Alyna woke and thought she heard the words spoken in Lord Dorrington’s deep voice.

For a moment she could not remember where she was and then, as she saw a pale light coming from between the curtains, she remembered that she was at Dorrington Park and that she was married.

She was sure that it was very early and looked to see if the doors of the little passage that connected her room with Lord Dorrington’s were still open.

They were.

And the memory of what had occurred came flooding over her.

She had an absurd impulse to jump out of bed and go to Lord Dorrington’s room and talk to him.

Everything last night had been so frightening and confused, yet now she remembered vividly why, having run to him frantic with terror, she had returned to the loneliness of her own bed.

“I am a man, Alyna!”

When he said it, she had felt a strange and at the same time almost intolerable pain within herself.

Even then she had not understood what she was feeling.

She had only known that something had changed between them and that she could no longer cling to him in her fear thinking of him just as a Knight Errant or some mythical, almost inhuman, person who could save her.

“I am a man!”

Almost like a streak of lightning, the sudden understanding of what he meant made her whole attitude change as if at the wave of a magic wand.

Of course he was a man! More handsome, more distinguished and with more presence than any man she had ever met in her life before.

And yet her fear of Prince Ahmadi and her wild desire to kill herself, had made her oblivious of Lord Dorrington’s charm and of his masculinity.

She had thought of him first of all only as someone who would protect her and save her from the odious attentions of the Prince.

Then, when she had come to Dorrington Park, she had been entranced by the depth of his knowledge, by his understanding and by the fact that their minds thought alike.

But still he had not impinged upon her consciousness as a man, who could feel as other men felt and who would find women desirable.

She knew now that the pain that had shot through her when he said that he had shared a bed before had been jealousy.

Jealousy of the women whom he had loved and who undoubtedly must have loved him.

‘How could they help it?’ Alyna thought almost with a sob.

How foolish she had been, how idiotic not to realise that a man who looked like Lord Dorrington and who had more personality than any other man she had ever encountered must attract women as a candle attracts moths!