She was listening to him wide-eyed and he went on,
“I have been told the story a hundred times about the Ambassador who found it impossible to find his own room and slept on a sofa only to be accused by a nosey chambermaid the next day of having been too drunk to find his way to bed!”
Lady Mentmore had indeed heard the story before but she giggled attractively and the Marquis had felt that he would definitely enjoy kissing her rosebud lips.
It seemed a long time before the party ended and the Queen and her guests retired to bed.
The Marquis was installed in the oldest part of Windsor Castle.
The walls were thick and the passages narrow, where nothing said was likely to be overheard.
At one o’clock in the morning, as had been arranged with her, he found his way back to the landing and
