“You can thank God for such a blessing. I presume at the Convent you were taught to do that when your prayers were answered?”

Honora drew in her breath.

“I hoped to marry, sometime, and of course I have – thought about it, Aunt Aline, but I imagined it would be to – somebody I loved, as Mama loved Papa.”

“I should have thought you were old enough by now,” the Countess replied, “to realise that your father should never in any circumstances have married your mother.”

“Why should you say that?”

“Because, you foolish child, your father with his looks and his family background should have married a girl with money. Your mother was very pretty, I am not denying that, but she had nothing else to recommend her!”

The Countess’s voice was scornful as she went on,

“That was why, as you must have been aware, your parents lived from hand to mouth and your father owed thousands of pounds when he died for which your uncle made himself responsible.”

“I only wish,” Honora said in a low voice, “that I could have paid back that money – myself. I did thank Uncle George – at the time and I will thank him again – just as I am very – grateful to him for paying my – school fees.”

“You can express your gratitude in a far better way than by words, for as for paying him back, that is exactly what you will be able to do in a hundred different ways when you are married to the Duke.”

Honora was very pale and said in a voice that seemed to be strangled in her throat,

“H-how can I – marry him?”

“It will all be arranged,” her aunt answered. “Leave everything to me and if you have any doubts and wish to make a lot of foolish remarks about it, you are not to make them to your uncle.”

Honora looked at her aunt wide-eyed and the Countess went on,

“All you have to do is exactly what I tell you and the first thing is to go upstairs and take off your travelling clothes and change into something respectable. I suppose you have a decent gown of some sort?”

She paused.

Then, as if it was difficult to say the words pleasantly, she added,

“We shall be concentrating on your trousseau as soon as the engagement is announced and you must certainly have something fashionable to wear before you meet anybody.”

The Countess glanced at the clock again and rose to her feet.

“That is all I have to say for the moment and I can only repeat that you are very very fortunate. But don’t try to draw a parallel between your life and your parents’, for there has not been and will not be in the future any resemblance whatsoever!”

With that, like a ship in full sail, her red skirts rustling as she moved, the Countess swept across the room.

She opened the door and the butler must have been standing outside for Honora heard her say,