Time seemed to pass by very slowly, so slowly that Petrina, sitting tense and rigid in the darkness, began to think that perhaps the Earl, when he then found that she had left Staverton House, had decided to abandon her.
He would not care that she was in an empty house alone. Perhaps he would think it was the best way to be rid of her and forget her very existence.
And perhaps, she thought suddenly, he would be even more disgusted with her than he was already because she had come to the house where he had kept his mistress.
Now for the first time since leaving Staverton House, Petrina began to question her own wisdom in running away.
Next she thought she could smell on the air the fragrance of the perfume used by Yvonne Vouvray and she imagined that she could hear the Earl’s voice spea
