“I hate him, Mama! Please understand I hate – and detest him. There is something about him that makes me creep. I cannot marry him! Perhaps another man might be different. I would try to be amenable for your sake – but not with the Prince. I would die rather than have him – touch me.”

Alyna’s voice broke on the words.

Then she said,

“I meant to die tonight – I meant to throw myself in the river.”

“You need not try to frighten me with that sort of dramatic nonsense,” Lady Maude retorted. “I am not taken in by your hysterical threats, Alyna. Let us get this quite clear between us. I want that ten thousand pounds and I intend to have it.”

“Mama, I beg of you – be kind to me in this one instance! I swear I will try to help you another time.”

“There will be no other time, Alyna, because I intend that you shall marry the Prince. He is wealthy beyond the dreams of avarice. Do you not understand, once you are married to him he will go on helping me! Ten thousand or twenty thousand pounds, it means nothing to him! I have made enquiries about Kahriz and the Prince will be one of the richest rulers in the world.”

There was a throb of greed in Lady Maude’s voice.

Alyna put her hands up to her face.

“Please – Mama, please – listen to me.”

“There is nothing you can say that I want to hear,” Lady Maude said. “Except one thing. You will marry the Prince if I have to beat you into submission. I have not whipped you, Alyna, since you were a small child, but I shall not hesitate to do so if it suits my purpose.”

Her lips tightened.

“You will marry the Prince one way or another and it will be far easier and more comfortable for both of us if you do what you are told now and stop behaving in this half-witted manner.”

She looked at Alyna and her voice was quieter.

“He loves you in his own way. You can do anything you like with him, you can get all you want out of him. You just have to be pleasant and allow him to show you how fond he is of you.”

“I hate him! – I hate him!” Alyna screamed wildly.

“This is your father’s doing,” Lady Maude said scathingly. “Do you not understand, you stupid little fool, that your father was the most selfish man alive? You thought that he loved you, you thought he cared for you as an individual, but I can tell you he just wanted someone to be with him.”

“No!” Alyna exclaimed. “He loved me!”

“He loved himself,” Lady Maude retorted. “Anyone could have filled your place if they would listen to his high-flown ideas, if they allowed him to stuff them full of knowledge that was impractical, unsaleable and completely useless from a worldly point of view.”