She heard the soft lawn of her blouse tear. Then before she could say anything further her lips were captured by his and she felt the fierce, hot possessive cruelty of his mouth holding her captive, leaving her breathless and, it seemed to her, sapping her will away from her.

She tried to fight harder, but she had no strength and she could no longer breathe.

His kiss was brutal and she felt that she was sinking down into deep dark waters in which she was drowning and from which there was no hope of escape.

She felt his hands tearing her blouse and touching her breasts and again she would have struggled against him, but she was helpless and impotent in his grasp.

When at last he raised his lips from hers to look down at her triumphantly, she could only gasp weakly, trying to go on fighting against him, but feeling instead that she must faint.

“You are an exciting little devil, aren’t you?” he asked, his voice thick with passion.

Weakly she tried to push him away, feeling as if a great darkness hovered very near her as she struggled against him, not only physically but with every nerve in her body.

“Let me go!”

She could hardly hear her own voice, it was strangled in her throat.

“Never,” he answered. “I want you and, by God, I will make you want me before I have done with you. You will come away with me the day after tomorrow. No need for explanations. You will leave a note saying that you have been called back to London. My man can take you to the Station and we will travel up in the train together.”

‘No! No!’ Carina tried to say the words and found to her horror that she could not enunciate them.

The darkness was creeping even nearer and now, with an almost superhuman effort, she struggled against it.

But it seemed to catch up with her and she knew that at any moment she might become unconscious.

Her white face and the way she lay helpless in his arms made Sir Percy realise something was wrong.

“Here, you’re all right, aren’t you?” he enquired.

Carina raised a trembling hand to her forehead.

“I feel faint,” she managed to whisper.

He set her down in the chair and walked across the room to where a grog tray was arranged on a side table. She heard the clink of the decanter as he poured something into a glass and the hiss of the syphon.

Then he came towards her carrying a crystal tumbler in his hand.

“Drink this,” he ordered.

She was feeling too ill to refuse. She felt the fire of the brandy as it slipped down her throat. The darkness seemed to recede a little.

“Better now?” Sir Percy enquired.

She nodded, not trusting herself for the moment to speak.