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Sophie had coffee brought up by a maidservant, and insisted that Amelia drank some of it before she uttered anything but commonplaces to her. It was easy to see that she was French; any Englishwoman would have resorted to tea in such desperate straits.

‘She told me that the child is his, not his brother’s, and that she still lies with him,’ Amelia told her baldly once they were alone. ‘That she did so only a few days ago.’

‘She certainly lies,’ said Sophie robustly. ‘Possibly even to herself. You have no reason to believe any of this. And it is easy enough to see why she says it. You are a great threat to her.’

‘We both know that I am not – that the engagement is not real.’

‘Isn’t it?’

‘It isn’t meant to be.’ Amelia was in a sad state of confusion, as she had been for days. It didn’t occur to her for a moment to deny the truth of what Lavinia had said about her feelings.

‘It wasn’t real at first, Melia. But things change. Emotions do. Yours, obviously – I had become aware of this already, as had Rafe. There seemed no reason to tell him that the engagement is not genuine, because it seemed to me quite possible that it is. Or that you wish it could be.’

‘I am so obvious? Oh God, I am. All London must know it. Even my aunt knows it – that’s why she said what she did about long engagements.’

‘I cannot say if you are, that is the truth. We know you well, after all – even your aunt. But I do not see why you should be so downcast. His feelings have changed too, quite likely. He saved you last night, at great risk to himself.’

‘He’s a hero; he does that. It’s probably second nature.

It doesn’t mean he… he cares for me. He’s never said he does, or even hinted at it.

It could be perfectly true that he is still…

intimate with her, you know. She is so very beautiful, they have a history that binds them together, and she wants him so badly. ’

‘He kissed you, though. That must mean something, even if it is not love. Of course I should not be giving you the impression that a man needs to love you to kiss you, or even that a man may only desire to make love to one woman at a time.’

‘I know all that! But I kissed him first,’ Amelia confessed, blushing.

‘Do not tease me, Sophie, I beg you. He told me then – before I leapt on him, you understand – that for his part, he had not kissed a woman in almost eight years.’ Nor wanted to, her memory added.

‘I had not thought him a liar, I confess. Perhaps I was foolish to be so trusting.’

‘Goodness, eight years,’ Sophie said, blinking a little.

‘It is a fortunate circumstance we came in when we did, probably, though for a certainty it seemed a little awkward at the time. But then, ma chérie , if you do believe he was telling you the truth, he cannot have been – I cannot think of a respectable word – he cannot have been dallying with that creature a few days ago. Can he? Unless – I am so sorry, and thank heaven Rafe is not here to know that I am saying such shocking things to you – unless they fall to it straight away upon meeting, like dogs in the street.’

Amelia had seen dogs in the street; the picture was unpleasantly vivid. ‘Well… I suppose not. Don’t you? And yes, I did believe him. I still do. He seemed… like one in daze. He is usually so controlled, but then he wasn’t. It affected me, the difference in him. And so I kissed him.’

‘Naturally you did. And you have had no opportunity to do it again? Even though I left you alone on purpose and dragged Lady Keswick away, protesting?’

‘We were both too embarrassed by her. But he was joking me, and saying he wanted to do it again. Asking me if I had liked it. All manner of foolish teasing.’

‘I would not think him the type. He seemed perhaps a little intoxicated? I don’t mean he was really inebriated, you understand. But… not quite himself?’

‘Yes. I don’t think either of us was quite ourselves.’

‘That’s a good sign,’ said Sophie with decision, smiling as at some private memory.

‘Well, we shall have to give him, or you, the chance again, that is all. It is no good you always meeting in public. He said he would call today – I am sure he wanted to let you sleep, and will be here directly now the hour is somewhat more reasonable. Do you wish to receive him here, or downstairs?’

‘Downstairs,’ Amelia said quickly. ‘I mean… here, if I am completely honest.’ They both refrained from looking at the big four-poster bed so emphatically that they might as well have mentioned it aloud.

‘But downstairs. I cannot be like one of those girls who is always flinging herself at him. My God, Sophie, do you think he thinks that already? Do you think he thinks I meant to trap him all along? Oh! I can’t bear it! ’

Sophie said consolingly, ‘You would not say such foolish things if you had been able to see his lost expression as he carried you, not knowing if you were seriously hurt. And you must recall how vehemently he insisted on taking you out to the carriage in his arms, though he could quite easily have let Rafe do it. “It is my right,” he said, so deep. It made one shiver. If he had not cared for you at all, he need not have done it. There are no grounds for despair, but rather for hope. I shall ring for your abigail directly and together, we will choose a suitable gown for you.’

A little while later, Amelia sat in the yellow saloon, wearing what Sophie had assured her was a most becoming muslin embroidered exquisitely with small, colourful flowers.

The sleeves were transparent for the most part, and the neckline, though modest, closed with tiny, silk-covered buttons that ran down to her bodice and picked out the spring green of the design.

‘Buttons,’ said Sophie cryptically, ‘are always good.’

‘Sophie, I don’t want him to… to ravish me! I don’t.’

The Marchioness smiled and said nothing but, ‘Of course not.’

They did not have very long to wait; Kemp entered in his stately way after only a few minutes and announced that Lord Thornfalcon was here, and would like to assure himself that Lady Amelia was well, if indeed she felt able to see him.

Sophie shot a triumphant look at her sister-in-law and after a short period of rather stilted conversation, Amelia found herself alone with her betrothed. Again.

He had brought her flowers, and did not seem to know where to put them at first. But soon they were confronting each other, and – this time – she invited him to sit.

He said soberly, ‘I am glad to see you looking so well. But how are you feeling?’

‘Fine,’ she responded. And then more honestly, ‘A little shaken still. But I am conscious that I am very lucky – well, no, not lucky, because I must have been much more seriously hurt if you had not acted so quickly. Luck played no part in it. How are you, sir? Sophie thought you must have broken all your ribs.’

‘I too am fine,’ he answered, smiling a little now.

‘To match your honesty, I am bruised. I have a great mark the size of a dinner-plate across my back, I see from the glass in my dressing chamber, and other smaller ones in all sorts of surprising places.’ Amelia tried not to think about Lord Thornfalcon’s fine physique naked in front of a cheval-glasses, and what the surprising places might be, and failed utterly in both endeavours.

She wondered instead if any of them were places that might benefit from being kissed better.

‘But I have taken no real injury, and I am excessively glad that you have not either. And I think it is ridiculous after everything that you should feel obliged to call me sir. My name is Marcus, and you know it, for I recollect you used it last night. Can you not say it again?’

She drew in a breath and blurted out, before her courage deserted her or her imagination led her astray, ‘Marcus, then, I am glad you are here, for I must tell you something. Your sister-in-law came to see me this morning.’ To initiate such a conversation was painful and difficult, and not in the least what she wanted, but she knew she could not shirk it.

He was silent for a moment, then said with a return of his old grim expression, ‘I cannot suppose that she visited you in order to see how you did, or even to apologise.’

‘No. First of all, she seemed to be trying to induce me to say that I had an accident rather than that I was pushed; the truth of the matter she would by no means admit, at least in the beginning. When I insisted upon it and challenged her with her responsibility for what happened, she denied playing any part. She was odiously smug about it all. So I asked her to leave, and then she told me what I think she had all along come to say: that you were hers, you always would be hers, that her daughter is your child, and that you still… are intimate with her.’

‘Good God,’ he said, very low. ‘Such malice. And then what? Let us have it all out in the open at last.’

‘There is little more to say. I think that she was disappointed that I did not react by shouting and screaming at her – of course, she does not know that our engagement is not real, and so she thought I would be deeply affected by what she told me. And then we exchanged a few more compliments, and she left, and Sophie exercised genuine heroism in refraining from serving her with her own coin and pushing her down the stairs.’ Lavinia’s parting shot Amelia would by no means share with him.

He smiled briefly, without real amusement, but then said earnestly, ‘I am so very sorry. It was wrong in me to involve you in all this… hellish mess. Or not to tell you all my secrets at the outset, once I had.’

‘I think I involved myself, did I not? Marcus, you don’t need to confess anything to me. You must know you owe me nothing. It’s none of my affair if you are still?—’