Now as the dance finished he moved to a corner of the ballroom where he started talking to one of the Generals who was as usual complaining eloquently and at some length about the cuts in Army expenditure.

It was therefore quite a relief when he saw the Countess of Langstone coming towards them.

One of the most beautiful women in England, she had excelled her own reputation tonight by looking, the Duke thought, even lovelier than she usually did.

Her gown with its full skirt revealed her eighteen-inch waist and her lace bertha embroidered with diamanté was almost exaggeratedly low to show the perfection of her white shoulders.

To make certain they were noticed, her necklace of enormous emeralds seemed to sparkle as mysteriously and alluringly as her eyes.

As she stopped beside him, the Duke remembered how he had told her a few nights ago that she was like a tiger in the dark and he thought it was a very apt simile for the fieriness of their lovemaking and the manner in which the Countess had hunted him.

He had avoided her for some time but not because he did not admire her. It was indeed impossible not to be aware that there was something magnetic about her, but he had no wish to become too involved with the wife of a man he met continually and at the moment almost every day at Buckingham Palace.

The Earl of Langstone was Lord Steward and, although the Duke found him somewhat of a bore and almost as dictatorial as Prince Albert, he had no wish to antagonise him.

But once the Countess had set her sights on a man she desired, it was difficult for him to avoid her and because she was so persistent the Duke had eventually succumbed.

He certainly had, at present, no regrets, but he impressed upon Aline Langstone that they must be extremely circumspect.

He was well aware that with his reputation and her beauty it would be impossible for the gossips not to watch them like hawks.

“For goodness sake, Aline,” he had said to her last week, “do not speak to me except as distantly as possible when we are in public. Those gossiping women miss nothing!”

“I know that,” Aline Langstone had answered petulantly. “They hate me, but, if they do suspect that we mean anything to each other, I am not responsible.”

“Whosever the fault may be,” the Duke said, “the result will be the same – they will somehow contrive to enlighten the Queen and you know what she will feel about it.”

“I know only too well!” Aline said sharply. “And George can be very jealous at times.”

The Duke thought, as he had thought before, that it was a great mistake to have become involved with the Countess of Langstone. But now it was too late. He could not pull back and, if he was truthful, he had no wish to do so.

He had never known a woman who was so insatiable and at the same time contrived to be alluring on each occasion in a thousand different ways.