Konstantin frowned.

Did she truly doubt her own worth so much? It was inconceivable to his mind that somebody of such obvious virtue should think themselves thus: his mother had taught him from a young age to value decency above all and Miss Evans had that in spades. Young women had hardly thrown themselves at him but he was going places in the Ministry and at the side of Urquart he had drawn interest. None of those women had intrigued him quite so much though and Konstantin was rather pleased that he had found himself in the company of a young lady who was entirely herself.

His mother would be proud.

Her hesitation cut through him like a liston knife though, so sharp he feared it might reach the very core of him – which was all quite absurd. Miss Evans, though excellent, was after all a relative stranger and yet he felt with her the burst of something indefinable and rich, like a wealth he had never imagined achieving in all his life. Was this infatuation? If so then Konstantin felt for the first time in his life some sympathy with those literary fools his mother had loved so much who risked everything on what had previously seemed to him flimsy reasoning.

Had he truly gone so long without this feeling?

Smiling lazily he lifted her hand and placed a gentle kiss on the back of it, just as the crowd around them began chanting down the seconds to midnight.

“You are exactly the sort of woman I had always hoped to meet.”