“Not to my knowledge. I would have done so this week if I had not received your letter telling me that you would be alone.”
“Yes, alone, dearest, except for you, and I know how wonderful it will be!”
The Marquis smiled at her, then said briskly,
“I really must go. I shall be late anyway, which is a mistake!”
“Where are you going?” Lady Carstairs enquired curiously.
“To the Palace,” the Marquis replied. “But I have to see Russell first in Downing Street to inform him that I am now completely eligible to be Master of the Horse.”
He did not wait for Lady Carstairs’s answer, but went from the room before her clinging hands could delay him.
As he walked down the stairs, he thought with satisfaction that the interview had passed off much less uncomfortably than he had anticipated.
He was
