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judge.’
    Her sad face broke into a watery smile, ‘Which means, I think, that you do not like them.’
    Because Cobie thought that, like him, she didn’t, he murmured, truthfully for once, ‘Admiring scenes of carnage is not one of my favourite occupations, Lady Heneage.’
    She took his point, and nodded slowly, saying, ‘You have a way with words, Mr Grant. I have been listening to you. Do you admire my diamonds more? I hear that you have been investing in them.’
    Neither was she a fool, although many thought her so.
    â€˜A Heneage heirloom, I understand. Always owned and worn by the current Lady Heneage. They are extremely beautiful, without a flaw. If they were to come upon themarket I think that the price they would fetch would be little less than astronomical.’
    She made a savage gesture with her hand. ‘That is nothing to me. They are a brand I wear, nothing more. A millstone around my neck, Mr Grant. I wish them at the bottom of the sea. Do I shock you?’
    He pitied her.
    There was something so forlorn and lost about her. Her husband was busy chasing someone else’s wife—perhaps his own—whilst his wife, whose fortune gossip said that he had thrown away on the gaming tables, walked alone and unhappy.
    â€˜No,’ he said gently. ‘But I should tell you that very little does.’
    â€˜I thought not. Look after your wife, Mr Grant. Protect her from the wolves—which you are well able to do, being one yourself. You see I am being frank with you. I was once like her, until I married. Leave me, please. I grow maudlin. I know that you will say nothing of this to my husband. He dislikes you intensely. Perhaps that is why I like you. What he dislikes must be worth knowing.’
    Cobie took the hand which lay lax at her side, lifted it and kissed it. ‘To say that you have my deepest sympathy would be presumptuous, Lady Heneage. I thank you for your interest in my wife. If there is ever anything I can do for you…’
    She interrupted him. ‘No one can do anything for me. I married him with, as I then thought, my eyes open. But a young woman’s knowledge of life is limited. One pays for that, Mr Grant, more bitterly than one deserves.’
    Oh, yes, he knew that to be true, none better. He thought of the dreadful price which he had once paid for innocence, and pitied her the more. He said nothing further, merely bowed again, and left her staring at the holocaust of damaged beauty which gathered dust upon the walls of a little-visited room.
    The Prince was one of the bankers at baccarat, Cobie found when he returned to the drawing room. He was using his own cards and counters fashioned from red leather with his Prince of Wales feathers on one side and the denomination on the other. The counters were worth from five shillings to ten pounds. The game was played as solemnly as though they were at a casino—to the shock of some of the party who were strait-laced.
    Sir Ratcliffe was winning consistently. His luck was in these days, he proclaimed jovially. He had backed the favourite that afternoon and it had romped home. He helped Susanna, who sat beside him, and who had never played before. She won quite a large sum, too.
    Cobie, watching him carefully, was not sure how much luck had to do with it, but never mind, he thought that Sir Ratcliffe’s luck was soon going to change for the worse in other areas of his life.
    The Prince called him into the game. Lady Heneage came to sit by him, to be advised as her husband was advising Susanna. Dinah had refused to play. ‘You don’t mind, do you?’ she had asked him earlier. ‘But I find it tedious.’
    Cobie found it tedious, too, but had his reasons for playing. One of them being that watching Sir Ratcliffe carefully seemed reasonable when he was part of the game. He won a little himself. Lady Heneage won more until she announced that she was tired and needed an