“Your books are very – fascinating!”
“I was sure they would please you. Now, Vina, suppose we have a little talk, as you promised me you would last night?”
He did not sit down beside her as she expected, although it would have been rather a squeeze.
Instead to her surprise he sat down on the floor with his back against a bookcase and his feet stretched out against the balcony.
It made him seem less overwhelming and in a way more human and, as she thought of it, she knew that it was what he intended.
“Last night you greatly worried me,” the Duke said, “and it was only when you had left me, much sooner than I intended, that I realised I had not asked you to give me your word of honour that it was something you would never do again.”
He paused and, when she did not speak, he said,
“I a
