“And when the governess had left, he would slip out of his own room and peer at her door until her light was extinguished at last, before he returned to bed to stew anew in lust and yearning.A habit that he’d kept to this day, whenever they happened to be under the same roof.Her light turned off. He sighed. How long would he keep at this? Soon he would be twenty-seven. Did he still plan to stand in a dark passage in the middle of the night and gaze upon her door when he was thirty-seven? Forty-seven? Ninetyseven?”

“Trust ran both ways. How could he ask her to trust him when he hardly trusted her?He would trust her, in her love, in her strength, in her decency and fortitude.And when the time came, he would find the strength in himself.”

“That was how he would go on tormenting her, after his physical departure from her life. A baroque plan, byzantine even, a plan that both pleased and shamed him.He awaited only the night, this one grotesque, terrible night.”

“He climbed into bed himself and kissed his way up her legs. Instincts she didn’t even know she possessed made her clench her thighs together. Without any hesitation, he pushed them apart, exposing her to his gaze.“The doors of the temple, darling, never close to the devout acolyte.”

“Amazing what a man thought of, looking at a fully clothed woman who did nothing more provocative than sipping her tea while gazing thoughtfully into the distance.For the thousandth time he wished he’d just met her. That they were but two strangers traveling together, that such lovely, filthy thoughts did not break him in two, but were only a pleasant pastime as he slowly fell under the spell of her aloof beauty and her hidden intensity.There were so many stories he could tell her, so many ways to draw her out of her shell. He would have waited with bated breath for her first smile, for the sound of her first laughter. He would be endlessly curious about her, eager to undress her metaphorically as well as physically.The first holding of hands. The first kiss. The first time he saw her unclothed. The first time theybecame one.The first time they finished each other’s sentences.But no, they’d met long ago, in the furthest years of his childhood. Their chances had come and gone. All they had ahead of them were a tedious road and a final good-bye.”

“Once theexhilaration of their reunion wore off, once the newness of their lovemaking was no longer sonew, how would she see him? No matter how careful he was, invariably someday he woulddo something to make her angry. What then? Would all the old unhappiness rush to the fore?Would she remember that he had once betrayed her and regret that she’d ever given him asecond chance?Or would she protect herself from the beginning by keeping a certain distance from him, sothat their closeness would always fall short of true communion, always denying him that finalforgiveness so that he could never hurt her again?”

“Mr. Robbins let slip that he had not beensleeping well. He’d given up his room at the lodging house to a lady traveling by herself,who’d come into Nowshera too tired to stand, when Nowshera was overrun and bedsimpossible to find. When the lady left, the landlord had given the room to someone else,leaving Mr. Robbins to sleep in rather atrocious places.”“Dear me,” said Lady Vera.“He didn’t know it, but that lady was Mrs. Marsden. And I, for one, will always be gratefulthat he helped her when there was absolutely nothing in it for him.”Lady Vera set down her tea. She reached forward and took Leo’s hands. “Thank you, Mr.Marsden. Sometimes I forget that beneath Michael’s ambition, there is not a void, but muchkindness. Thank you for reminding me.”