She gave the door of the study a quick, perfunctory knock and burst in.

‘Ross, you must go and join Liv in the music room at once!’ she declared. ‘I do not know what has got into you today. You are acting in the most churlish manner-’ She broke off as the man sitting behind the desk rose from his wing chair and she saw him properly for the first time. It was not Ross Marney. It was Richard Kestrel.

‘Good evening, Mrs Stratton,’ he said.

‘What are you doing here?’ Deb demanded, shaken out of good manners by both the unexpected sight of Lord Richard looking so elegant in his evening dress and mortification at what she had just inadvertently revealed to him. ‘I did not know that you were attending the soirée.’

Richard bowed ironically. ‘Very likely you did not see me,’ he said. ‘I arrived late and you were already asleep by then.’

Deb’s red face blushed an even more fiery colour. ‘You! Oh! I was not asleep!’

‘Yes, you were. I saw you with my own eyes. And what better way to tolerate Miss La Salle’s peculiar style of vocal gymnastics than to block them out with pleasant dreams?’

‘What? I…’ Deb frowned, distracted. ‘Does no one like her singing?’

‘Very few people, I believe, but as she is a protégée of the Hertfords, everyone pretends that she is marvellous.’

‘Well, I think that is ridiculous. But that is nothing to the purpose.’ Deb shook her head impatiently. ‘I was looking for Ross.’

‘I rather gathered that,’ Richard said. ‘I would not wish to be in his shoes when you find him.’

Deb had not realised that it was possible to blush any harder. She subsided into one of the armchairs by the fire and looked at him with embarrassment. ‘I apologise that you should have been the unwitting victim of my ill temper, my lord.’

‘Please,’ Richard said. ‘Do not apologise.’ He took the chair across from her. There was a keen look in his dark eyes. ‘I understand that you are concerned for your sister’s happiness.’

Deb grimaced. ‘Is her unhappiness so apparent to everyone?’

‘Only to those of us who know Lord and Lady Marney well, I suspect,’ Richard said. ‘I hope that they may resolve their difficulties.’

Deb sighed gustily. ‘I hope so too. I suppose that I had better go and hunt Ross down.’

‘There is no need,’ Richard said calmly. ‘He left a moment before you arrived. He specifically told me that he was on his way to join his wife and martyr himself for the second half of the evening’s concert.’

Deb stared. ‘Oh! How very provoking!’

Richard raised his brows. ‘What is?’

‘Why, that I should come in here and insult you in Ross’s place when all the time he was intent on joining Olivia anyway. What a waste of time!’

Richard was laughing. ‘My dear Mrs Stratton, you have never had any compunction about insulting me before. I beg you not to worry now.’

‘That was different,’ Deb said crossly. ‘Previously you deserved it.’

‘I can see that you have a clearly defined sense of fair play,’ Richard commented. He gestured to his glass. ‘I beg your pardon-I have been most remiss. Would you care to join me in a glass of wine?’

‘No, thank you,’ Deb said. She smiled slightly. ‘They have a most unpleasant Madeira which is too sweet for me, and I do not care for brandy.’

‘A pity,’ Richard said. ‘I am persuaded that it would be far more enjoyable sitting here and talking to you than returning to the musicale.’

Deb secretly thought so too. The charms of Miss La Salle’s singing could scarcely compete with the stimulating conversation of Lord Richard Kestrel. And yet she was aware of a certain trepidation. The room was warm and softly lit, and it conjured up an intimacy that was surely dangerous when one was conversing alone with a gentleman who was a certified rake. It gave Deb the same feeling that Richard’s presence always aroused in her. Her undeniable attraction to him drew her on, but at the same time the cold, hard sense she had learned from experience warned her to run away, and quickly. Still, she did not move.

‘Have you made up your mind yet?’ Lord Richard enquired affably.

Deb jumped. ‘I beg your pardon?’

‘Have you made up your mind on whether it is safe to stay?’ There was a mocking light in Richard’s eyes. ‘Common sense might suggest that it is not…’

‘Past experience might suggest that it is not!’ Deb snapped.

‘Very true.’ Richard put his head on one side and considered her thoughtfully. His gaze moved over her face feature by feature and Deb felt her skin warm beneath his regard. It felt almost as though he was touching her.

‘As it turns out, you are quite safe,’ Richard continued. ‘I would not have the ill manners to seduce a lady in her brother-in-law’s house.’

Deb raised her brows disbelievingly. ‘Is that so? And when did this surprising change in your behaviour come about, my lord?’

Richard smiled and Deb’s wayward heart skipped a tiny beat. ‘When I met you, of course, Mrs Stratton,’ he said smoothly. ‘However, my good resolutions have not been put to the test before. I am not sure how they would stand up to provocation.’

‘So that would be your justification!’ Deb said scornfully. ‘The age-old excuse of a man who is not strong enough to resist temptation!’

Once again, Richard’s gaze lingered on the honey-coloured hair curling about her face-and on the indignant set of her mouth. He smiled slightly.

‘Yes, the age-old excuse since Adam…Poor Adam, he really wanted to eat that apple, didn’t he, and yet he did not have the courage to admit it, but had to blame Eve instead.’

‘Typical!’

Richard’s gaze narrowed with interest. ‘It seems that you do not have a very high opinion of our sex, Mrs Stratton? Why is that?’

Deb shifted a little, suddenly nervous. She had never really thought about it before, but it was true that all her observations of the male sex had led her to form a somewhat critical assessment. There was Ross, of course, who had shown her great kindness and yet exasperated her in equal measure for his inability to settle his differences with Olivia. There was her father, who always thought that he knew what was right and that he had the inalienable right to enforce it. And then there had been Neil Stratton, another good-looking, feckless adventurer who had turned her feelings inside out and shown her the true meaning of dishonourable behaviour. She set her lips in a tight line.

‘I do not wish to pursue this subject, my lord.’

Richard nodded slightly, and the tense feeling inside Deborah eased. Thank God he did not press her. She never wanted to tell him the truth, never wanted to tell anyone…

She glanced across at the desk, where Richard had laid aside his book when she had erupted into the room.

‘Were you reading when I came in?’ she enquired, failing to keep a slight note of disbelief from her voice.

Richard laughed. ‘I was. I find it a useful accomplishment. My tutor taught me when I was a boy, you know.’

Deb’s eyes narrowed at his teasing. She craned her neck to see the title of the book.

‘It is The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius,’ Richard said obligingly.

Deb nodded sagely. The Meditations, indeed! She was certain that he had plucked it at random from the shelves.

‘I see,’ she said. ‘And what do you think of his writings?’

‘Bleakly stoical,’ Richard said. ‘He has a dark view of human life and an obsession with the approach of death. What is your opinion, Mrs Stratton?’

There was a tiny pause. ‘I have not read his writings,’ Deb admitted.

Richard burst out laughing. ‘I see. You were seeking to test me!’

Deb had the grace to look a little shame-faced. ‘I thought…That is, I did not think-’ She broke off in confusion.

‘You did not think that I was given much to reading?’ Lord Richard finished for her, a hint of irony in his tone. ‘My dear Mrs Stratton, is it possible for you to have a lower opinion of me than the one you already possess?’

‘Infinitely,’ Deb said sweetly.

Richard’s smile deepened. ‘And now that you know I read the stoic philosophers, have I gone up at all in your estimation?’

‘Oh,’ Deb said, ‘naturally I am most impressed. However, I do not think that I shall be reading The Meditations now that you have told me their style. There is enough to be miserable about in real life.’

Richard conceded the point. ‘Perhaps poetry is more to your taste?’ he enquired.

‘I enjoy that, certainly,’ Deb agreed. ‘And you, my lord?’

Richard shifted slightly in his chair. ‘Yes, I enjoy poetry too.’ His gaze met hers very directly. ‘I know that you think me an intellectual lightweight, ma’am, and a man with no propensity towards hard work, but I must correct your perception by saying that the only reason I had the chance to study poetry in the first place was because I was at sea. I read scraps of it in between naval actions.’

Deb smiled. She found that she rather liked the idea of Lord Richard Kestrel standing on the bridge of his ship with a book of poetry tucked in his pocket. She fancied that he would have looked rather good in the austere Navy uniform and found herself wishing that she had had the chance to see it.

‘I had forgotten that you were in the Navy,’ she said, feeling a little ashamed of herself for dismissing him as an idle gentleman of leisure. ‘Why did you give it up?’

There was a hair’s breadth of a pause in which she had the feeling that she had asked a question of great import.

‘I took an injury at the Battle of the Nile and they did not want me on active service any more,’ Richard said, after a moment.

‘I am sorry,’ Deb said. She repressed an impulse to touch his hand. Just for a second she had seen a bleakness, beyond anything she had expected, reflected in his dark eyes. She felt as though the bottom had dropped out of her heart. He had looked so lonely and remote in that moment, a far cry from the society rake of her imaginings.