As he spoke, he stepped forward and before she could move he put his arms round her.

She struggled desperately, but he was so much bigger and stronger that she had no chance.

She heard him chuckle as she fought frenziedly against his encircling arms. Then suddenly he held her so close against him that the breath seemed almost to be squeezed from her body.

“So small, so ineffective!” he sneered mockingly.

Then his fingers were beneath her chin and he tipped back her head.

Just for a moment she looked up into his eyes and realised that they were blazing with the same fiery passion that had frightened her once before.

She tried to scream, but it was too late.

His mouth was on hers and now as he kissed her she knew a horror greater than anything she had ever imagined! He dragged her down into a slimy degradation that she had not realised existed.

He kissed her brutally, lustfully and lewdly until she could not breathe and she felt that she must faint.

Then he lifted his lips from hers and said in a voice hoarse with passion,

“Why should we wait? I will make certain that you belong to me and that you can no longer defy me!”

He picked her up in his arms and she screamed. But as she did so felt that her voice was lost in the wilderness of the trees from which there could come no help.

“Let me – go! Let me – go!” she shrieked.

She realised that the Prince was carrying her away from the footpath into the shadows of a low hanging tree.

He set her down on the soft mossy ground, and as she struggled feverishly to rise to her feet he threw himself on top of her.

She felt the weight of his body and screamed again. Then his mouth was on hers and she felt him pulling at the soft muslin of her new gown where it covered her breasts.

His lips seemed to suffocate her. But, as she knew with a horror that was almost beyond thought or feeling that she was lost and that he would in fact ravish her, she suddenly felt the Prince raised violently from off her body.

“Get up, you swine!” a furious voice ejaculated.

Chapter Six

Lord Dorrington, having taken his usual ride in Hyde Park and eaten an excellent breakfast, had bathed and changed his clothes with the slow precision of a man who does not intend to hurry.

Finally, dressed dazzlingly in a new coat on which his tailor had spent an inordinate number of hours to achieve perfection, he came downstairs to attend to his correspondence.

He also dealt with some matters appertaining to his estate in the country that his secretary wished to consult him on.

He then drove his high-perch phaeton the short distance to number 4 Chesterfield Street where George Brummel lived.