“What is it, Aunt Aline?”

She had the uncomfortable feeling that her aunt was going to say something momentous that concerned herself.

She wondered if she was to be sent away somewhere else rather than be allowed to stay with her uncle and aunt. And, if so, she had the idea that it might be unpleasant.

There was a little pause as if the Countess was feeling for words.

Then she said in a voice that had no warmth in it,

“You are an extremely fortunate young woman! In fact, I don’t know of any girl who on coming from school could hear anything as marvellous and miraculous as what I am about to tell you.”

Honora looked puzzled.

She was very sensitive and perceptive and, while her aunt’s words sounded almost triumphant, the tone in which she spoke them gave her the feeling that what she was to learn from her aunt would be disagreeable.

She therefore did not make any answer, but only waited. Her eyes, which unexpectedly were grey, seemed to hold the sunshine, as did her hair, which was golden.

Because she had been travelling for so long little curls had escaped from under her bonnet onto her oval forehead.

There was a hard note in Aline Langstone’s voice as she said as if the words were jerked from between her lips,

“It may come as a surprise, but you are to be married to the Duke of Tynemouth!”

For a moment Honora thought that she could not have heard her aright and she must have misunderstood. Her aunt surely could not have said what she thought she had.

Then, as the Countess did not speak again, she asked in bewilderment,

“D-did you – say I am to – marry somebody?”

“The Duke of Tynemouth, the most eligible, the most wealthy and the most important bachelor in the whole of England! No young girl as unimportant as you has ever been honoured in such a way before.”

“But – but I do not – know him!”

“What has that to do with it?” her aunt asked sharply. “He will call to see you in two hours’ time when I shall have returned and your engagement will be announced tomorrow.”

Honora made a little helpless gesture with her hands.

“I find it difficult to understand what you are – saying to me. I had hoped – of course to – marry someday, but I could not – possibly marry – a man I have never – seen and about whom I know – nothing.”

“That is the sort of idiotic remark I would expect from a girl of your age,” the Countess snapped. “Try to get it into your stupid head that the Duke is the greatest catch in the whole country. Every parent with a marriageable daughter has been down on their knees begging him to become their son-in-law and now you have been lucky enough to be chosen as his wife.”

Aline Langstone drew in her breath before she added,