It seemed to her as if her voice came back to her from the walls of the room almost as if they echoed every word she had said.
Then there was silence – a silence in which she could hear her heart beating. She thought that having heard what she had to say the Duke would leave.
He would walk out of the room and out of her life. She would hear the door close behind him and that would be the end.
But he did not go and because she longed to run to him and beg him to forgive her, to go down on her knees in front of him and plead with him not to leave her, Tamara held onto the windowsill.
As she did so, she forced herself to remember that she had some pride and she must let him go as he would wish.
After a moment, in a different tone from what she had expected, the Duke asked,
“You knew it
