He looked down into her face and saw the bewilderment in her green eyes.

“I love you, darling,” he said gently, “and I felt that one day you would realise that we have been seeking each other all through the centuries.”

“Is that – true?” she whispered.

“You are everything that I hoped and believed I would find somewhere in the world,” he answered. “Your face has always haunted me and that is why I cherished the picture of Simonetta because I was certain deep in my heart that she must resemble my unknown wife.”

He drew her closer still.

“Are you quite sure you love me?” he asked. “I have been so afraid that you spoke the truth when you said you hated all men.”

“I did not – realise at – first that you were – so different,” Alyna faltered. “And then tonight, when I thought that the – Prince would – kill you, I knew that without – you I have no wish to go on – living.”

“My darling, my sweet, my poor frightened little love,” Lord Dorrington said in a voice that she had never heard from him before.

Then, as he saw the fear fade from her eyes to be replaced by a radiance that glowed almost like a light, he bent his head and found her lips.

For a moment they were soft beneath his until, as he felt a sudden quiver run through her body, he knew that a flame within her leapt to meet the flame within himself.

At first his kiss was gentle, as if he was afraid to frighten her.

Then, as he felt her press herself even closer to him, as he felt her lips clinging to his they were swept away into an ecstasy and a glory where everything was forgotten but themselves.

*

“Are – you awake?” a little voice asked hardly above a whisper.

The candles behind the blue silk curtains falling from the corolla were guttering low.

Yet some of their rays just touched the shining silver of the shell behind the bed and made it seem like a halo hovering above two heads close together on the lace-edged pillows.

“I am awake,” Lord Dorrington replied.

As he spoke, he pulled Alyna closer to him.

She was very soft and yielding against the hard strength of his body.

He could just see the outline of her face and her long hair falling onto his shoulder and over the pillow.

“Are you happy, my darling?”

“So happy I cannot – express it in – words,” she answered. “I did not know that – love could be like – this!”

“Like what?” he asked.

“So glorious – so wonderful – so utterly and absolutely – perfect!”

His arm tightened round her.

Now with his other hand he swept back the hair from her oval forehead and kissed it, his lips lingering on her soft skin.

“I was just wondering,” he said and she heard a hint of laughter in the words, “what had happened to my cold little wife with the frozen heart?”