“There is nothing I can do, is there, in those circumstances?” Adrian said sullenly.
“Nothing,” Lord Manville agreed.
For a moment the young man stood staring at his Guardian as though he would plead with him. Then, with an inarticulate sound that was half an explosion of anger and half a hastily smothered sob, he strode from the morning room, slamming the door behind him.
Lord Manville sighed and, picking up The Times newspaper, scanned the headlines.
The morning sun coming in through the window enveloped him and it was hard to imagine a finer or more handsome looking man as he stood there in a dressing gown of oriental brocade, an azure-blue satin scarf round his neck and his legs encased in tight-fitting yellow pantaloons.
Lord Manville had dark hair growing back from a square fore
