He had thought before the Duke appeared that one or two of his wife’s admirers were becoming too intimate and he had even considered challenging one of them to a duel.

But Aline had only laughed at him.

“How can you imagine, dearest,” she had asked, “that I would look at anybody except you and really Lord Trevor is a bore because he will not leave me alone!”

She put her arms round her husband’s neck and she went on,

“At the same time he makes me feel sure that I can still attract you and you will not leave me for one of those very alluring ‘lovebirds’ on whom you used to spend so much of your money before you knew me.”

“How do you know about them?” the Earl asked sharply.

Aline laughed.

“You may be quite certain there are plenty of spiteful women to tell me exactly how you used to behave! So, dearest, I am always afraid that I shall bore you and once again you will make surreptitious visits to Chelsea or St. John’s Wood, as you did in the past.”

For a moment the Earl had looked guilty.

Then he said,

“I have never even seen another woman’s face since I married you.”

“That is what I want to believe,” Aline answered, “but sometimes because you are so attractive and, of course so rich, I am afraid of losing you.”

The Earl was so delighted by what she was saying to him that he forgot the conversation had started by his rebuking his wife for her behaviour with Lord Trevor.

Aline could always handle him, as she was well aware, and it had been easy before the Duke had come into her life.

Then it became more difficult to conceal her indifference to the Earl’s kisses and her anger when he kept repeating that she was seeing ‘too much of Tynemouth’.

She wanted the Duke as she had never wanted another man.

Now, she thought, the Earl would no longer have grounds for suspicion when the Duke was always in the same house parties as they were or to resent that invariably she was seated next to him at dinner and found it difficult to talk to anybody else when he was in the room.

She thought too with satisfaction that however pretty – as she had to admit – Honora might be, she was obviously too young and too innocent to hold any interest for the Duke.

No one knew better than Aline did that it was the witty cut and thrust of a conversation where every other word was an innuendo that made Ulric laugh.

She was also quite certain that no other woman could evoke the same fiery response or give him the same satisfaction that she could.

‘He is mine,’ she told herself and aloud said, “I will take Honora shopping all tomorrow and then in the evening I will arrange a dinner party. You must help me, George dear, by telling me which of your relations we should ask!”