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The waterfowl streamed towards them, a tiny flotilla of ducks, coots and moorhen filling the air with excited quacks and cheeps. James was laughing as he threw the bread. They had only been there for a few minutes when Sybella’s attention was caught by a rider all in black, mounted on a handsome dappled grey horse with an extravagantly long tail. Only when he had dismounted did she recognise Lord Rockliffe. He strolled towards them, smiling. ‘What a diverting surprise.’ His voice was silky. ‘The beautiful widow with her son.’ He bowed as he took her hand.

‘Lord Rockliffe.’ She inclined her head. ‘I would prefer to be known as someone other than the widow, my lord.’ She smiled in her unaffected way.

‘I’m afraid I prefer to think of you as the beautiful widow. It suggests a past that makes you so much more interesting to me.’ He lightly kissed her hand.

James had been looking up at Lord Rockliffe and shyly offered him some of his stale bread. This overture was ignored. The dark lord turned instead to the boy’s mother. ‘Your small tot thinks I’m a duck, or perhaps a horse,’ he drawled, not realising just what a fierce protective love was roused in Sybella’s maternal breast by his disdain.

‘Lord Rockliffe, you remember my son, James, I think?’ she said coldly.

‘I do indeed.’ James’s small angelic head was tipped backwards to gaze up into the unsmiling face of the man standing rather too close to his mama. Looking across at the grey horse, James was rapt for a moment in admiration.

‘Rum prancer,’ he said appreciatively. This brought a sly smile to Lord Rockliffe’s face, but he was not about to encourage the young upstart.

‘I heard a rumour the Duke of Ely was going to take a supper box at Vauxhall to celebrate the betrothal of his disreputable son to your fair sister.’

Sybella was indignant. ‘Lord Ravenell is a charming young man and I am delighted that my sister has accepted his proposal.’

‘How so, Mrs Lovatt? I know you are no fool and neither am I. There’s no doubting Valentine Ravenell’s charms, but he’s perhaps too profligate in his dispensation of them.’

‘I resent your insinuating tone, Lord Rockliffe.’ She turned sharply on her heel, but he caught her arm and pulled her close.

‘Don’t play the coquette with me, Madam.’ His voice was quiet and so close to her ear, she could feel his breath on her neck. ‘I know you for a woman of the world, who will deal with me straightly.’

Sybella felt her colour rise. ‘I would then ask you to unhand me, my lord.’

His face was very close and his dark eyes glittered with a challenging light. She felt a slight panic rise in her throat at the thought that he enjoyed a battle of wills and recognised he had found a worthy combatant in her.

But beneath this rational judgement was another feeling which she barely wished to acknowledge. It had been such a long time since she had aroused any emotion in a man, being reminded of this almost forgotten power was more than a little intoxicating. All her good sense and fine principles warned her against the seductive techniques of a libertine of Lord Rockliffe’s experience and reputation, but she could not quell the leap in her own heart, already unsettled during this last week by the slipping of old patterns and beliefs. Since her husband’s death, Sybella had been lost in an emotional desert, parched and longing for sustenance and, as she was now realising to her shame, susceptible even to the promise of an illusion of love.

Her resistance to his grasp imperceptibly weakened. Lord Rockliffe, watching her closely through narrowed eyes, recognised the signs. This was why he liked to seduce a widow, for she had already been awoken to the possibilities of desire, until fate had intervened. In comparison, virginal misses straight from the schoolroom were so tediously innocent of life.

The sun had burned through the mist and there was a sense of early summer in the air. James had finished throwing his bread onto the water and was watching his mother and that man with a puzzled frown. Suddenly his attention was caught by a very large black horse cantering their way. ‘Mr B and ’ades!’ he cried out and waved his empty basket in greeting.

Sybella sprang away from Lord Rockcliffe, who had immediately released her arm. She was flushed as she looked at the horse and rider now trotting towards them through the trees.

‘Good morning, Mrs Lovatt, and to you, Jim.’ Mr Brabazon’s face gave away nothing as he dismounted and, with his reins in his hand, walked unhurriedly up to Sybella. He took her hand, ignoring Lord Rockliffe, who had turned away. ‘May I put young James in the saddle?’ He looked enquiringly at Sybella, who wondered how much he had seen of Lord Rockliffe’s ungentlemanly sally.

‘Yes, please! Mama.’ James was on tiptoe trying to climb up himself. Sybella nodded as her son was swung high over her head onto Hades’s saddle with Mr Brabazon’s hand on his leg to steady him. Sybella had picked up the discarded basket. She looked across at Lord Rockliffe, who had mounted his beautiful grey.

He doffed his curly-brimmed beaver, as handsome and supercilious as ever. ‘Perhaps we’ll meet at Vauxhall,’ he said, turned his horse and cantered away. Mr Brabazon began to lead Hades towards the edge of the Park. His hand remained firmly holding James’s leg to prevent him from slipping.

‘I hope I didn’t interrupt anything important, Mrs Lovatt. I wouldn’t choose to chase Rockliffe away.’ His cool gaze gave nothing away as he smiled down at her still flushed face.

‘Oh, no. Lord Rockliffe came upon us by chance.’

‘I’m sure he did.’ In profile, his smile seemed to her to have become slightly more smug.

‘I had requested him not to refer to me as the widow.’

‘Oh? And what did he say?

‘He said it pleased him to think of me as a widow.’

‘I’m sure it did. Seducing widows is his speciality.’ His voice was no longer languid and amused but had turned chilly and bitter.

Sybella, already struggling with rather more volatile emotions than usual, found her anger quick to rise. ‘I think that statement is an insult to both Lord Rockliffe and myself,’ she said heatedly.

Mr Brabazon’s loftiness had returned and he laughed drily. ‘Don’t cozen me, Madam, how can it be an insult if it’s true?’