“Hope you are not the ailing sort,” he said. “I never could stand sick women. My wife spends the majority of her time in bed and much good does it do her!”

Carina said nothing.

She was not surprised that he had a wife or that he was unfaithful to her. She imagined that there was no vice in which Sir Percy would not indulge or have the least hesitation in doing so.

A little shakily she set the glass down on the table.

“That’s better,” Sir Percy said approvingly. “The blood is coming back to your face. Now you look more like the girl I admire. You’ll soon be better and we’ll talk later. You will come with me to London, don’t make a mistake about that.”

Carina rose to her feet, and, without looking at him, started to move towards the door.

“One moment,” Sir Percy said. “Don’t go off like that. Give me a kiss before you go.”

The very thought of his touching her again brought the life back into Carina and with a quick movement she reached the door before he could prevent her.

She turned the handle and slammed the door with a bang as she heard him calling her name.

She ran across the marble floor towards the inner hall. She was in such a hurry that she did not look around her and she was halfway up the stairs before she realised that someone was coming down them.

Two more steps and she glanced up and found herself looking straight into the dark questioning eyes of Lord Lynche.

“Oh, there you are, Miss Warner,” he said. “I went to the nursery to ask how the child is, but you were not there.”

She saw his eyes looking down at her hair and then at her torn blouse and realised, with a kind of horror, how she must have struggled with Sir Percy.

“Where have you been?” Lord Lynche asked sharply and this time there was a note in his voice that she had not heard before.

Carina sought for words with which to answer him, but somehow her head still felt stupid and her body weak. Yet the brandy had made her vividly receptive so that she knew instinctively what Lord Lynche was thinking before he spoke.

“I am afraid that you must find it rather dull here away from the amusements of London,” he said and his voice, cynical and sarcastic, was almost like a whip.

All the pride that had been Carina’s ever since she had been a child rose to resent the inference in his tone and the contempt in his eyes and for a moment sheer anger kept her from speaking.

And then, stuttering because she was so incensed, she cried,