The man rose slowly to his feet.
“I will try to carry out your commands,” he said in a drawling tone, “but don’t be too long. You know Lord Hubbard dislikes me.”
“He would not say so to me.”
There was an expression in the Marchioness’s eyes as she spoke that made Nolita draw in her breath.
She could not explain it, but she knew instinctively that it was the look a woman gave to a man she was interested in or with whom she was flirting.
‘Surely,’ she told herself, ‘the Marchioness is too old?’
Yet why was she painted in that strange manner? And who was the gentleman called Esmond?
He turned round to walk towards the door and as he did so he passed Nolita.
As she looked at him, to her astonishment she saw him wink.
She could hardly believe that she had not been mistaken, but she was
