“That’ll pass as soon as you’re in the fray,” Petra retorted. She waved him away and set off along Piccadilly towards Berkeley Street. She’d decide when she got to the corner whether to hail a cab or carry on walking toward Berkeley Square and on to Brook Street.

She was glad that her brother had left her to make her own way home. The solitary walk might help to clear her head and ease the strange restlessness that her renewed encounter with Guy Granville had caused. It had never occurred to her that seeing him again after that long-ago debacle would make her feel anything other than a chilly indifference at best and a deep loathing at worst. Instead, she felt disturbed and out of sorts. And for some reason she couldn’t lose the image of him greeting the elegant Frenchwoman. There had been something about his seemingly casual kiss of greeting that, even across the room, shouted of intimacy, a secret, passionate intimacy.

They were lovers, so what? It was nothing to do with her. But somehow Petra couldn’t manage to convince herself of that. In the ten years since she’d talked to him, Guy had probably had dozens of lovers. His reputation as a philanderer was well known. She hadn’t thought twice about it when she could only expect to catch the occasional glimpse of him moving within his own social circles, quite separate from her own. But he’d stepped back into her life and his manner toward her was far from that of a casual old acquaintance, even if it wasn’t obvious to anyone else. She could still feel the warmth of his hand against her palm, still feel his deep brown eyes fixed upon her face expressing something other than mild interest.

She had reached the corner with Berkeley Street without noticing the distance she’d walked, but now her feet in the high-heeled shoes were hurting. She wasn’t tired, apart from her feet, home was less than half a mile away and the evening was still pleasant. There were fewer pedestrians around now that she’d left the busyness of Piccadilly behind but the streetlamps were lit along Berkeley Street and around the square at the end, and the houses lining the street threw reassuring arcs of golden light onto the pavement.

Impulsively she took off her shoes and set off up the street, carrying them. The pavement felt pleasantly cool beneath her feet and she strode out toward the square enjoying the sense of freedom. A hackney overtook her as she neared the railings of the square garden and pulled up to the curb a few houses along. Its passenger stepped down, reaching up to pay the driver.