She could almost see the words trembling on some fashionable lady’s lips and then being bitten back and Gretna wondered if anyone did ask her what was the truth, what she would say. For she had no idea herself whether they were married or not married.
It seemed impossible that Maria Fitzherbert should allow herself to become the butt of coarse jokes, to be depicted in lampoons and to lay herself open to the insults that she invariably suffered from time to time if she was not sustained and fortified by the secret knowledge that she was really the legal wife of the man she loved.
And the Prince treated her always with a delicate deference that in itself appeared to be a recognition of her unique position. His good manners were proverbial, it was not for nothing that people spoke of him as
