“It is the only way we can meet and I must see you! I have something to tell you that vitally concerns yourself.”

The Duke looked at her in surprise.

Then, as if she felt that he had agreed to what she asked, she turned away to greet several friends who were just entering the ballroom.

For a moment the Duke wondered irritably what she had to tell him and why she had to be so dramatic about it.

Then he thought that the best thing he could do was not to go to the Langstones’ house in Grosvenor Square and hope that what was so important for him to know could wait for another time.

He was aware, as the Countess was, that they would meet in a house party at the weekend and knew that if they were clever it would be possible for them to find moments when they could talk without being overheard and he could kiss her without being observed.

The Duke was quite used to women finding it impossible to wait even for a few days to see him, to be close to him and for him to make love to them.

“How can I live another week without seeing you?” was a plaintive question to which he could often find no answer.

But because Aline had in fact, been more or less circumspect in every way until now, he thought, as he walked to another part of the ballroom, that perhaps what she had to say to him really was of importance.

He, however, remembered cynically how many times ‘something of vital importance’ to a woman had been nothing but the aching desire to be in his arms and to feel his lips on hers.

Attractive though he found the beautiful Countess of Langstone, the Duke had no intention of causing an unnecessary scandal where she was concerned.

The Queen expected a very high standard of morality amongst those who served her in The Palace.

The Duke often thought dryly that he had been born in the wrong period and would have found life far easier under Her Majesty’s uncle, George IV.

Then indiscretions were habitual at The Palace and anybody who appeared too discreet was looked at in surprise.

The Queen, however, had been exceedingly censorious of anything approaching immorality when she came to the throne as a young and innocent girl.

Now Prince Albert with his strict German conformity and Lutheran conscience had made things even more difficult for attractive men like the Duke than they had been.

“Dammit all!” one of the Duke’s friends had said to him. “We might as well enter a Monastery and have done!”

“I hardly think that would solve any of your problems, Charles,” the Duke had replied mockingly.

“At least I should not have Prince Albert breathing down my neck and pontificating about the immorality of the country in a way that tells me all too clearly that he was really getting at me.”