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disengaged his hand from hers, and she felt an almost physical pain at the parting.
    "What's happening to me," she thought wildly. "This is mad, dangerous. I should stop it now before it's too late."
    But she knew that it was already too late.
    It had always been too late.

 CHAPTER THREE
    "Now that I've agreed to stay," she said shakily, "you must go on telling me about your horses. They sound so – so fascinating."
    She could not remember a single word he had said about his horses, but it seemed a safe subject.
    "Yes," he said vaguely. "My horses. I have one in London, to ride in Rotten Row. Society goes to Hyde Park, and parades there, on foot or on horseback."
    "Then I must go," she said.
    "I believe you would enjoy it. Of course I left the rest of my horses in the country because, as you can imagine, I really have very little time to myself."
    "Don't you like anything about London at all? Not even being at court?"
    They had both calmed down now, managing to slip back into normal-sounding conversation, almost as though there was nothing else humming beneath.
    "In some ways being at court is the worst of all. I'm constantly in the middle of – " he checked himself.
    "Go on," she encouraged.
    "If I do, I'll sound like a conceited coxcomb."
    "I promise not to think so."
    "Very well. I am in your hands. I'm constantly in the middle of the marriage mart. Have you any idea how difficult it is to own things that people want, and can only get by marrying you? They want your money and your title, and they will take you as well because that's the price, but you, yourself, as a person, are almost irrelevant to them."
    He smiled at Ola. "But of course you know all this. It must be exactly the same for you."
    "Ah yes!" she said with an air of wisdom. "Suitors. Such a trial."
    "If a Duke is afflicted, a Princess must be a thousand times more so. How one longs to escape! In fact, is that the real reason you - ?"
    "Ssh!" she stopped him with one finger over her lips. "Some things are best left unsaid."
    "Of course. Forgive me."
    "Tell me about your family," Ola enquired.
    "I have two sisters who are married, both very happily, I'm glad to say. My father died five years ago when, of course, I took his place.
    "Then my mother died two years ago. She was so unhappy after my father's death that she only wanted to join him in heaven. She couldn't face being alone on earth."
    "How could she have felt alone when she had you?" Ola asked.
    "I can't compensate her for the loss of the man she loved. A son isn't the same thing at all. I was fond of travelling, but I began to stay at home, to be with her when she needed me. But eventually she told me, very sweetly, to take myself off. She said she needed to be alone.
    "I've always wondered whether that was true, or if she was just being kind to me. My mother was the kindest woman in the world. Anyway, I did a lot of travelling."
    "Tell me about your travels," begged Ola.
    "But I was going to ask about yours. They must be far more interesting."
    "Oh no, one sees so little, nothing but receptions and formal occasions." She laughed. "I must know every ballroom in Europe."
    "And are admired in every ballroom in Europe," said John, gallantly.
    "You're too kind to say so. But after all, what is a ballroom? It's the country outside that matters, and which I never see. So I want to hear all you have to tell."
    She listened, fascinated, as he talked about the places he had visited. She had never been anywhere but Scotland in her life, but this man had been all over Europe, France, Italy, Spain, and then further, to India and Egypt.
    She listened entranced as he described the pyramids, the desert, the Nile. Her eyes shone as he talked about Venice and Rome.
    This was what she had always wanted to know. The men she had met in the past had only talked about how they admired her, and what they felt for her. Since she did not admire them, and suspected that their real feelings were for her father's money, their