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About to enter a complicated equestrian manoeuvre where she stepped across from Percy’s back to the pony cantering beside her, she needed all her powers of concentration and balance.

As Eliza managed the move and then back again, a cheer went up and the row in the boxes was obliterated by applause.

She moved into a graceful handstand that she maintained while her horse cantered the full circumference of the ring.

The noise was deafening as she returned to riding astride without a saddle and at full gallop.

Eliza had come to the end of her performance and left the arena while the clowns, jugglers and a noisy drum and cornet returned.

She rode Percy round to the stables and knew she had twenty minutes or so before the show ended and her admirers congregated in the yard.

But that night she dismounted and found she was not alone.

A young drunk took her arm. ‘Miss Clorinda.’ He smelled of brandy and ale and was unsteady on his feet.

‘I’ve attended every night since you returned, you can surely reward me with a kiss?

’ His voice was wheedling and Eliza felt herself shrink from his touch.

‘Git yer ’ands off me, sir!’ she said in her street accent, hoping its roughness added authority, while she struggled to shake his grip from her arm.

Lord Davenport’s assault had shaken her, but this young man was drunk and less experienced and she found him less menacing, although she was still dressed in her costume and felt exposed and vulnerable.

Sir Tufton Warren was a young man who was not used to having a woman refuse him and he pursued her across the yard.

Suddenly a hand fell heavily on his shoulder and Eliza heard the thrilling voice, ‘Sir! You heard the lady. You’re drunk. Go home.’

The young baronet was too befuddled to recognise the danger he was in. He scoffed, ‘She’s no lady. And you’re just a braggadocio earl!’

Lord Purfoy grasped him by the lapels of his elaborately fashionable coat.

He turned to Eliza and said in a quiet voice, ‘Miss Gray, I’d be grateful if you’d leave this fool to me.

’ Eliza nodded and walked quickly to the hay barn where she was out of sight of the small crowd of young men congregating in the hopes of a fight.

Lord Purfoy pulled Sir Tufton Warren very close to his face and said sotto voce , ‘She is every inch a lady, and even if she were not, I’d expect you to act as a gentleman.’

‘Why so prosy, my lord? These doxies who perform in public don’t deserve the respect due a true lady.’ His eyes were bloodshot as he leered across at his friends.

Lord Purfoy flung him away. His dander was up. ‘You are a swinish sot, sir, not worthy of even your modest barony. Miss Gray is of far greater nobility than you could ever understand. In fact, I intend to make her my countess if she’ll have me.’

‘You lie! Men like us don’t marry harlots like her!

’ He had barely finished his sentence when he was struck in the jaw by Raven Purfoy’s straight right hook.

He fell like a tree amongst the straw and horse dung.

His friends clustered round him and helped him to his feet and away, as Lord Purfoy strode towards the barn.

Slipping in through the partly opened door, he was met by the sweet smell of hay and enveloped in darkness.

For a moment he could not see Eliza, then she stepped into the shaft of moonlight and he walked to her side and took her hands.

‘My dear Miss Gray, I’m so sorry you had to endure that lout’s attentions. Are you quite well?’

‘I am, and much improved by seeing you, my lord. Arriving when I needed you most.’ She smiled.

The moonlight painted a silvery aureole round her head as her fair hair tumbled in waves down her back.

The magical light made her eyes sparkle in a way that Lord Purfoy found irresistible, and he could not look away.

He realised he still had her hands in his and let them go as he said, ‘I came to give you some news I hope might restore your rightful future. At hazard I won back from Lord Davenport the deeds to your inheritance. Bathwick Court and estate and your mother’s jewels are yours, to do with as you will. ’

Eliza’s hands flew to her face. So this was what had so enraged Lord Davenport!

How hard it was to understand just what this meant for Lord Purfoy, for her.

It was beyond imagining that he had sought to gamble, to risk everything, to present her with such an extraordinary, unexpected gift.

All she could say was, ‘But why, my lord?’

‘Because I believe it is your rightful inheritance. I dislike unfairness in an already unfair world, and I think natural justice would consider you Bathwick’s heir, if not to his title then at least to his wealth. I think you have been dealt with harshly.’

Her eyes were wide and anxious, watching his face. ‘But how did you win? What did you wager for so great a prize?’

Lord Purfoy faltered. He had to tell her the truth and yet it still pained him to say the words. ‘I wagered my horses.’

Eliza was aghast. She knew what they meant to him. They were his family, his passion, his life. In an agitated voice, she said, ‘No, my lord, not your horses!’

He was amused. ‘Don’t look so shocked. You should hear what Taz has to say about it. But I have learned these last few days that you have to risk everything to gain what you truly desire.’

‘But why for me?’

He took her hands again in his. ‘I wished you to have the freedom to marry or not as you pleased. I did not want you to feel you had to accept Mr Flynn’s offer in order to have a home and the necessary freedoms.’

Eliza’s shock was replaced with a wave of love as she realised the enormity of what he had done. Suddenly she was sheepish. ‘I hope you won’t withdraw your offer when you learn I never had any intention of marrying Mr Flynn.’ She looked up into his eyes, so dark and fathomless in the shadows.

He drew her closer. ‘I am inordinately pleased to hear that.’ And a deep generous laugh made her realise how seldom his lordship laughed. ‘But does this mean you’re against the idea of marriage on principle?’

Eliza was standing so close she had to resist resting her head on the expanse of his chest. ‘No, not on principle.’ She felt unexpectedly shy as she glanced up at him. ‘It depends who is offering.’

Lord Purfoy folded her in his arms and muttered into her hair, ‘I would be honoured, Miss Gray, if you would accept my hand in marriage.’

She looked up, offering her face like a flower to the sun.

‘Did you not know I loved you from the moment I first saw you? I knew one day you would come for me. I would listen for your footfall on the stair and know it was you.’ She stood on tiptoe as he cupped her face in his hand and tenderly kissed her on the lips.

The warmth, the feel, the scent of him intoxicated her.

The intimacy of that first kiss filled her senses.

His skin smelt of leather and woodsmoke and horses and a masculine aroma distinctly his own, for her the most seductive scent in the world.

At last Eliza knew the merging for which she had longed all her life, the meeting of bodies, the blending of souls, and she held him close, prolonging the pleasure.

‘What can I do with the joy that bubbles up in me?’ she whispered in the dark.

‘Bring it to our new life.’ His arm tightened across her back as he continued, ‘A great grief stole my youth – all hope, all happiness fled. But then you arrived in a gust of wind that blew away the ashes of the past. You were cast into my path, my winged goddess, and gave me back my soul.’

‘Every winged goddess needs her winged horse. Will your miraculous gift of the Bathwick inheritance allow me to buy Percy from Prebbles?’

‘I always knew wherever you go, Percy comes too.’ He held her away from him with a serious expression.

‘He’s a very fine-looking horse, though I couldn’t give him the attention he required because I was incapable of dragging my eyes away from the beauty on his back.

’ Then he dropped his voice and said, ‘Having you so close, I’m bewitched by you; all I wish is to peel off those ridiculous clothes that encase you like a chrysalis.

You are a butterfly about to emerge. You already have wings! ’

Eliza laughed with sheer happiness. She met his eyes with a mischievous gleam. ‘Lord Purfoy, do you think you might kiss me again?’

‘I think before I do, you probably should call me by my given name. What think you, my Eliza?’

She had imagined him calling her name but when she finally heard his voice, rich and soft, say Eliza with a lazy, elongated second syllable, her knees went weak. He caught her by the elbows as she lifted her face and said, ‘Lord Purfoy, Raven, Raven, Raven, could you bear to kiss me again?’

‘First, you need to answer my question. Eliza, you know I love you. Will you marry me? Will you be happy to be my countess and rule my domain?’

Eliza slipped her arms around his neck and on tiptoe whispered in his ear, ‘Oh, my lord, yes, yes, yes!’ She turned her head to meet his lips in a kiss she never wanted to end.

Then taking his hand, she led him out into the now empty yard, under a heaven full of stars.

They both looked up into the eternal night and Raven Purfoy turned to her and said, ‘A star burned bright at your birth, brave and fierce and beautiful.’ He pulled her closer in the chill air.

‘All my world is in your hands; my horses, my land, my heart, my soul, all yours.’

With his arm holding her to him, Eliza felt his life force radiate through her body. Under that canopy of stars they stood in silence, listening to the night, the only two people in the world, absorbed in the timeless mystery of love.