“What I have to offer you is a very different sort of life. A house of your own in St. John’s Wood or anywhere else you would like to suggest, a carriage, a lot of amusement one way and another and the only thing I am asking in return is that you should be nice to me.”

Carina rose to her feet. Now she was sure of her ground and not in the least embarrassed by what she had to say.

“If you are suggesting, Sir Percy,” she said, and her voice was icy and aloof, “that I should become your mistress, I can only say that I would rather spend the rest of my life in a hovel looking after pigs or whatever animal is lower than a swine.”

She felt that her rudeness must sting him and she was glad to notice that his lips were pressed together and that his eyes narrowed before he spoke.

But the moment of anger, if that is what it had been, passed and he gave a short laugh.

“Bravo. Bravo! The speech of an innocent maiden defying the wicked Lord who wishes to seduce her.”

“I hope I have made myself clear,” Carina said sharply.

She would have moved away, but to her horror. Sir Percy reached out with a swiftness she had not expected and caught her wrist.

“Now that we have finished with the play-acting,” he said, “let’s get down to brass tacks. Are you really going to refuse me?”

“Are you so conceited that you cannot understand my meaning?” Carina asked, trying to free herself from his grasp.

“Women always say a lot of things they don’t mean,” Sir Percy replied smugly.

Now she realised that his other arm was encircling her.

“Let me go!” she called out angrily, trying not to sound frightened, striving to keep him away from her and to escape at the same time.

But she might as well have tried to stop the incoming tide.

Sir Percy’s arms were around her and now his face with its lines of dissipation and thick sensuous lips was very near to hers.

In a sudden panic, Carina struggled with all her strength.

“Let me go!” she cried. “Let me go!”

Even as she spoke, she realised how mad it had been of her to stay in the room alone with this middle-aged satyr. He was strong, far stronger than she was, he was inflamed with desire and she knew as she fought against him that her resistance excited him too.

His arms were pulling her relentlessly closer and closer until she felt that the very breath was being squeezed from her body.

Her hands beat ineffectually against his chest.

“How dare you? Let me go!” she protested.