“But, Mama, I have friends here. There is Aunt Maria and dear Mrs. Merryweather at the farm.”
Lady Rosemary had smiled but had not troubled to explain further. But as she had grown older still, Gretna had known what she meant. There was no one in the tiny village with whom she could really be a playmate.
But there had always been ‘Aunt Maria’. Gretna thought of her now and felt her heart quicken with excitement. The beautiful exciting Maria Fitzherbert, whom she loved and who she knew loved her.
*
At any moment now the carriage would be drawing up at her front door in Park Street.
She bent forward. Already the afternoon was drawing on.
The stagecoach had been unconscionably slow doing the thirty miles to London, stopping at Posting inn after Posting inn and threading its way through
