She could not bear to think that she was forcing him into any action that did not come naturally.

She could not bear the thought of his having married her, knowing that he perhaps did not really wish to do so and would rather be kissing someone else.

What were the women like he admired?

She thought of the picture of Simonetta hanging in the room he always used. Did it mean something personal to him or was it just that he admired a painting that was supreme in the world of art?

There was a vast difference between admiring a painting and feeling as she felt now, a love that was rapturous and at the same time so painful that it was hard to endure.

‘I love him, but he must never guess it,’ she told herself.

She had shown little pride up to now. He must at times have despised her for making no effort to control her fears and the over-dramatic manner in which she had threatened to kill herself.

Lord Dorrington was not like other men. She was sure that his pride and his breeding gave him such a control over himself that, whatever the odds against him, he would never lose his calm courage.

He would face death with a smile and certainly would not behave as she had done.

She felt herself blush at the memory of how she had screamed when the Prince had carried her under the branches of a tree. She felt humiliated at the way she had run into the wood like a child hiding from a bogeyman.

How could she have been so lacking in self-control? But of one thing she was sure, however much Lord Dorrington might despise her for revealing her weakness in facing her fears, she would never earn his further contempt by showing him how deeply she had fallen in love with him without any wooing on his part.

Once he had told her that she was lovely when she came downstairs to be married. But when she asked him if he was speaking the truth, he had answered jestingly.

She tried to remember if she had seen any expression on his face or in his eyes that would give her hope that his feelings were in any way caring towards her.

With a sense of despair she realised how ignorant she was of men!

She had been so busy despising them she had not tried to understand their feelings, even where she herself was concerned.

There had been that one suitor in Bath, but he was a nondescript unprepossessing character in whom she had no interest.

His offer of marriage had merely confirmed her in her intention of never getting married.

There had been a few boys who had paid her compliments and old gentlemen with roving eyes of the type that wished to squeeze the hand or encircle the waist of every young girl they met!