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disappointed?’
     
    ‘Disappointed?’ he said. ‘Without eye protection I’ll feel much safer observing you from a distance.’
     
    She should have known taking on Lorenzo would end in tears. But perhaps tears wouldn’t be stinging the backs of her eyes if she hadn’t felt so ridiculous. ‘You could have warned me about the black dress code.’
     
    ‘And show favouritism to my own pupil?’
     
    She held his gaze and hardened her heart. Would any of the seniors have finer feelings? No, they were here to have fun at their pupils’ expense. Tipping her chin, she went for a forceful gesture that was meant to demonstrate her nonchalant acceptance of her fate, but which unfortunately lifted her breasts clear of the constraining bodice. It was harder to appear defiant now while she was hastily stuffing them back in, and, to make matters worse, Lorenzo showed no intention of turning away as any gentleman should.
     
    ‘I’m impressed,’ he murmured, taking a leisurely ocular stroll down the Grand Canyon of cleavages.
     
    ‘By what?’ Carly challenged, frowning.
     
    ‘By your sang-froid,’ Lorenzo said easily with a smile. ‘Why, Carly , you’re shivering,’ he said as she shuddered with awareness. ‘Are you cold?’
     
    All the tiny hairs on the back of her neck were standing to attention, and her nipples were about to explode, but cold? No, she wasn’t cold.
     
    ‘It’s time you made your way to your table. I trust you won’t let me down?’
     
    ‘I won’t let myself down,’ she assured him pleasantly. ‘What are you doing?’ she said with suspicion as he uncapped his pen.
     
    ‘Not taking any chances,’ he murmured.
     
    ‘Meaning?’
     
    ‘I’m changing our names around on the seating plan so I can watch your back…’
     
    She was tempted to relent and think that, for once, Lorenzo was trying to be nice, when just at that moment Madeline Du Pre wafted past with a coterie of admirers. The sight of her main rival for the scholarship flagging up her good sense in front of Lorenzo was all it took for Carly to decide to stay and fight in her orange armour . Removing the pen from Lorenzo’s fingers, she changed their names back again, scratching his alterations out with such force she bent his nib.
     
     
     
    There had been catcalls and wolf-whistles all night as pupils rose one by one to make their application to join the circuit. Silence fell when Carly stood. Maybe everyone was bored of the sport; her name was pretty close to the end of the alphabet. Or perhaps the seniors had simply exhausted their catalogue of jibes. Or, and this seemed the most likely explanation, the orange gown had come into its own and stunned everyone into silence.
     
    ‘My name is Carly Viola Tate, and I was called to the bar by the honourable society of…’
     
    It took the space of a heartbeat for her mind to blank. Her lips tried to form the words she needed to speak while her mind was in freefall. Which of the ancient Inns of Court had she been called to the bar by? Her darting gaze met Lorenzo’s. She only had to take one look at that lazy, mocking stare to know she had no intention of allowing him to see her fail. He must have been through a similar ordeal at some stage of his career…
     
    As had all the seniors here before her!
     
    Tipping her chin, she started over.
     
     
     
    The seniors would have to look elsewhere for their sport. Lorenzo didn’t know when he had felt so relieved…or more aroused. And that did stop him in his tracks. But as he basked in the compliments of his peers over the outstanding performance of his pupil he could only agree with them that Carly was indeed exceptional—and in so many ways. She had obliterated his addiction to all that was perfect, replacing it with new standards of her own. She was quirky and different and fresh. Or, to put it another way, her breasts were extraordinarily large and she was divinely plump in all the right places…though he had to