“It will make no difference,” he said, his voice firm and resolute. “A debt of honour is a debt of honour and he must be paid in full and, as you know, at once. Presumably Percy has heirs. And they will inherit The Castle.”

Carina gave a little muffled cry.

“I thought that – I might have saved you,” she said.

“You have,” he replied. “You have saved me from myself, from thinking that money and position were all important. I know now there is something that outweighs them all. Shall I tell you what it is?”

“What is it?” Carina asked innocently.

“Love,” he answered. “Love such as I feel for you and I believe that you feel for me.”

He took a deep breath and then he released her hand and drew back from her.

“I dare not touch you,” he said, “or I shall take you in my arms and, if I did that, then whatever the loss in honour and decency, I should carry you away with me. Help me, help me, Carina, because I love you beyond the point of self-control.”

“I love you too,” she sighed. “But what – what is this secret that lies between us?”

“Don’t ask me,” Lord Lynche replied. “I beg of you not to ask me. As I have already told you, it is not my secret to divulge.”

Carina fought once more against the conviction that she must not break her promise.

Then, before anything else could be said, there came a knock on the open door and they saw that a footman stood waiting.

“Excuse me, my Lord,” he said. “Colonel Wakeford has asked if you will step downstairs.”

“Tell him I am coming,” Lord Lynche said.

“Very good, my Lord.”

They heard the footman run down the stairs.

Lord Lynche held out his hands.

“Come with me,” he said, “for I do not intend to leave you here alone.”

“I don’t want to be left,” Carina said. “I think I am afraid of my thoughts.”

She glanced round the nursery at the unopened bottle of champagne still standing in the centre of the table in the silver wine cooler, the pistol lying in its mother-of-pearl box, which she could see through the open door into the bedroom, the smear of drying blood on the floor and Dipa’s little white vest that he had worn that day hanging over the fireguard.

She felt a sudden terror that she would never come up here again, never feel the warmth of the fire or see the rocking-horse standing sentinel in front of the window.

But she knew that nothing she could say or do now could put back the clock.

The die was cast. She had taken the initiative into her own hands when she had drawn her mother’s pistol from the trunk and had made up her mind to kill the man who had wrecked both hers and her parents’ lives.