“No, she did not want to go to hospital. Yes, she would like a cup of tea. Only then did she begin to think rationally again.”

“Alice would give anything, anything at all, to be lying in bed with Nick, waiting for a cup of tea. Maybe he got sick of making her cups of tea? Was that it? Had she taken him for granted? Who did she think she was, some sort of princess, lying in bed waiting for cups of tea to be delivered.”

“And she liked me. She liked me. She liked me. She liked me. Or at least, I think she did. I think she did. Etc.”

“Hear you're training again," she says. "For the Capriani Cup.""Who told-""You did," she says. "Just now.”

“She told me that she did not like the idea of your being in that house all by yourself, and that she thought you took too much strong tea. In fact she wants me to advise you if possible to give up the tea and the very late hours.”

“Annabel looked down. Her hands were shaking. She couldn't do this. Not yet. She couldn't face the man she'd kissed who happened to be the heir to the man she didn't want to kiss but whos she probably was going to marry. Oh yes, and she could not forget that if she did marry the man she didn't want to kiss, she was likely to provide him with a new heir, thus cutting off the man she did want to kiss.”