Chapter One ~ 1853

“It’s getting late, I must go.”

The Marquis turned over as he spoke and started to rise from the bed.

Inez Shangarry gave a little cry of protest.

“Oh, no, Osborne,no! You cannot leave me so soon. I want you.”

The Marquis shook himself free of her clinging arms and started to put on his discarded clothes.

Lying back against the pillows with her dark hair falling over her naked body, Lady Shangarry made an enticing picture.

“You cannot leave me,you cannot,” she murmured. “It’s still very early and there are so few evenings when we can be together like this.”

There was a glint of fire in her eyes and her red lips pouted provocatively.

“You are very persuasive, Inez,” the Marquis said as he moved across the room to the dressing table to pick up his discarded cravat.

“I want to be persuasive and I want to be with you, you know that,” Lady Shangarry said in a low seductive voice, “but it is difficult sometimes. When we are alone together, I know that you are the most attractive and the most perfect lover that any woman could desire.”

The Marquis tied his black cravat with experienced fingers. Then, as he reached for his evening coat, he turned to look back at the silk-draped bed and its attractive occupant.

“I am going to the country tomorrow,” he said, “and, as I wish to leave early, I think it important for me to have my ‘beauty sleep’ just as you will need yours.”

“That is far from a compliment,” Inez Shangarry countered petulantly. “I want you to stay with me. Surely, Osborne, after all we have meant to each other, you can grant me just a few more minutes of your time?”

“I hardly think it would be just a few minutes,” the Marquis remarked in an amused voice.

It was in fact difficult to believe that any man could resist the allurements of Lady Shangarry, who was recognised as having the most perfect figure in the whole of London.

She was acclaimed by all the connoisseurs of beauty, including rakes, roués and men like the Marquis who were noted as being extremely particular in their choice of female companionship.

The Marquis was well aware not only of his reputation for being fastidious but also that almost every woman he looked at with any favour was only too willing to fall into his arms.

He had, however, resisted the allurements of Lady Shangarry for some time, although he knew that she was manoeuvring for him with the confidence of a woman who has found that few men can resist her.

Finally, because she was not only beautiful but also because she amused him, he had succumbed to the invitation she expressed in every look in her eyes and in every movement of her voluptuously curvy body.

Now, because she was so insistent on his staying longer than he wished, he wondered if in fact she was not becoming somewhat of a bore and if the end of their liaison was already in sight.

The Marquis was noted for being completely ruthless where his love affairs were concerned.

He preferred to do his own hunting, but unfortunately the chase was always brief si