“You are wondering how I know about The Castle being lost at cards and what happened last night, aren’t you?”

“No, I am not surprised,” Carina answered. “You seem to know everything.”

“So you realise that, do you?” the Dowager smiled. “Well, it is true enough. I do know everything that happens in this place, even when they try to keep it from me. Why did you have luncheon in my son’s house yesterday?”

Carina looked at her wide-eyed. She had not expected the Dowager to know that. Then she realised that it was inevitable that whoever had told Lady Lynche that they went riding with her son would also know that she and Dipa had refused luncheon when they arrived back at The Castle.

The Dowager was obviously waiting for an answer.

“Lord Lynche asked me to go riding because he was so deeply distressed at what happened the night before,” Carina said. “He knew how it would affect you, and I think he felt that we, Dipa and I, were the only people – who were not involved in what had occurred.”

“The fool!” the Dowager said almost beneath her breath. “The stupid insane fool! How dare he gamble with what belongs to the family and not to him?”

“Don’t think about it, my Lady,” Carina pleaded. “It’s all over – The Castle is safe now.”

“Is it?” the Dowager asked harshly. “Are you sure of that?”

She shut her eyes and Carina realised how old and frail she was.

“I have lived for it,” she said brokenly. “I have lived for the traditions that have been handed down to me. And now in a drunken moment my son is prepared to lose it all.”

“Oh, please don’t think about it,” Carina begged her. “Sir Percy drove him into a corner, jeered at him for being a coward and forced him into a position where he could not withdraw – as he forced so many people – people like my father. For a man caution can often appear cowardice – and that was where Sir Percy was so clever and evil.”

The Dowager opened her eyes and looked at Carina, taking in the softness of her lips and the look of anxiety in her liquid eyes.

“So you are in love with him?” she said. “I suspected it.”

The colour flooded into Carina’s face and she drew herself up sharply almost as if the Dowager had struck her.

For a moment she did not speak.

And then, because the silence between them demanded an answer, she said,

“I don’t think that you have the right to ask me that question.”