sighed, and looked at me, his gaze softening. “But I would have loved to have seen your face when you saw it for yourself. I have a yacht. I thought we might set sail for Leghorn. A good long journey and no one can come near us. Just us for a week or two. Does that appeal to you?”

I caught my breath. “Oh yes.”

We lost a few moments then, as he kissed me more passionately than before. “I may at last have the chance to show you exactly how much I love you. With time, and only ourselves, it might just be possible.”

“You said once you’d like to take me to Venice.”

“I haven’t forgotten. I will take you there one day. You’ll like it.”

“With you, even the Exeter Assembly Rooms are bearable.”

He laughed and kissed me lightly again. “Do you feel better now? We should get back.”

“Much better. I was too hot, that’s all.”

He stood up and helped me to my feet. “And one more thing,” I said.

“Yes, my sweet life?”

“Will you leave Eustacia Terry alone now? I saw Lord Thwaite’s face when she made that pass with her fan. What on earth did she say?”

“Well she thought she said ‘I like you’, but in fact, she said, ‘Come to my bed tonight’ or something a little more risqué.”

“Richard!”

“Rose! But there’s no harm done.” He shrugged. “But you see I owed Freddy too, and to see his face—” He broke off, laughing.

“So she’ll be doing that for the next six months?”

“No. I said I’d meet her in the first of these rooms. I’m certain she thought of it as an assignation, and a chance to spite you. But there will be other people there by now, and I’ll tell her she hadn’t got that pass with her fan quite right, and change it into something more innocent. She’s probably waiting there now. Your pleas prevailed, you see, sweetheart. I was going to cut her dead tonight and kill her prospects for some time to come, but I didn’t want to spoil your evening. The fan trick will do, although it doesn’t go far enough to pay for the insults she has dealt you over the years.”

A sneeze came from behind the heavily draped window behind our sofa.

Richard strode across the room and tore back the drapes. Miss Terry sat in the alcove, pale with shock, her eyes bright with tears.

“Really!” said Richard, exasperated. “I said the first door, not the last!”

He would have left her there, but I took her arm and made her sit on the sofa we had just vacated. She glared at Richard, but said nothing. I sat next to her. “I told you to take care. He can be far more dangerous than this.”

Her regard went to me, wondering, speculative. “He loves you?”

“Why else would I seek to break a perfectly serviceable marriage contract with someone else?” Richard snapped. He picked up the half glass of wine he had abandoned on the side table. “You had better drink this. You can’t go back like that.”

Eustacia was crying properly now, tears falling unhindered down her face. She shook her head, but I took the glass from Richard and made her hold it. “Indeed you should, Eustacia. It will help you restore yourself.”

The liquid shook in the glass. “I can’t face them in there. Not after—the fan—”

“Oh you can carry that off.” Richard’s face was tight and hard. He was exasperated with her, but he was trying hard to keep his temper. “No one will mention it again, and my friends will be gone soon enough.” His face cleared and he smiled. “But to see the look on Freddy’s face!” He saw my frown, but wasn’t contrite. “Oh, it was two birds with one stone, my sweet. I owed him for a small trick he played on me in town.”

Miss Terry looked up at me, her eyes still misty but a new expression settling on her face, one I was familiar with. Calculation. “Miss Golightly, he said—you said—two days…”

“Dear God, couldn’t you at least pretend you hadn’t heard that part? Have you no discretion?”

She studied him for the first time, never having seen him like this, irritated and angry. “You sat in front of me and I couldn’t avoid hearing it.”

Richard threw up his hands in exasperation and went to the cold fire. He put his hands on the mantelpiece for a minute or two, gripping it until his knuckles turned white.

Richard found it difficult to share his feelings and kept his private life fiercely close. He hated any intrusion into his private world where only his brother and I had places. This might put him over the edge; drive him to take the vicious retaliation I’d pleaded with him to forgo.

Miss Terry turned questioningly to me. She sat up straighter, and I could see her regaining her self-control, her mind beginning to whirr again. “I feel I should inform Lady Hareton of this. My mama would never allow—”

I prayed he wouldn’t turn around. “So what is Martha going to do?” I said. “Make us marry? Eustacia, it isn’t unusual, you must know that, and you know more than you should about our feelings for each other.”

Miss Terry caught her bottom lip between her teeth, as she saw the truth of this. “Mama says men don’t marry their mistresses.”

Richard spun around, the heavy skirts of his dress coat swirling around him. His eyes rivalled the diamond at his throat, glittering icily as he glared at her; his pose, his attitude, everything displayed the offended aristocrat. There was no way through that hard