She closed her eyes and thought that his handsome tired cynical face would be engraved in her memory so that every man she looked at would appear to be him.
And no other man would have anything to give her nor would there be anything that she could give him because he was not the Duc.
She raised her hands and with the tips of her fingers touched her mouth. He had kissed her. That was something to remember even though the kiss was now but bitter ashes.
If only once he could have kissed her gently, a kiss of friendship or even kindliness, she might have died happy. But instead his kiss had been like a sword, fierce, brutal and cruel, it had left her trembling with a strange flame awake within herself that she knew now was love.
‘Love is gentle and kind.’
She could hear herself repeating
