I turned away. “Fine. Go ahead. Laugh. How do you think you would feel if a policeman told you that I’d been carrying on an affair behind your back? And he was enjoying telling me, too.”

He took my arm and turned me to face him. He was looking deadly serious now. “Georgie, we have no hope of a successful marriage if we can’t trust one another.”

“You’re right,” I said. “It’s just that everyone else seems to take bed-hopping for granted. Everybody in London has slept with everybody else, except me.”

He smiled at me, his eyes sparkling, and reached out a finger to stroke my cheek. “Poor little Georgie. So deprived. And now you’ll never get the chance, because I’m keeping you all to myself.”

“That’s fine with me as long as the same rules apply to you,” I said.

“Absolutely.”

“You really mean that?”

“I do.”

We stood there, looking at each other. Then I flung myself into his arms. “Oh, Darcy, I’ve been so miserable,” I said.

That was the last thing I said for a long time as his lips came down to meet mine. When we broke apart we were both rather breathless and I was looking a trifle disheveled.

“I can’t keep up this celibacy thing forever,” Darcy muttered. “I’ve a good mind to rip off your clothes right here and now and make love to you on that table.”

I laughed uneasily. “I wouldn’t mind,” I said, “but I’d hate to be interrupted, and I rather think it might not be appreciated in a place as hallowed as this.”

He smoothed back my hair. “I’m so tempted to suggest we run off to Gretna Green right now and get married and to hell with everything.”

“That would be fine with me too,” I said. “I’ve always told you that I’d be happy to live anywhere, as long as it was with you. But I can’t elope right now, not when the queen has charged me with looking after Princess Marina.” I looked nervously toward the doorway. “Speaking of which, I’d probably better go back to the palace. She’ll be wondering where I’ve got to.”

“Nonsense. She’ll understand. I think she’s a romantic, isn’t she?”

“I don’t know. I think she’s fairly realistic.”

“She’ll have to be, married to good old George,” Darcy said.

“You don’t think he’ll change once he’s married?”

“Probably not. Infidelity does seem to run in your family, apart from the king and queen.”

“And the Yorks. They are frightfully monogamous.”

“Yes, but you can’t see Bertie York flirting with sundry girls, can you? Not with his stutter.”

“That’s not kind,” I said. “He’s a really nice chap. And he adores his wife. So let him be a role model for you, young man.”