“You are so lovely – ” Lord Lynche said almost beneath his breath, his eyes seeming to devour every feature of her face. “I had forgotten that women could be as soft and beautiful as you. I have known too many of the other sort. And then, when I saw you, when I heard you speak, I knew that you were utterly different.”

Carina stood listening to him and waiting.

She knew then what she wanted – to feel his arms, the touch of his lips. And the ecstasy and the need within her body made her feel that she radiated a kind of magic that no one could resist.

But Lord Lynche said,

“I never meant to say any of this to you. I know it is hopeless and I knew that I must never tell you. But now, in case anything happens, in case you have to go away, I want you to know that I love you.”

Carina stared at him a little bewildered. There was a note in his voice that she did not understand.

“Why did you not tell me?” she asked. “Was it because I was merely a Governess?”

“Good God, no!”

There was no mistaking the raw sincerity of his ejaculation.

“It was not that. It is because I am not free to speak.”

She thought he meant because of his wife, but the next words, spoken awkwardly, dispelled the idea.

“It is not,” he said, a little hesitantly, “because of Dipa’s mother. She is dead. My lawyer told me that when he arrived this evening.”

Then what?” Carina asked.

“I cannot tell you,” he answered.

Lord Lynche suddenly put up one hand to his face and walked away from her.

“I want to tell you,” he said, “but there are things that are not mine to repeat, secrets that involve not only my honour, but that of other people.”

There was so much pain in his voice that Carina could feel in herself the anguish he was suffering.

‘It is something to do with the man in the Tudor wing,’ she thought and she wondered how that could possibly be so.

She was about to ask if that were the case, but then bit back her words as she remembered the promise she had given to the injured man’s valet.

“I love you,” she heard Lord Lynche say from across the other side of the room. “I love you so much that it is agony to stand here and sheer hell not to take you in my arms. But I have not the right to do so. If I had, I should go down on my knees at the moment and ask you to honour me by becoming my wife.”

Carina felt tears come into her eyes and, because she was deeply moved, she answered unsteadily,

“You must not – do that. Remember at any moment I may be nothing but – a jailbird.”

“Don’t talk like that!”