Below her in the valley she saw an Elizabethan house in the shape of an E, built of warm red brick weathered by the years with gabled diamond-paned windows and twisted chimneys romantically silhouetted against the sky.

“It is too beautiful to be real,” she breathed at last.

“That is what I think every time I come home,” Lord Dorrington commented.

It was a house, Alyna thought, as she stepped into the oak-panelled hall that had a welcoming atmosphere of happiness and of continuity of family life that had rolled on through the centuries.

There was an old butler and a number of footmen to greet them and then, as the housekeeper appeared in rustling black together with several housemaids, Alyna realised that they were congregating to welcome the bride of their Master.

Lord Dorrington presented each servant to her.

She shook them by the hand and, as she listened to his introduction, she learnt that most of them had been at Dorrington Park since he was a little boy.

They regarded him, she realised, not so much as a Nobleman of great consequence, but as a child they had watched grow up and for whom they had a real affection.

When the old butler had twice called Lord Dorrington ‘Master Ulric’ by mistake and then corrected himself, Alyna gave a little laugh as he left the room.

“He speaks to you as if you were still Rupert’s age!” she teased.

“I think that is part of coming home,” Lord Dorrington remarked. “Here I am not just the Master, but someone they look after and cosset! They wish to please me, not because I pay them, but because they genuinely want me to be happy.”

“Your house is really fantastic!” Alyna enthused.

She looked around the sitting room as she spoke and realised that on every wall and every table there were priceless treasures.

“Tomorrow, I want to show you some of the things I have collected,” Lord Dorrington replied, “and I think you will enjoy them. But tonight you are tired and so I have already made plans that I hope you will agree with.”

“What are they?” Alyna enquired.

“I think that, as we have driven a long way, we should dine as soon as possible,” Lord Dorrington replied. “After that we will be married in the Chapel, which was built at the same time as the house. It was wrecked by Cromwellian troops, but later it was restored to its former glory.”

“I will go upstairs and change,” Alyna said.

Then almost if she felt too weak to decide for herself, she asked,

“Which gown shall I wear?”

“You will find a white gown amongst those I purchased for you,” Lord Dorrington replied, “which will be the most suitable. Tomorrow there will be more dresses, together with other necessities, arriving from London, which I am sure will be as becoming as the one you are wearing now.”