She doesn’t want safe, but she’s not sure she is brave enough for danger either.

Philip isn’t safe.

He’s not doing anything threatening. He’s just standing there with a glass of whisky in his hand but still she feels as if she is teetering on the edge of some precipice, half fearful, half tempted to step out into the unknown.

It’s not like her to be fanciful, but something about Philip leaves her feeling spooked, edgy as a young colt, beneath that icy blue gaze.

And more alive than she has ever felt before.

‘Have you known Porchey a long time?’ he asks and she could almost swear that he is jealous.

‘Since we were children. We both love riding, and racing. We can talk about bloodstock lines for hours. We’d both rather be in the stables than at a party.’

‘Maybe the parties you’ve been to haven’t been enough fun.’

Elizabeth’s eyes slide from his. ‘Maybe.’

‘I was glad of your letters,’ Philip says abruptly.

‘Oh … good. I’m afraid they must have been very boring.’

‘Not at all.’

He’s being polite, Elizabeth thinks and when she risks a glance at his face again, she is sure of it. His expression is carefully neutral. What else can he say, after all? How could he possibly have been interested in anything she had to say?

‘We don’t have a very exciting life here so there’s not much to talk about,’ she says to show him that she understands. ‘Lessons. Riding. Walking the dogs. Sometimes we invite the officers to lunch, and Papa and Mummy come back at weekends, which is nice but … well, it’s very tame compared to what you’ve been doing.’

Chapter 6

Tame? It sounds unbelievably tedious to Philip. Her letters have indeed been very bland, but for the first time he thinks about what life must be like for her, trapped in the castle for the duration of the war, surrounded by over-protective servants determined to keep her safe and stop her from having any fun at all. Entertaining officers for lunch seems to be the social highlight. If they are all as stuffy as the young Lord Porchester, it must be deadly, Philip thinks.

He hasn’t taken to Porchey. There was something damned proprietorial about the way the younger man had been standing next to Elizabeth. Philip doesn’t care for the easy way she and Porchey were talking when he came in. The first thing he saw was her unshadowed smile and it gave him, not a shock exactly … Philip struggles to explain it to himself. It had been the tiniest of checks, an unexpected jump in his breath, that was all.

Her smile dropped when she saw him. He didn’t like that either.

He wants Elizabeth to smile at him the way she smiles at Porchey.

It occurs to Philip that he may have to work a little harder than he thought. ‘I was very glad to hear from you, whatever you wrote about,’ he says. ‘And your parcels were always welcome.’