‘Mr Savill,’ I stated softly, ‘I fear I am taken ill. I am . . . I wish to return at once to my lodgings. Pray, sir, do call out to your driver. At once.’

But the Irishman did not move. Instead, he beamed at me.

‘My dear Lady Allenham . . .’ Then he laughed, shaking his head.

‘Do not mock me, sir,’ I snapped. ‘I shall have a fit if you do not return me at once.’

How could I have deceived myself as to the designs of this scoundrel? I had scented the high note of duplicity upon his person, but I had believed the stink to emanate from his sham connections and embellished tales. I had believed this coxcomb to be no more than a harmless fibbing flea whose vanity had blinded him to my own fraudulence. I was as furious with myself as I was with him.

I took hold of the window and pushed it down before crying out to the driver that we were to return to the Hôtel l’Impératrice. When I resumed my seat, I found Savill reclining with folded arms.

‘I do believe you have at last betrayed yourself, madam,’ he announced.

I threw him a vexed look.

‘I cannot think what you mean by that, sir.’

Savill gave a sniff.

‘You are no more the wife of the Baron Allenham than am I. From the instant I laid eyes upon you in your ramshackle remise it was apparent to me what was your manner of life. You think yourself capable of aping the conduct of a virtuous wife merely by disguising your décolletage beneath a fichu?’ He waved his hand over the gauze at my breast and laughed. ‘No, madam, it is in your comportment. It is in your air. You have been so long in the company of demi-mondaines that they have left their indelible mark upon your conduct. You forget yourself. No lady of character would venture upon the road in a hired coach with no more than a maid to assist her. Not a single acquaintance of yours resides at Paris? Not a cousin of your husband’s, not a friend of title from London of either sex? Hey? Why, it seems you are possessed of no society whatsoever but that of your lord,’ he said. ‘Why, is there a Lord Allenham, my lady? I dare say, if there is, he has jilted you.’

I clenched my jaw as I withstood his battery of insults.

‘You abuse me, sir!’ I railed at him. ‘In all my life I have never been so ill used as this!’

The hateful rascal merely sighed.