She put her fingers into his and he held them so tightly it was almost painful.
“You were – expecting me?” she asked in a low voice, finding it somehow difficult to speak.
“I have been watching for you every day since you left,” he answered. “In fact one of my stalkers had a spy-glass on you from the moment you crossed the boundary.”
It was what Leona had hoped and somehow expected and yet it was an irrepressible joy to know that she had been right. “I could – not come – before.”
“Did you want to?”
There was something searching in the way he asked the question and because she felt shy she could not look into his eyes.
“I-I – wrote to you,” she said, “but the – letter was never – dispatched.”
She saw his lips tighten and then he said,
“But you are here today.”
“The Duke is shooting
