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"I am sure I would never be able to do that," she answered in her soft voice, "but I
shall try, because it would be a great achievement to do so."
There was, he thought, a mischievous look in her eyes that he had not seen before.
He seemed very tall and large in the small Sitting-Room.
Vanessa had risen too and for a moment they stood facing each other, then the
Marquis took the hand she held out to him and raised it to his lips.
"Until tomorrow, Vanessa," he said quietly, and turning went from the room.
Vanessa knew that Dorcas was waiting in the hall to show the Marquis out and she
made no attempt to follow him.
Instead she stood in front of the mantelshelf and saw him pass down the little flagged
path to the iron gate.
His horses having been walked round the Square, the phaeton was now waiting
outside and she saw him climb into the seat and pick up the reins.
The groom ran to jump up behind and with a flick of the whip the Marquis started
his horses.
Vanessa could see his high hat silhouetted against I he trees and just for a moment
she saw his clear-cut profile and the breadth of his shoulders as he drove away.
"He is magnificent!" she told herself and felt her heart beating unaccountably quickly.
She had never expected to see him again.
How could she have guessed that he would trouble to find her father's address from
the Prince of Wales and call with the excuse that he had some miniatures to be restored?
She was quite certain in her own heart that it was not the miniatures which had
brought him to Islington but, incredible though it seemed, his wish to see her again.
She thought, when Dorcas had found her to say that the Marquis had arrived, that
she must be dreaming. Then she had felt that she could not meet him again and must
make some excuse to send him away.
It was impossible for her to explain even to herself how she could have allowed a
strange man, someone she had never met before, to kiss her.
Granted, the Marquis had been amazingly kind and had saved her from the odious
and terrifying attentions of Sir Julius Stone, but that did not excuse the unaccountable
fact that she had neither struggled nor moved away from him but let his lips hold hers.
She did not know why it had been impossible to do anything but stand there, a
captive to the strange, Inexpressible magic which had risen within her at the (ouch of his
mouth.
Vanessa had never been kissed before and she had wondered what it would be like.
She had thought lo herself that it would be something soft and gentle and persuasive,
but instead she had felt something very different.
It was as if she was being mesmerised and had lost complete control of her will and
indeed of herself.
When the Marquis's lips had touched hers she had felt as if he took her into his
keeping and she became his.
She could not explain the sensation that he had evoked; she knew only that it was
there and that everything was changed because he had kissed her.
When he left, the door had been closed between them and she had locked it as he had
told her to do, and she had sat for a long time on the edge of the small bed, feeling weak
and helpless.
She could not even now understand how it had happened. She knew only that when
he had looked into her eyes he had drawn her towards him and something strange had
passed between them so that she could no longer think clearly.
In fact, it had been impossible to think at all. Everything had just happened
involuntarily.
She remembered the way his head had bent towards hers; the touch of his fingers
beneath her chin; then his lips holding her, possessing her, until it was impossible to
breathe and her heart seemed to rise up into her throat.
Even if he had held her closer still, she thought despairingly, she would have been
unable to struggle against him!
It was a superhuman effort on her part, when she learnt he had called, to walk into
the small Sitting-Room.
'Perhaps,' she thought, "he will look different and he will not seem the same here at
home.'
But if the Marquis had seemed impressive wearing his robe in the bed-room of the
Posting-Inn, he was a thousand times more overwhelming dressed in a grey cut-away
whipcord coat over close-fitting champagne-coloured pantaloons, and with shining
Hessians which seemed to reflect the very room itself.
His meticulously tied cravat was very white against the squareness of his chin and
she thought that his eyes seemed more penetrating than they had been in the candlelit
bed-room.
Never had she seen a man as smart or as disturbingly masculine as the Marquis, and
he made her feel small and insignificant.
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