She paused before she went on,

“Actually the girl I have in mind will make it even easier for us to be together than it is now.”

“‘The girl you have in mind’?” the Duke repeated sharply. “What girl? Who is she?”

“That is what I am going to tell you. But don’t look so cross! This is the only possible way I feel I can save you.”

As she spoke, the Countess rose from the sofa and crossed to the chair where the Duke was sitting.

She knelt down beside him turning her beautiful face up to his as she said,

“I love you! I love you! Oh, Ulric, I cannot lose you! That is what will happen if the Queen and the Prince have their way − ”

She was not able to finish the sentence.

The Duke bent forward to put his arms around her and now his lips were on hers kissing her passionately, demandingly and, because he was upset, almost brutally.

The fire that was never far from the surface in either of them leapt into a blaze.

As their kisses became more insistent, the Duke lifted her until she was lying in his arms and she could feel his heart beating as frantically as her own.

The sound of a coal falling in the grate made them both aware of the risk they were running.

In a choked little voice, because she found it hard to breathe, Aline managed to say when the Duke raised his head,

“We must be sensible – but it is very – difficult when you – kiss me like that.”

“I want you!” he said. “It is damnable that we have to wait until the weekend!”

“I know, but there is a great – deal you have to – do before then.”

It was still difficult for her to speak in anything but a gasp, but she extricated herself from his arms and with an effort moved back to the sofa.

As she did so, she put her fingers up on either side of her forehead, aware that he was watching her every movement and knowing it was very graceful.

“I am trying to think,” she said, “and, darling, you must not prevent me from telling you what I have in mind, because when you kiss me I can think of nothing but you.”

“I want to kiss you again,” the Duke murmured.

As he spoke he had a vision of the Princess Sophie’s fat emotionless face and knew that anything however unpleasant or outrageous would be better than having to marry her.

“It almost seems as if Fate is playing into our hands,” Aline began, “because tomorrow – actually it was against my will – George’s niece arrives here from Florence.”

“His niece?” the Duke asked almost automatically.

He was not thinking of what he was saying, but of how much the woman opposite attracted him.

She had aroused him, as she always managed to do, to a state where he felt that nothing else was important, except that he should make love to her.