“You make it very difficult for me not to bully you. I want only to protect you and keep you safe from the world that you are obviously totally ignorant about. But always you are running away from me, first from Stade Hall, then from Berkeley Square and now tonight. If I let you go, how shall I know that I shall find you again?”

‘You must not try, that is the – whole point,” Gretna told him. “We can mean nothing to each other. Our lives have crossed by accident – that is all. Forget me, forget that you ever met me. If we do meet again, pass me by as if you have – never seen me before.”

“Are you crazed?” he demanded. “Can you imagine my doing such a thing? Do you not appreciate that I have dreamed of you since that moment when you emerged from the coach with a look of dismay on your face and yet it was still the loveliest face I have ever seen in my life?”

“Pray – don’t say – anything more.”

Gretna gave a little sob.

“But, why? Why should I not say it?” the Marquis enquired. “And I shall say the truth. From the moment that I kissed you in my house in Berkeley Square I knew that we belonged to each other, you and me.”

“It’s not true! It’s not true!” Gretna insisted. “Please, let me go. I must go – now.”

She pressed her hands against his chest as if by sheer strength she would force him away.

He put his hands over hers and then quite suddenly she was very still.

He held her there and through the quietness that fell between them she could feel the sudden beating of his heart

She looked up at him.

His eyes were clear in the moonlight and the expression in them made the world fall away from them both until they were utterly alone, caught between Heaven and Earth, a man and a woman united with the fire of their feelings until they were one.

“How can you fight me?” he quizzed her, his voice so low that it was hardly above a whisper. “How can either of us fight this?”

She was trembling and she had the strangest idea that he was trembling too.

She knew suddenly that her parted lips were aching for his, that her whole body was yearning for the touch of his mouth and for the feeling that they were close and could come still closer to one another.

And then there was a loud laugh beneath them in the garden, the laugh of a man who has seen or heard something ribald.

It broke the spell. Gretna moved convulsively, snatching her hands away and instantly she was free.

“I shall be missed,” she said quickly. “I must return to – my friend.”

“I will see you tomorrow,” he stated, still barring the way into the salon.

“No,” she said obstinately. “We shall not meet again.”