‘Such a charming room,’ Hester gushed.

‘And such a well-lit one,’ Guy added, his eyes fixed on his host’s head.

Lewis turned, the morning sun streaming through the casements and directly on to his face, its smooth, handsome planes unmarked by so much as a shaving scratch.

Hester felt her breath leave her throat in a sigh which, just in time, she turned into a cough. She knew she could not meet Guy’s eyes.

‘Yes, it is one of my favourite rooms.’ Lewis turned, almost at the door, and stepped across to a section of shelves, lifting down several books and offering them to Guy, who pulled off his gloves before taking them. Across the knuckles of his outstretched right hand the skin was reddened and sore and Lewis’s eyebrows rose.

‘You have been indulging in fisticuffs?’

‘It was nothing, merely a rogue I ran across.’

‘Doubtless the rogue will he sporting at least an equal injury.’ Lewis’s voice was quite neutral, hut Hester thought she glimpsed a flash of anger in his eyes.

‘One hopes so. Thank you.’ Guy took two of the proffered volumes and began to examine them, apparently impervious to Lewis, who seemed quite willing for him to take the entire pile.

Hester glanced around the room while the men were occupied. Under the chaise in front of the crackling tire was a box giving every appearance of having been thrust there in a hurry. One stray leaf of paper lay forgotten under the low table by the side of the seat. With an eye on Lewis, who was urging Guy to take the whole collection, she wandered over to the chaise and sat down, insinuating one booted foot under the table until it rested on the corner of the paper which she could draw out into the open.

It seemed to be a letter, the ink faded, the writing a flamboyant, characterful, rather old-fashioned hand that was difficult to read. Hester squinted, bent as low as she dared and finally managed to make out the words ‘…Moon House… precious… so fearful… we have to hide it…’

‘Miss Lattimer?’ It was Lewis’s voice and Hester almost dropped her reticule as she tried to suppress her guilty start.

‘I am so sorry, were you speaking to me? I thought I had a loose button on my boot. Are you ready, Lord Buckland? My goodness, what a lot of books, I should imagine that will totally satisfy your antiquarian zeal, my lord.’ She stood up as she prattled, holding Sir Lewis’s gaze with hers while she nudged the letter back under the chaise with her toe. ‘Please give my kindest regards to poor Miss Nugent. I do hope she feels very much better soon. Now we must be off, for I am sure we have trespassed upon your hospitality far too long.’

Once the library door was closed behind them again, Sir Lewis appeared to regain his normal character, speaking of holding a small entertainment before Christmas if his sister felt better able to emerge a little from her mourning. Hester, shaking hands as she took her leave, found herself almost doubting the impression she had had of a secretive, frightened man. And the fact remained: no one had hit Sir Lewis Nugent in the face with enough force to damage their own knuckles in the past few days.

He walked with them back to the stables, assisted Hester up on to her seat, complimented Guy on the greys and waved them goodbye. ‘Very determined to see us off the premises,’ Guy remarked as he waved back cheerfully.

Instead of turning right to go back into the village he turned towards the downs and drove in silence up through the beech woods, their greenish-grey trunks and branches interlaced over the deep drifts of copper-coloured leaves. At length they emerged on to the open, sheep-cropped tops. He turned off the road on to the first reasonably dry track they came to and drove on a little way to where a tangle of hawthorn bushes gave shelter against the wind and the view over the Vale of Aylesbury opened up in front of them.

‘I’m sorry, I had promised that you could drive.’ Guy climbed down, tossed the reins over a bush and helped Hester down from the high seat.

‘I do not think I could have done,’ she confessed with an attempt at a laugh, holding out her shaking hands to show him. ‘I had not expected it to be so tense and strange.’ Guy reached behind the seat, found a lap rug and shook it out around her shoulders. Hester stood, rather blankly staring out over the Vale. ‘Guy, he did not have a mark anywhere on his face.’

‘No, and that does have me puzzled. I have been trying to remember what the ghost smelt of, and the answer is, of nothing but plain Castile soap.’

‘Which is expensive.’ Hester caught his meaning at once. ‘So it is not a groom, or some local criminal paid to break in.’

Guy leaned against the carriage beside her. His body sheltered her and she glanced up at him from under her lashes, letting herself think only about him and her feelings for him for the first time that day. The air was chill and her toes cold, but inside something burned warm and constant, a glow of trust and attraction and, she was beginning to fear, of wanting.

‘And what were you up to, sitting demurely on the chaise?’

‘There was a box which had been pushed hastily under it; all I could see were bundles of papers, and what looked like journals. But one sheet was on the floor under the table. I think it was a letter in old-fashioned handwriting. The ink was faded.’ She wrinkled her brow in an effort to recall the words and told him.

‘Moon House, precious and hide,’ Guy repeated slowly. ‘That confirms what we suspect, that there is something of value hidden there which their father did not know of and they discovered too late. And their only hope is to find and remove it before you do, or to scare you into selling the house back to them so they can pillage it at their leisure.’

Hester sighed, suddenly depressed by the whole coil. She had so much wanted peace and quiet, the chance to start afresh with her reputation intact. Now she had fallen impossibly in love and the home of her dreams was tainted by some strange mystery.

‘You are tired and frustrated by our lack of progress.’ Guy put an arm around her shoulders and pulled her against his side. She went with the movement without conscious thought, aware only of the comfort of his body and the gentleness in his voice. ‘I wish I could take you away from this, take you somewhere peaceful where you could relax, sleep, forget all about it.’

‘That sounds so good,’ Hester murmured, turning her face up to smile into his. ‘Peace, sleep.’ She did not finish the thought. Guy shifted position, until he was standing facing her, pressing her back against the carriage, so close she could see the pulse in his throat above his neckcloth. He had pulled off his gloves and with gentle, bruised fingers began to untie her bonnet ribbons, ‘Guy…’ The bonnet came off and was tossed up on to the seat.

‘Mmm?’ He was trailing kisses across her forehead now, down the line where her hair grew at her temple, down her neck and up again to nibble at her ear.

‘Guy, you should not…’ I should not… we should not… Hester felt her body arch instinctively against his, moulding itself to his larger, stronger frame. Despite their heavy winter clothes she felt heat from him, knew her own breath was coming in little gasps to cloud the still air.

‘Why not?’ The murmured question seemed to burr against her ear. ‘The sun is shining, we are alone and quiet and this is a sort of heaven.’

Hester put up her hands to push him away, turned her head to look him in the eye and sternly order that he stop this outrageous, immoral, scandalous behaviour immediately. Instead her fingers clenched on Guy’s lapels, her lips sought his mouth and without conscious volition she found herself kissing him.

This was not like that kiss in her dining room when she suspected he was sending her a warning as much as taking a liberty. This was a slow, gentle, mutual exploration of scent and taste and sensation as his tongue teased and caressed, his lips gentled hers into surrender and his teeth made her gasp with sudden, delicate nips. She was aware of the sunlight on her closed lids, of the cold scent of dead leaves all around them, of the harsh cry of a pheasant and the thud of a heartbeat- hers or Guy’s she could not tell and did not care.

Her fingers moved, reached for the strong shoulders above her, found the lean, muscled column of his neck, locked into the springing, virile hair at his nape. This was the man she loved, this was how his weight felt against her, how his arms held her, how his hands and mouth and murmuring voice caressed her. The man she loved.

Reality came back and with it the memory of those hours spent facing the choices before her, the memory of the decision she had made. Marriage was out of the question for her, and that left only a choice which went hand in hand with the ostracism and humiliation she had experienced before and a shame that this time she would have earned.

‘No!’ Hester twisted her head away. ‘No.’ Furious with herself, she pushed harder than she intended, her hand slipped and she fetched Guy a glancing blow on the side of his head. Startled blue eyes met hers, then he had stepped back and was standing five feet away.

‘Hester, it was not my intention to frighten you, I am sorry.’

‘I am not frightened.’ She knew she was snapping and could not help herself. ‘I am angry.’ Guy threw up a hand in the fencer’s gesture of surrender, turned on his heel and walked away from the carriage, away from her. ‘No!’ she shouted after him. ‘Not with you. Guy, come back.’

Somehow she was moving across the springy turf, a faint scent rising from the cold thyme underfoot as she ran towards him. ‘Angry with me, not with you.’