“And what about Mistress Jenkins?” Gretna asked.

“Oh, her! She just ratted on Julien as most ladies of that profession are wont to do when things go wrong.”

“Do you mean she would not accompany him?”

“She not only refused to do so but found another protector within a week of his departure.”

“How despicable!” Gretna cried indignantly.

“Well, the story is that Julien was extremely hipped by her behaviour. Anyway she said some low-down things about him and one of Julien’s friends made a fine dust-up about it. Not that she cared. Buckmaster is as rich as blazes and has now set her up in rare style, I can tell you that.”

“Better than the Marquis – did?” Gretna asked.

“Oh, better by far, but then Julien never did do her over-proud. That is what makes me think that he was not so much enamoured as everybody believed. If you ask me, it was his pride that was hurt more than his heart, if Julien has a heart, which I very much doubt.”

“Why do you say that?” Gretna enquired.

“He’s a cynical chap, isn’t he? Told me only on Saturday that love was an idiocy only really believed in by beardless youths and drunken men.”

Gretna felt her fingers tighten against each other.

“Did he really say that?” she asked him, conscious of a quiver of pain in her heart.

“Oh, he said it right enough with a sneer in his voice and a smile on his lips. I told him there was never such a fellow for trying to cast a damper. But he let me have the horses, which was what I wanted.”

There was silence as they rounded Hyde Park Corner and drove into the Park. Then, in a voice that sounded faint and weak even to her own ears, Gretna asked,

“Did – he mention – me?”

“Now I come to think of it, I don’t believe he did,” Sir Harry replied cheerily. “Well, that shows you cannot be too badly in his black books because, if he disapproved of you, Julien would have told me pretty forcibly not to make a fool of myself where you are concerned. He has done it often enough before.”

It was cold comfort, but Gretna tried to make the best of it.

They rounded Hyde Park twice and were drawn up in Rotten Row beside the carriage that held Lady Clairmont, who was known to be a close friend of Marie Antoinette and the Duke of Orleans, when another carriage came up beside them.

“And what are you doing with Stade’s chestnuts, Harry?” a voice asked silkily.

Gretna turned quickly and then put her hand on Sir Harry’s arm.

“Let’s go on,” she said in a whisper, but he did not hear her.

“I have just bought them,” he replied proudly and Lord Wroxhall, pulling his own pair to a standstill, said approvingly,