“I have every right,” he answered. “I have come to take you back to London.”

“No! No!” Alyna cried. “I will not come with you!”

“I have your mother’s authority to compel you to do so,” he replied.

There was that cruel smile on his lips that made her shiver.

“Come home, Aunt Alyna!” Rupert said. “Come home with me! I want to go back to Mama!”

“Then you do as you are told and go back at once,” the Prince said.

He put out his hand as he spoke, took Rupert by the arm and pulled him from Alyna’s side. He put him on the path and gave him an almost savage push in the back with his hand.

“Go home!” he ordered. “And another time do as you are told!”

“How dare you touch the child?” Alyna stormed.

Then, because she was frightened that the Prince might hurt Rupert, she said quickly,

“Run home to Mama!”

The little boy hesitated for a moment. Then to her relief he started running down the path beside the stream that led back to the lawns.

She wanted to join him, but the Prince was between her and her escape. He seemed very big and overpowering.

He stood gazing at her and she knew that he was gloating over the fact that she was helpless.

“How did you – find me?” she asked at last in a whisper.

“You will learn, my dear Alyna,” he replied, “that when you bribe a servant they can always be over-bribed.”

“A – servant?” Alyna enquired with a little puzzled frown.

Then she remembered that she had given James two shillings to carry the note to Lord Dorrington asking him to meet her at St. George’s Church and had told him not to tell anyone in the house about his errand.

With an effort she forced herself to face Prince Ahmadi courageously.

“You have found me,” she said, “but I am not going to return with – you to London. I made it quite clear in my note to Mama that I will not – marry you.”

“But your mother is quite determined that you shall do so,” the Prince retorted, “and so am I.”

“How could you want to marry anyone who detests you, hates you, who wants only to be – free of you?” Alyna asked passionately.

The Prince laughed, but it was not a pleasant sound.

“You are entrancing when you spit at me like a small tiger cat! That is an apt description, for I see that you have changed the colour of your hair. It is not often that I am fascinated by anything but a fair woman, but I find you now extremely alluring just as I did from the first moment that we met.”

“I hate you!” Alyna said wildly. “Leave me alone!”

“That is something I have no intention of doing,” the Prince answered.