After explaining to David Mellanby precisely what happened on the night of Sir Roger’s murder, Paul Skillen decided to ride back to his house. He wished to see how Hannah was coping with their guest. On the previous day, he’d come home to find the two of them singing together while Hannah played the piano. Such a harmonious welcome couldn’t be relied upon. He knew that Dorothea Glenn was shuttling between hope and despair all the time, praying that the man stabbed in the alleyway was not Orsino Price, then realising that the victim must have been him and that he’d gone to his grave after deluding her with empty promises. He hoped that she hadn’t lapsed back into desolation. In the event, Paul arrived to find Hannah alone in the drawing room. As soon as he entered, she leapt up and flung her arms around him.

‘Thank goodness!’ she exclaimed.

‘What’s wrong?’

‘I just wish you could have been here to protect me.’

He was alarmed. ‘Has someone threatened you?’

‘It certainly felt like a threat,’ said Hannah. ‘I was reading alone in here when I had a visitor. It was a messenger sent from Brighton Palace with another invitation from the Prince Regent. This one was different.’

‘In what way?’ he asked.

‘The messenger had to take my reply back to Brighton. He more or less stood over me while I wrote it.’

‘That’s intolerable.’

‘Don’t take me literally, Paul. I made him wait outside while I agonised over what I was going to say.’

‘I thought we’d agreed that we’d go to Brighton Pavilion together?’

‘My hand was shaking so much that I couldn’t trust it to write properly.’

‘I’m not surprised, Hannah. You were being bullied.’

‘That’s why I needed you here to shield me.’

‘What did the Prince Regent’s invitation actually say?’

‘I’ll show you.’

Hannah picked up the letter from the side table and handed it to him. Paul read it with an amalgam of interest and annoyance. The hand was flowery, the stationery perfumed and the sentiments expressed made him snort with repugnance.

‘He doesn’t leave much to the imagination, does he?’

‘That’s just his way of expressing his admiration.’

‘This is not an invitation,’ said Paul, ‘it’s a demand couched in colourful language. If I’d been here, I’d have urged you to refuse to go anywhere near him.’

‘One can’t spurn royalty, Paul.’

‘I can – without any effort at all.’

‘I’m afraid that I’d be made to pay.’

‘They stopped exiling people to desert islands years ago, Hannah. The simple fact is that you were coerced and that’s not gentlemanly, to say the very least.’

‘Hold me tight.’

He hugged her close for minutes, then eased her onto the sofa, sitting beside her in the process. Hannah was no longer shivering. His return had soothed her.