‘How dare you …’ Lady Elstead blushed to the roots of her hair.

‘I asked a simple question. Your face answers me. You are wrong.’

‘You cannot have any …’

‘Idea? Oh, you see, I have more than an idea. Do you think that nobody watched you and Augusta fight for the man? It was not edifying, but it was certainly entertaining, and you won, more by default, but you won.’

‘I refuse to listen to this.’ Lady Elstead stood, wavered, and sat down again.

‘No, it is just that you prefer not to do so. You need to know, Maria, that you have built a past based upon rumour and guesses, and it is erroneous. You may even have been torturing yourself through over a quarter century of marriage, since I doubt you ever voiced your “belief” to Elstead, poor man, for him to deny. What happened at Ranelagh Gardens that night, and you know which night, was not as you have assumed.’

‘She would have done anything to entrap him,’ hissed Lady Elstead, remembering.

‘That I do not deny. The fact is, however, that she did not do anything, or rather not the “something” you have always thought. She had an assignation with Elstead, except Elstead never knew of it. She committed the folly of telling her sister how she was going to meet Elstead and persuade him to run away with her, and Sophia was ever a tale-teller. She told “Papa”, who had the note intercepted, and it was her brother whom she encountered in that secluded bower. I doubt it was a very pleasant interview, but then Vere Paulton was not a nice man at the best of times. From what happened thereafter it is safe to assume that he informed her that she would not be marrying Elstead, who was not the family’s choice, but the heir to her papa’s friend Pirbright.’

‘She would not have agreed.’

‘I doubt very much she had a say in the matter. She was what, sixteen? Seventeen at the most.’

‘But I saw her, saw her with her hair dishevelled and down her back, and her brother dragging her away so roughly that she stumbled and he pulled her along the ground.’

‘As I said, Vere was not a nice man, not at all. He probably enjoyed every minute. He was also, like his little sister Sophia, not one to keep a secret. A couple of bottles of claret and … I am not proud that my brother accounted himself his friend, but he did. When the rumour started about her first child, and I always wonder if it was you yourself who started it, my brother Ludovic let slip that it was all a hum.’

‘But Martley, as he is now, was early.’

‘He came promptly, I grant you.’

‘He came early. They had scarce been married eight months, and by licence not banns, remember, within a week of Ranelagh.’