They never ate until after dinner in the dining room was finished and, as Alyna crept lower and lower down the stairs, moving as silently as a shadow, she could hear their voices and their laughter far away below her.

There was a door at the back of the house that led to the Mews. She unbolted it, pulled it open and stepped out into a dark passage.

It was almost impossible to see, but she knew the way well. She crept along with her fingers on the wall until she reached the stables.

As her mother was using the Prince’s carriage, Alyna had anticipated that the grooms would have gone off duty.

She was not mistaken.

There were only the two carriage horses in the stable, otherwise the place was empty.

By the light of a lantern, Alyna found the door leading into the Mews and pulled it open.

Just for a moment she thought that Lord Dorrington had failed her, but then a little to the left of where she was standing, she saw a coach without a Coat of Arms on its panel.

She ran towards it.

As she did so, a footman, who must have been standing in the shadow of the stables, came quickly forward to open the door.

Alyna jumped in.

Then both her hands were in Lord Dorrington’s and she was crying wildly.

“I am here! I have escaped! I am free!”

Chapter Four

Lord Dorrington, after leaving the Foreign Office, proceeded to White’s Club, where he had arranged to have luncheon with Lord Alvanley.

He found his Lordship seated at a round table with Lord Yarmouth, Lord Worcester and Beau Brummel.

As Lord Dorrington approached, George Brummel looked at him with an appraising eye until he noticed the diamond pin in his cravat.

“I am dazzled, Dorrington!” he said sarcastically, putting his fingers up to his eyes.

Lord Dorrington smiled.

“I know!” he exclaimed, “‘no jewellery’ is one of your most famous axioms and it is in fact engraved on my heart!”

“Never knew you had one!” Lord Worcester interposed.

“It has been a debatable point for years,” Lord Dorrington replied, “but Brummel and I do not parade our vacillating organs, bruised and bleeding, before the public like you and our host of yester eve.”

“Dammit! It is the outside of enough to compare me with Prinny!” Lord Worcester exclaimed resentfully. “I don’t take laudanum or have myself bled incessantly for any female!”

He was referring to the frenzied way the Prince of Wales had been behaving since he was pleading with Mrs. Fitzherbert to return to him.

“I should hope none of us would make such a cake of ourselves!” Lord Alvanley exclaimed positively.

“Let’s hear why Dorrington is bedecked like a Nabob,” Beau Brummel suggested.

He was as usual dressed quietly and unobtrusively, but with an elegance that was indescribable.