The anxiety on Mistral’s face cleared away.
‘Yes, I will promise that. It is kind of you.’
In return I promise to tell no one that we have met and, if we meet again in public, to pretend that we are strangers. But I shall not forget this morning.’
‘And I shall not forget it either,’ Mistral replied. ‘The dawn was just as Sister Heloise described it, lovely – lovely beyond words.’
‘Yes, lovely beyond words,’ Sir Robert repeated slowly and insistently, looking down into her face.
For a moment her eyes were held by his, then as if he frightened her, she turned from him and went running down the path between the brilliant flowers with her grey cloak flying out a little behind her. She moved swiftly and with a grace which reminded him of some woodland nymph, until a turn in the gardens too
