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the ends of which fell down her back. It had a modest neckline, trimmed with lace-edged scallops of the same material and its tiny puffed sleeves finished with the same lace edging. Susie then fashioned Lucy’s hair into a knot on the crown of her head, decorated with tiny flowers fresh from the garden.
    After the three ladies had partaken of their meal, the two older ladies made their apologies and retired to their apartments upstairs, leaving Lucy to her own devices. A glimpse of the rose garden, still bathed in the evening sunshine, attracted her attention.
    ‘I know you have a lot of packing to do,’ she told Susie, when she went upstairs to collect a light shawl. ‘So, I think I will take a short turn about the garden.’
    ‘Eeh, not on your own, Miss Lucy!’ Susie objected. ‘I can do the packing later.’
    ‘Nonsense, Susie! What possible harm can befall me in Lady Montcliffe’s garden? No, you continue with the packing up here and I promise to return before the sun has sunk below the line of trees.’
    It was a balmy evening. The scent of the flowers floated in the air and Lucy breathed them in deeply. She had enjoyed her stay at Montcliffe Hall but, although sorry to be leaving the two countesses, she was now looking forward to returning to Glenbury Lodge to spend some time with her nephew and niece and helping them through their convalescence . With a burst of carefree abandon, no doubt caused by her deep inhalation of the heady scents of the flowers, she flung wide her arms and danced and twirled among the flowerbeds, by some chance humming the music of the waltz that had led to her deportation from her home. How often had she imagined dancing it with Mario Vitali in the early days of her exile?
    She was now surprised to find that the memory no longer distressed her. In fact, she was able to dismiss any thought of the wretched man as easily as she might have swatted away an irritating midge on a summer evening. She had come to realize that her love for Signor Vitali had been nothing more than the illusion of a young girl’s infatuation – blatantly fostered by a heartless fortune hunter – and the agony of betrayal was fading, leaving her wiser than she had been before. It had left her determined not to be swept into a relationship against her will. She would be the mistress of her destiny … no one else, not even her parents.
    Pushing such serious thoughts away from her, she twirled and swayed, letting her feet take her where they wished, her mind lost in the steady rhythmic beat of the waltz. Her steps took her to the flagged area outside the music room, the way she had left the hall. There she twirled and stepped some more, her head thrown back into the falling rays of the sun as it began its descent towards the distant trees that bordered the grounds.
    The sound of slow clapping forced its way into her consciousness and her steps faltered to a halt as her eyes searched for the source of the sound. She felt a little alarmed to see the figure of a young man leaning against the open glass doors. He was well dressed but seemed to be more than slightly dishevelled. Her alarm grew as the man lurched forward, murmuring, ‘Well, well, well, and who have we here?’
    Lucy backed away as the man advanced towards her. She wasn’t greatly alarmed for her safety as she now recognized the man’s features from the oil painting that adorned the dining room wall. It was the elder of the two sons of the house – Lord Theodore Rockhaven – but his unsteady progress towards her clearly demonstrated that he was in his cups. ‘As drunk as a lord!’ Lucy couldn’t help reflecting, with a slightly hysterical hiccup.
    Even in the fading light, she could see that his eyelids drooped slightly over his deep-brown eyes, giving him an unnerving Machiavellian demeanour. Her heart palpitated and she held out her hand, palm forward, in the hope of fending the man away from her, but, instead, her hand was seized and used to