For a moment Miss Evans looked truly perturbed by his words, quite as though the moment caused her pain the like of which he couldn’t understand, and Konstantin worried that he had gone wrong entirely. Perhaps she had suffered something terrible in the past and he had opened old wounds? She was far too pretty – and frankly not nearly young enough – for her to never have caught somebody’s eye before and the fact she was unattached did suggest things had either never become serious or else some calamity had befallen her previous gentlemen callers.

Neither experience were likely to have left her feeling optimistic about the men of the world, he surmised, but he hadn’t expected actual distress.

And then she smiled. Brief and tense, but unmistakably a smile. It might mean nothing and yet it gave him some hope.

“You haven’t been imagining it. Not at all.” Reaching down he took her hand gently, closing it between both of his and making every effort not to hold her in such a way that she couldn’t pull free at any moment. The last thing he wanted was to get it wrong now. “I don’t mean to alarm you – or ruin the night – but I wanted to know we were of the same mind. That’s all,” his smile reached his eyes and he hoped desperately that it was as reassuring as it was meant to be. “I hope I haven’t spoiled everything?”