I tossed the apple into the bushes for the birds to quarrel over. “What letter?”

“You really did not read it?”

“I tell you, there was no letter. What did it say?”

“It was by way of an apology,” he said, watching me closely. “I have behaved very badly with you, and it has caused me to experience an emotion I have very seldom felt before. Shame.”

I wished then that I had kept the apple. It would have furnished me with something to occupy my hands. I twisted my fingers together to stop them trembling.

“You have no call to be shamed. You spoke the truth. I did come to you for seduction and you obliged me. I bear at least as much guilt as you.”

“I am your elder by half a dozen years and a lifetime’s experience,” he said, coming to sit beside me upon the bench. “I should have anticipated your feelings, but instead I found I did not even anticipate my own.”

My pulse thudded hard within my veins. His leg was so near to my own, I could feel the heat of his skin through my skirts. A leaf could not have fit between us, but he did not look at me.

“You were right, of course. I have armoured myself against any soft feeling, and it was a point of pride with me that I have never been susceptible. You interested me, attracted me, from the moment I saw you standing in the great hall, so different from my expectation. I thought to find frost and instead I found fire. For all my experience, Theodora, you are unlike any woman I have known,” he added with a small, wistful smile. “And so I plotted your seduction as I have so many others. I took the measure of you the moment I held your hands in mine to wash them in welcome, and I knew that the greatest weapons in my arsenal against you were exoticism and fear.”

“Fear?” I asked. A cold chill had risen in the hollow of my stomach, an icy mist spread through my bones, carried in the blood that cooled with his every word. I had thought him cynical, but I had not realised the depths of his cruelty.

“You are a writer of romantic horror stories. What better adventure for you than to live one? I employed every machination, aroused every doubt, and used your own curiosity against you. I gave you glimpses of what I am, my blackest heart and my monstrous ways. I let you see just enough of me to whet your appetites for more, and then I assuaged the hunger. That ought to have been the end of it, and perhaps for you, it has been,” he said bitterly.

My heart gave a painful, bruising leap against my ribs. “But for me,” he added, “it was not. Can you imagine my surprise, my dismay, to realise that I have been snared in the jaws of my own trap? I have never thought about a woman once I have had her. It is not in my nature to be tender or to form attachments. And yet, there is something fine about you, something uncorrupted, for all that I have done to you. How is that possible? I asked you to destroy me with your goodness, and by God, you have done so,” he finished, with so black a look as made me tremble more.

But boldness rose within me and I covered his hand with my own. “If you hold any regard for me, why must that be your destruction? A shared attachment can bring joy,” I told him.

He grasped my fingers for a moment, so hard the bones protested, but then he dropped my hand, and I wished again for the pain that I might at least be near to him.

“There can be no joy for us,” he said, his tone harsh with unhappiness. “I must do my duty, as you have so often pointed out. I cannot play King Cophetua to your beggar maid.”

With this last bit of savagery, he rose and walked a few paces upon the path and back again before turning to me. “If only you had read the letter. My pen is more eloquent than my tongue. I made confessions to you there I cannot bring myself to say again in the light of day. You would have a better measure of me now if you had read it.”

“I could not, for it was not there,” I reminded him.

“But I put it beneath the necklace so you would see it.”

“There was no letter,” I said, slowly and distinctly.

Comprehension dawned upon his face. “Of course not,” he murmured. “I apologise. If you will excuse me, I have something I must attend to.”

He rose to leave, but before he quit the garden, he turned back. He said nothing for a moment, but his expression varied wildly between fear and hope and something indefinable. He strode back and collected me to him, raising me from the bench and kissing me without either preamble or permission. But this was no sweet lover’s caress; there was desperation in his lips, and in spite of myself I was moved. I clung to him for a moment as he abandoned my mouth to kiss my temples, my eyelids, my brow. At last he drew back, and when he spoke his voice was rough.

“If only you had read the letter. Things are moving apace now. I do not know what will happen, but you must be safe. You will leave-tomorrow. I will speak with Beecroft and he will take you from here. It is impossible that you should stay.”

“I do not want to leave you.” The words left my mouth before I could guard against them. Hearing them, he groaned and kissed me again.

“Do you think I would send you away if there were any way to keep you? I am master here, but there are things beyond even my control. You will go because I say you will. I have never asked for obedience, but now I demand it.”

“But-”

He gripped my shoulders, his fingers biting into the flesh so hard I would bear the bruises of it for weeks to come. “Do you not understand me? I cannot protect you now.”

Realising the strength of his grip, he released me, his expression sorrowful, imploring, and yet with an air of command I dared not refuse.

“Who will protect you?” I asked him, putting a hand to his face. For an instant, he closed his eyes, giving himself up to my touch. Then he stepped sharply backwards and the moment passed.

“I will not see you again, Theodora. Leave at dawn, and do not think of coming back. You will not be welcome, and you will not be safe.”

And with that last brutal pronouncement, he left me.

I went to my room and began to pack, and some time later there came a knock at my door. I hurried to answer it.

“You look disappointed,” Charles said with an attempt at jollity. “Expecting someone?”

“Of course not,” I said dully, turning back to my packing.

“I happened across that fellow the count and he said you changed your mind, that you wanted to return to Edinburgh straight away. I do not pretend to understand you, Theodora, but I must admit I am relieved. Of course, one hopes the book will not suffer, but I have put my mind to it, and I have recalled an acquaintance of my mother’s who I think may do us an excellent service. The Duke of Aberdour has a wonderful old place up in the Highlands, all pointed towers and crumbling stone, just like this. Well, not precisely like this of course,” he added with a sharp laugh. I heard him as if from a distance, through a veiled mist of misery. I could not quite take in the fact that I must leave this place. That I must leave him.

“Well, what do you think?” Charles asked, his question tinged with impatience, as if he had put it to me more than once.

“About what? I am sorry, I was not attending,” I told him as I folded a shawl into the box. I had forgot the one I had worn into the garden. It was still doubtless draped over the tarragon bush. I made a note to retrieve it before I left and reached for the necklace of blue beads and a handkerchief in which to tie it.

“About staying with the Duke of Aberdour, of course,” he said testily. “He is a terrible old flirt, fifty years old and he’s already seen three wives buried. Still, you can manage him well enough, I daresay. The place is wildly atmospheric, and I should think it would suit your purposes. A very congenial place to finish the book,” he told me, rubbing his hands together. There was nothing Charles liked better than a tidy solution.