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As soon as they reached the mews where he stabled his horses and curricle, the grooms came out.

Drew tied off the reins as they managed the horses, jumped down and walked about the vehicle to help Mary.

She had already lifted her dress and carefully climbed down.

He took her bag out from beneath the seat and set it at her feet, then walked on to speak to his horses. He slapped Athena’s flank lightly. It was good to have his horses back. He’d always found solace in them. He rubbed the animals’ cheeks. They nuzzled his shoulders, snorting against his ears. Saying they were pleased to see him too. He rested his forehead against Hera’s bent head, whispering his gratitude. ‘I shall never lose you now.’

He smiled at the groom who began unharnessing them. The man tugged his forelock.

When Drew turned back to Mary, emotions exploded in his chest. He smothered the fireworks that would have had him lifting her off her feet and swinging her around, because she clutched her bag like a weapon, anger glinting in her eyes.

He held out his hand to take the bag.

‘I will carry it,’ she said.

He ought let her, just to spite her. Instead, he gripped the handle and pulled it from her. Fortunately, she did not embarrass them both by fighting for it.

He offered his free arm to her.

She lay her fingers on it but in the same dispassionate way she had at the church.

At the street corner they waited for a street sweep to clear a path and when they reached the other side Drew gave the boy a ha’penny.

‘Good-day, m’lud.’ The boy tilted his cap. ‘An dun’t forget, if y’ur needing y’ur boots cleaned, I’m y’ur man.’ He was not a man, he looked barely ten, but Drew had always liked these boys. He bought them bread when he could, and soup when the weather was cold, and he’d stand and listen to their tall tales occasionally.

Mary’s fingers slipped off his arm as it lifted to tip his hat. He smiled. ‘Good-day, Timmy, lad. When I have a task, I will let you know.’

Mary’s expression turned odd. As though she saw that he was not the evil bastard her family portrayed.

Perhaps he should ignore the boys in her presence in future. He had no wish to improve her ill-informed image of him. He breathed away that contrary thought. He would never keep her if he did not learn to control his temper.

The entrance to his apartment was a hundred yards from the corner. He knocked on the door, it opened almost immediately.

‘Lord Framlington.’

Drew nodded at the doorman who gave him a formal bow.

‘This is my wife,’ Drew stated, looking from Joseph to Mary. ‘This is Mr Moore, Mary, our doorman. He is the man to call upon if you need anything. Literally anything .’

‘My Lady.’ Joseph hid his surprise well and bowed deeply. ‘As his Lordship says, if there is aught you need, ask.’

Mary became the woman Drew had seen in the ballrooms, smiling and thanking the man with inherent grace.

Drew turned to the staircase and encouraged her to walk ahead. It left him with a view of her swaying bottom as he followed three steps behind.

The hallway was narrow, tiled with red and black polished diamond shapes and the stairs simple waxed oak.

Eyes wide, Mary took in all the details of her coming down in life.

If she had tried to picture his home, he doubted she had pictured this.

She stopped on the top stair, waiting for him.

Passing her, he went to his front door, one door along, put her bag down, withdrew the key from his pocket and unlocked the door. It swung open. She entered as he picked up her bag.

She walked to the hearth rug, her gaze spinning all about the square parlour.

He had a table, set to one side, which seated six. The other half of the room contained five armchairs at various angles, a games table, set for backgammon, a writing desk and a couple of other functional pieces of furniture. The room was extremely sparse, with Pembroke’s house as comparison. There were no ornaments, or decorations. The walls were pure green, nothing flamboyant. Everything he owned was for a purpose.

Her expression said she found it lacking.

He carried her bag into his bedchamber and put it on the bed. When he turned, she’d followed.

‘See, no notches.’ It was spiteful but he could not help it, defensiveness ran in his blood. Her lack of belief, the rejection of his love, was cutting at him.

He sighed.

She looked as if she’d been thrown into a lake and told to swim when she did not know how.

A wave of love washed over him, regardless of the feelings of betrayal warring in his chest.

He wished to take a hold of her and tell her gently not to be so foolish. To convince her of the truth. But she had made him a coward now. He was too afraid of more rejections. The kiss she had turned away from had left its scar.

Yet this was all strange to her, he did know that.

More sympathetically, he said, ‘The dressing room is through there. There is space there for one personal servant, but I have none. These are my rooms, the sitting room and this bedchamber. I buy in meals or eat out, at a friend’s or at my club.’ Of course she could not join him at his gentleman’s club. It was also a gentleman’s apartment block, though. The only females who usually called here were paid. Mary would probably die of mortification if she happened to see one of those women.

‘There are people below-stairs who will do laundry and such like, and a maid who cleans weekly and attends to the grates in winter. I do not expect you to keep house for me. If you need anything, just ring.’ He pointed to the bell pull. ‘The kitchens here can bring up hot water too.’

‘What will we do for dinner tonight?’ Her skin had paled. She looked… shocked.

He smiled. ‘I know a place that sells magnificent pies, I shall send someone.’

‘We purchased a picnic once from Gunter’s tea shop…’ she said, trying to sound cheerier, ‘and took it to Green Park.’

It was not a good sign that she was reduced to small talk.

His hands hung by his sides – helpless.

A knock struck the door.

Glad of an excuse, Drew walked back and opened it.

It was Joseph. ‘Lady Framlington’s articles have arrived.’

Behind Joseph a man in Pembroke’s livery carried a small trunk. Behind him two more men bore a much larger one.

‘There are another two trunks the size of the second, my Lord,’ Joseph said.

Joseph had recognised Mary’s wealth, and also that Drew’s rooms were not large enough to accommodate it.

Drew grimaced. The doorman smiled.

Ignoring him, Drew stepped back, holding the door for Pembroke’s men. When they entered, he pointed them to the open bedroom door. ‘Stack them in there, against the walls and the end of the bed, if you can.’

Drew stayed by the door, as they brought up the rest.

Mary wandered about the sitting room, her fingertips trailing over his furniture, as though she expected to miraculously discover something more than the poor man’s home she was standing in.

He wanted to know what she thought but he would not ask. I really have become a coward.

The men did not look at him, nod, or show any deference. Mary must be well liked in Pembroke’s household and Drew had become the villain even in the servants’ quarters.

Mary looked out the window. It did not look onto the street, but down onto the courtyard where the maids hung the laundry at the rear of the building. There were usually strings of sheets, shirts and men’s underclothes out there – another embarrassment for her.

He stepped out of the way of the men bearing the last trunk.

Footsteps hit the stairs. David Martins came up, Drew’s neighbour to the right. He grinned at Drew, looked into the room and saw Mary. ‘You have a guest?’

‘I have a wife.’

‘Pretty…’

Resenting his neighbour’s intrusive stare, Drew braced his hand on the doorframe, blocking David’s view.

‘We’re very happy,’ Drew said, answering an unasked question.

‘And very rich, I suppose,’ David said. ‘I saw the trunks.’

‘Enough to get out of here,’ Drew responded, his pitch growing colder. ‘Now if you will excuse these men,’ he finished, letting Pembroke’s men walk past.

David lifted his hat and smiled.

Drew shut the door.

‘M’lud!’ a man shouted through the door.

Drew opened it. Another of Pembroke’s men stood there with a small, portable writing desk in his hands and a folding mirror tucked under his arm. The writing desk, Drew told the man to place on the table in the sitting room. The mirror, he had him put on the chest of drawers in the bedchamber.

Drew reached into his pocket to give the man pennies for them all.

He looked at Drew as though the coins were an insult. ‘We do not want y’ur money, m’lud.’

Was there any greater insult than to be snubbed by servants?

A measure of guilt stirred in Drew’s gut. It was not normally an emotion he felt. It made it harder to know what to say to her when he shut the door.

When she did not turn, he went to her, stood behind her, and held either side of her waist.

Not a single muscle yielded to his touch. Instead, her arms crossed over her chest.

‘I love you,’ he said to her hair. ‘As I said, we will move from here as quickly as possible. I will look for an estate as soon as I have the chance.’

He stroked her hair aside and kissed the curve of her neck where it turned to her shoulder.

Her muscle flinched, and then she spun to face him, her eyes saying, do not touch me.

His simmering anger boiled. ‘You were happy for my hands to be all over you the night before last, Mary! You said you loved me! I love you!’ He glared at her. He’d never been good at holding back his anger. He wanted her love. That was all he asked for. ‘But if I am nothing to you, then I want nothing from you…’ He turned away, refusing to shout any more, or be judged badly any more. He picked up his hat and gloves. ‘I am going out.’ He walked from the room and slammed the door behind him.