“We must go and dress for dinner, George,” she said. “Have you forgotten that we are dining with the Devonshires? Of course do not breathe a word about the engagement until Honora has actually arrived in the country.”

The Earl had a great deal more to say, but, as the room was empty, he would have been talking to himself.

It was only when he walked slowly to his dressing room that it suddenly struck him that once Tynemouth was married he might not be quite the menace he suspected him of being at the moment.

*

Honora paused at the top of the stairs that would take her down to the drawing room.

As she did so, she heard somebody come into the hall below her.

Langstone House was built with a staircase curving up to the third floor and the rather ugly dome that lit it resulted in voices having a decided echo that was at times disconcerting.

But it also enabled anyone on the other floors to have a ‘bird’s-eye view’ of the hall.

As she stood with her hand on the banisters, she realised that the butler was taking the hat, stick and gloves from a man who had just entered and with a little restriction of her heart she guessed that it was the Duke.

Unable to move, she watched him climb the staircase below her and saw how tall he was and how square-shouldered.

While she could not see his face clearly, she was well aware that he not only had an outstanding figure, but a presence that gave him exactly the right image to portray his high rank.

For the first time she realised that if she married him, as her aunt had told her she must, she would be a Duchess.

She found the idea frightening, just as she was frightened of the man who was to be her husband.

‘It is impossible – it is something I – cannot do,’ she thought unhappily.

She felt as if her aunt had numbed her mind by the hard blows of what she had told her and it was impossible to think or begin to calculate how she could prevent herself from being married to a stranger in such an unseemly manner.

‘Mama would have been shocked and Papa would, I am quite certain, have violently opposed it,’ she told herself.

Then she was not quite certain.

After all, her father had always liked being invited to important houses by their distinguished owners.

At times he had laughed about the invitations he received.

“I am off to the Duke of Marlborough’s on Wednesday,” he had told Honora a month before he was killed, “which means I shall ride the best horses, drink the best wine and enjoy myself in the company of the most distinguished people in England. What do you think of that?”

“It sounds thrilling, Papa!”

There was just a hint of mischief in Honora’s eyes before she asked,

“Why did they ask you?”