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Liz could only nod her agreement. ‘He’s awfully young.’

‘I don’t think he’s yet twenty.’

‘So he must be, what, fifteen, sixteen years younger than your sister?’

Georgiana nodded.

‘She’ll gobble him up.’

‘Either that or Bessborough will murder him.’

Liz smiled. ‘Darling, I don’t think he much cares anymore. Not after the awful debacle with the playwright.’

Georgiana shuddered. ‘Please don’t remind me. I still can scarcely believe that a man of Richard Brinsley Sheridan’s reputation would be so brutal as to expose a lady in such a way.’

Liz sighed. It had indeed been quite dreadful. Sheridan’s obsession with Henrietta had ensured that the whole of society knew about the affair, but it was entirely possible that Bess had planned it that way. Her husband had threatened to divorce her having found the couple in flagrante, so to speak, and it had taken the combined might of the Spencer and Cavendish families to persuade him such action would be suicidal to his reputation.

‘She needs another lover. Someone who will be kind to her and treasure her this time,’ Georgiana said, echoing Liz’s earlier thoughts.

‘Well, by the looks of him, Leveson-Gower will most definitely take her mind off her god-awful husband, that’s for sure.’

Georgiana laughed softly. ‘He would.’ The laugh subsided. ‘She must proceed with caution. Her husband is a cruel man and if she finds herself…’ Georgiana looked away, tears shimmering in her eyes.

‘Shhh love,’ Liz murmured. ‘I’m sure she’ll take the greatest care to prevent anything happening.’

Georgiana nodded and rubbed at her eye, making it red. ‘I should have lied, shouldn’t I?’

‘What?’ Liz frowned.

‘I should have told William that the child was his. Should never have confessed Charles Grey was the father. He could never have proved it, and then I could have kept her with me. Kept her safe. We could have brought her up as ours.’ She dashed at the tears on her cheeks. ‘I thought I was being terribly bold. I wanted to hurt him in the same way that he hurt me. He was so cold, so cruel when we married… I wanted to hurt him back.’ Liz took her hand as Georgiana turned agonised eyes to her. ‘But it is Eliza who will suffer, isn’t it?’ Liz squeezed her hands. There was no reply to that.

Chapter 3

HARYO

Devonshire House, London

‘Haryo, can’t you make him stop?’

Lady Harriet Cavendish looked at her older sister, Gee, and shrugged before turning her gaze back to her little brother, who was screaming and slamming his toy soldiers around with the fierce fury that only a three-year-old can muster. William, or Hart as everyone called him because he was the Marquess of Hartington, was always crying. He cried at the least thing.

‘How do I make him stop, Gee? You know what he’s like.’

Gee rolled her eyes and put down her stitching. ‘I’ll see if I can find Miss Trimmer. She might take him away.’

She left the room, so Haryo sat down beside her brother.

‘What is it, Hart?’ she asked, although she had a good idea what the problem was.

‘Mama gone,’ Hart wailed.

Haryo rubbed her eyes. Hart was only little, so it was to be expected that he cried when he was sad. She was a big girl. She was nine, and Miss Trimmer said that was far too old to go around crying for her mama, so she didn’t. She pushed all her tears inside and only let them out when no-one was about to see them, but sometimes when Hart cried so pitifully, so inconsolably, her tears threatened to leak out.

Haryo picked her little brother up and put him on her lap. Taking him in her arms, she tried to console him, but he wriggled away, threw himself on the floor and buried his face in his arms and wept. Haryo was afraid if he didn’t stop soon, she would weep with him. She wished Gee would hurry up and come back with Miss Trimmer. Miss Trimmer looked after them all and made sure they said their prayers, but she wasn’t Mama. Mama was the one who played with them, made them laugh, sang to them, and loved them.

Haryo’s chin wobbled as she tried to remember the special smell Mama had and couldn’t.

‘Hart, please stop crying. Please.’