Ever since Drogo could remember, the parties at Cotillion had been planned around the love affairs of his mother’s guests. He could not remember how old he was when he first realised that his mother too had special friends who, for the time being at any rate, made Cotillion their home. There had always been someone like Harry to squire her, when she went driving in her carriage, to partner her at bridge in the evening, to flatter and soothe her and to fetch and carry for her ceaselessly.
Emily had taken it as a matter of course that Drogo should have love affairs and that his favourite of the moment should be invited to every party until the urgency of it was over and the lady of the moment was replaced by another.
There had been many women in Drogo’s life, some approved by his mother an
