“How – dare you even think what you are – s-suggesting! I was asked to come downstairs by a footman, who told me that you required my presence in the library. You were not there and I consider it intolerable – that I should be assaulted in your home by one of your guests and – subjected to his odious insinuations and his even more disgusting advances.”

She saw Lord Lynche turn as if in surprise at her attack.

And then he said,

“Who has dared to behave as you suggest?”

“Surely you know your own friends well enough for that,” Carina replied. “Please let me pass.”

She moved by him, her head held high despite the uncomfortable knowledge that her hair was beginning to fall down her shoulders.

She forced herself to move quickly, but still to walk, until she reached the top of the stairs. Then, as she moved out of Lord Lynche’s sight, she ran as fast as she could up the next flight and, bursting into her bedroom, flung herself down on the bed.

It was only when she felt herself free of them all that the tears came flooding down her cheeks and sobs seemed to shake the whole of her body. She cried with childish abandon until she could cry no more.

When she was left with only a catch in her breath, she rose and went to the dressing table to stare in horror at her red eyes and the great waves of golden hair cascading on to her shoulders.

‘What must he have thought of me?’ she asked herself and answered that she did not care what he or anyone else thought for that matter.

‘I must get away,’ was the first idea in her head. But, as she said the words, she knew that she could not leave Dipa and could not surrender so quickly a job that was in its way her own salvation.

She went to the window and stared out at the peace of the shining lake and the great trees behind it, many of which had stood there for centuries.

Had it only been yesterday that she had gone out so hopefully in search of employment? Could this all have taken place so quickly?

She remembered that, when she had been at home, she had often thought that nothing ever happened to her and that life would go on quietly and peacefully until perhaps one day a man would appear with whom she would fall in love and to whom she would entrust her heart and her life.

How different things were in reality.

Here she was alone – terribly alone – in this strange frightening Castle with people who, each in their turn, seemed more horrifying and sinister than the last.