walk out just because someone arrives with what – they consider a better invitation?”

“I am not doubting Mistress Fitzherbert’s kindness to you,” the Marquis went on. “And any money she has expended on your behalf shall be repaid.”

“By whom?” Gretna asked quickly.

“I will repay it.”

“Do you imagine that she would accept – your money?” Gretna demanded. “Or that I would permit you to pay for my gowns? Really, my Lord, you take upon yourself – too much. After all I have only your word for it that you are my cousin – and, when it comes to it, that you are taking me to your grandmother and not to some little house in – Chelsea with a c-carriage of my own!”

“You are being childish and ridiculous,” the Marquis reposted angrily.

“And you are being – overbearing and insulting,” Gretna countered.

They stood glaring at each other and then the Marquis said with an obvious effort at self-control,

“This is absurd. You know as well as I do that my invitation from my grandmother is genuine. She would have written to you had I not been in such a hurry and her hands are often stiff with rheumatism in the early morning. If you insist, I will ride back to Richmond and obtain a formal letter inviting you to stay with her.”

“There is no need to put yourself about,” Gretna answered. “As I have already told you, I have no intention of leaving here and going to stay with your grandmother – or with anyone else.”

“I don’t want to say this,” the Marquis said almost between his teeth, “but you force it from me. This is not a proper or respectable house for an innocent girl. If you stay here with the Prince’s mistress, then you lay yourself open to insults and to aspersions on your character that you will find it hard to bear ands still harder to refute.”

He spoke slowly and in a manner that made his words seem even more weighty and overwhelming than they would have done if he had spoken in anger.

“You have no r-right to make – such a-assertions,” Gretna replied in a low voice.

“Unfortunately they are true,” the Marquis stressed.

Gretna turned towards the window and stood there for a moment looking out onto the trees in the square and the sunshine while the coaches moved slowly past.

After a moment she said,

“And suppose that the Prince is in reality married to Mistress Fitzherbert. Would you not then be ashamed of your w-words?”

“He is not married to her,” the Marquis asserted quietly.