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arrived in London they had been invited to the country estate of Rupert’s dear old friend Lord Hempbill. It was a dinner party for some fifty guests, most of whom—like Cousin Rupert—were getting on in years.
    After the lengthy meal Temple had grown restless and had wandered out onto the stone terrace. Sir William Perry was there, smoking alone in the moonlight.
    On seeing him, she’d nodded and smiled, then laughed out loud when he’d said bluntly, “Are you as bloody bored as I?”
    She had been and she’d thought she’d found a kindred soul in the tall, blond, sophisticated thirty-five-year-old British gentleman. For the next few days—and evenings—she had enjoyed Sir William’s company immensely. He was intelligent and charming and totally uncaring of what people thought or said about him.
    But the fun didn’t last.
    Too soon he was looking at her with undisguised longing in his blue eyes and addressing her with an unmistakable sugary tenderness in his tone. Before the week was out he had confessed that he was falling in love with her.
    Temple sighed deeply now as she pushed away from the door. She kicked off her dancing slippers as she crossed the suite’s opulent sitting room. She extinguished the last of the sitting room’s many lamps and moved listlessly toward the bedroom.
    Only one light burned there: a small porcelain lamp with a pleated white shade shed a circle of pale illumination on the polished mahogany bedside table. The bed had been turned down for the night. Across its foot lay a fresh nightgown and matching robe.
    Wearily Temple began to undress, still bothered by the final unpleasantness with Sir William. It was always the same. Just a different man, a different face. A pleasant, enjoyable relationship with an unfettered, self-confident adult male in the very beginning. Then the inevitable change. The hated transformation into a foolish, lovesick boy. Before her eyes the dreaded metamorphosis into a drooling, addled would-be lover who couldn’t think straight for wanting to own her body and soul.
    Temple wondered sometimes if perhaps she was the perverse one. Maybe it wasn’t they. Maybe there was something terribly wrong with her. Maybe she should be pleased that she could inspire such passion. And maybe she would have been if not for the fact that when a man surrendered to his burning desire he was immediately eager to become putty in her hands. Which repelled her. And why not? Men abhorred women who were clinging vines, and she understood perfectly. She felt the same way. So she quite naturally rebelled against the chafing chains of suffocating devotion from a bewitched beau.
    Once, years ago, she had thought for a short while she had found the right man. It had been his intellect, not his looks, that had attracted her. A university professor and a poet, he’d been twenty-eight, she twenty-one. He was slender, bearded, and highly intelligent. He had seemed to be so completely unattainable that it made him incredibly attractive. And he had treated her as an equal, as if she were as bright and brilliant as he. Their highly stimulating conversations might have taken place between two astute, forward-thinking men who respected each other’s keen intellects.
    It had been wonderful.
    Bored with the trivial talk of clothes and food and babies of which her female friends never seemed to tire, she’d been inspired and excited by the sparkling conversation of her scholarly companion. A true academic who wrote beautiful poetry, he was also an excellent listener who encouraged her to think for herself and speak what was on her mind.
    It was all perfect until a chilly November afternoon when he persuaded her to visit his remote stone cottage not far from the university.
    A blazing fire, a bottle of chilled wine, and a book of his own poetry. No sooner were they inside than he took her in his arms and began kissing her passionately in the entranceway, the weak autumn sunlight spilling through