But at least he’d given her something from his past this afternoon, she reflected, getting out of bed, going into the adjoining bathroom. Maybe asking more about his Macedonian adventures would give her a greater sense of who he had been then. It was a start anyway. Lovemaking was wonderful but she knew it was no longer enough. Their liaison had arisen so naturally, after their strange pact of understanding that afternoon. She couldn’t remember either of them actually putting the desire into words, or making any particular arrangements, it had just happened, and it had seemed so right, inevitable, a growth from the early beginnings ten years earlier. But now she wanted more. She wanted to know more of the man than Guy Granville the lover. Much more.

* * *

Guy strolled toward Piccadilly, relishing the sense of well-being, the overall feeling of pleasure he always had after spending time with Petra. Her challenging, sometimes combative nature met and matched his own, but there were so many other dimensions to Miss Rutherford, and he was enjoying discovering and exploring each and every one of them. He loved her openness, her lack of artifice, and the way it was tempered with a natural sophistication, a lack of guile that was tempered with a natural caution, an understated wisdom in her understanding of the world they shared. He loved the wonderful devil-may-care flamboyance that she showed in her dress and her lively wit. And he was beginning to recognize that the joy he took in her company was something quite different from the feelings he usually had for the women who shared his bed and his company for as long as it suited them both.

In fact when Guy started to think of a time when Petra’s close company would suit him no longer he found it hard to imagine. And that brought him to his present errand. It was not one he relished, but in honor it was one that had to be done.

His walk brought him to an elegant terraced house on Curzon Street. He glanced up at the drawing room windows on the first floor before stepping up to the door and lifting the heavy lion’s head brass knocker.

“Milord.” The butler bowed him in immediately. “Madame la Vicomtesse expects you. May I take your hat?”

“Merci, Giscard.” He handed his top hat and cane to the servant. “No need to announce me.” He crossed the square hall and mounted the stairs, entering the double doors to the drawing room with a light alerting knock.

“Ah, Guy, I have been waiting for you for days.” Clotilde Delmont glided across the blue Axminster carpet in an elegant rustle of blue and gold damask.

“Hardly days, my dear,” he protested, brushing a kiss on her powdered cheek. “I have it on the best authority that you only returned to London the day before yesterday.”