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acceptance of it stung her.
    “You see nothing wrong in that?” she demanded.
    “I see everything wrong in it,” he said.
    “But you were expecting worse—though what could be worse, I can’t imagine.”
    Even as she said it, her imagination took flight. Perhaps Lord Deverill had suspected that Mr. Elwin would suggest she be passed between gentlemen, instead of being the favoured mistress of one or other of them. She shuddered.
    “Keep away from Elwin,” he said. “If Rupert was here, he would say the same. Elwin is not the sort of man you should know.”
    “So I have discovered, but have no fear. I never intend to talk to him again.”
    Lord Deverill nodded slightly, then said, “It’s possible he might approach you. If he does, I want you to know that you can call on me for help at any time.”
    There was something gentle in his tone of voice, and she felt herself relax as the tension started to ebb.
    “That’s very kind of you,” she said, “but it isn’t your concern.”
    “That’s where you’re wrong. It is.”
    She looked at him enquiringly.
    He indicated a chair. She hesitated, and then sat down, curious to know what he meant.
    He picked up a tinderbox and lit the candles on the mantelpiece. The small yellow flames flickered into life. As they gained strength they created soft pools of light that glowed in the twilight. He replaced the tinder box and then sat down opposite her. He stretched his legs out in front of him. Light gleamed from the gold ring on his finger, and the diamond pin in his cravat. But it was his eyes that drew Cassandra’s attention, and the finger that stroked his top lip.
    He started speaking.
    “Your brother made me promise him something, last year, when he lay dying.” He spoke heavily, as though the recollection was not pleasant. “That is why I say it is my concern if you are worried or in difficulties.”
    Cassandra was puzzled.
    “What kind of promise? And why were you with him when he lay dying? I thought he was riding alone. Were you with him when he fell?”
    “Yes. I was.”
    His eyes suddenly flickered and dropped to the floor. She had the feeling that he was not seeing her, but that he was seeing the past, reliving the moment when Rupert had been thrown from his horse.
    “Did…did he suffer?” she asked in a low voice.
    “No. He felt nothing.”
    “And…and the end?” asked Cassandra, with a catch in her throat.
    He spoke gently. “Was very quick.”
    “I have often…” She stopped to collect herself, then began again in a stronger voice. “I have often wondered about that night. I asked Mr. Raistrick about it, but he could tell me nothing. Why was Rupert riding at night? What was he doing? Where was he going? Why was he ignoring the safety of his horse? Was he drunk? Was that the explanation?”
    “No, he wasn’t drunk,” he said slowly.
    “Then what made him ride across rough country in the dark? Did he do it for a bet? To try and set a record for racing from Brighton to London overnight, perhaps?”
    He regarded her intently for a moment, and then said, “It’s impossible to be sure.”
    “If the bet was sufficiently large, he might have been tempted to risk his horse,” she said, following her own train of thought. “He had always wanted to find a quick and easy way of repairing the family fortunes, even from the time he was a small boy.” She smiled sadly as she recalled a childhood memory, and began to pleat the skirt of her gown. “When he was eleven years old, he came across an old family journal in the library, written by my great great great great grandfather. It mentioned that my ancestor had buried the family jewels under a chestnut tree before fleeing to France after the Civil War. Rupert took a spade outside and started digging up one of the chestnut trees! The only way my father could stop him was to show him another journal which he kept in the study. It told of the family’s subsequent uprooting of every chestnut on