Carina pulled her hard riding hat onto her head and tidied her hair beneath it until it was neat without a curl out of place. Then, scrabbling wildly through one of the drawers she found her riding gloves.

She grabbed Dipa by the hand and ran downstairs.

It was still not yet nine o’clock as they reached the big hall.

Outside on the steps she saw Lord Lynche waiting, very elegant in his well-cut riding coat with his top hat set at an angle.

There were two horses in the courtyard and Carina saw with delight that both were thoroughbred and spirited.

“Good morning.”

Lord Lynche swept off his hat. He looked white and strained and there were deep lines under his eyes.

Carina wondered for a moment if he was ill.

“This is very kind of you – my Lord.” she said, a little incoherently.

“I thought perhaps you needed a ride as much as I do,” Lord Lynche replied.

She did not know what he meant by this, but let herself be helped into the saddle.

She arranged her skirts over the pommel as the groom lifted Dipa high in his arms to set him down in front of Lord Lynche.

The child was delighted, chattering away for a moment in Javanese as he always did when he was particularly moved about anything and then bending forward to pat the horse’s neck with his tiny brown hand.

“He obviously has some sporting instincts hidden somewhere,” Lord Lynche commented, as they moved away from the front door.

‘He is holding the child confidently,’ Carina thought and wondered if in time he would come to love his son. Perhaps they could mean something to each other.

But Carina knew it was really wishful thinking and at the back of her mind she was sure that Lord Lynche would never look at Dipa except with distaste.

For the moment, though, Carina could not worry her head with the problems or difficulties of Lord Lynche’s life or anyone else’s.

It was sheer unalloyed delight for her to be holding the reins between her fingers again and to feel the horse moving slowly and rhythmically beneath her body.

“I knew you could ride,” Lord Lynche remarked from behind her.

Carina found that, without in any way meaning to, she had forged ahead.

She looked back over her shoulder, her eyes dancing in the sunshine.

“If you could only know what this means to me,” she said. “It is two years – nearly three – since I have been on a horse. Oh, it’s wonderful and I had forgotten how superb it could be!”

She spoke impulsively and without choosing her words and then she realised how sombre Lord Lynche was looking. There was something near to exhaustion in the expression in his eyes.

“Are you ill?” she asked, suddenly solicitous.

“Only tired,” he replied, “I did not go to bed last night.”