“She asked me to tell her the truth and it seemed better for me to tell her than that she should hear it sooner or later from somebody else.”

Aline shrugged her shoulders as she said,

“I think that was rather foolish of you. After all, young girls are always excessively romantic with their heads in the clouds. It would have been far better if you had just let her think you were a Knight on a white charger.”

“I could hardly expect the girl, having never seen me before, not to ask questions.”

“If you had asked me to marry you,” Aline said, “I would have asked only one question and that would be ‘when?’”

The way she spoke as she moved nearer to him, her eyes seeming to sparkle with the fire burning within her, made the Duke draw in his breath.

There was something about Aline Langstone that aroused his desire, as few other women had been able to do.

And yet at the back of his mind some cynical voice told him that it was a very physical emotion and one he would not find particularly desirable in his wife.

What was more, if he was honest, he knew that the way Aline behaved and even the strength of her feelings for him were attributes he would find very reprehensible in a young girl.

“I am not talking of you, Aline, but of your niece,” he said, “and I am upset by her attitude.”

“Leave Honora to me,” Aline Langstone said. “All girls are the same and take up the contrary view to anything that is suggested to them.”

She knew that the Duke was still worried and added,

“As a matter of fact, when she was alone with me, she said that she thought you were extremely attractive and she would like to marry you if you really wanted her to.”

“Are you sure she said that?” the Duke asked.

Aline laughed.

“Do you really believe there exists a woman who is not bowled over by you as soon as she sees you and would not give her right hand for the honour and privilege of being your wife?”

She spoke very convincingly and then, as if to make sure that the Duke was certain that he was doing the right thing, she asked,

“Darling, be sensible. I know this has been somewhat of a rush, but surely anything is better than having to look at Princess Sophie for the rest of your life?”

The Duke gave a shudder and replied,

“That, of course, is indisputable!”

“I think you have forgotten,” Aline went on in a low voice, “how easy and wonderful it will be for us to be able to see so much more of each other than we can now.”

The idea excited her and she continued,

“We will go to the Dawlishes this weekend as we promised, then the following week I think we should all stay with you at Tyne Castle.”