“That is a beginning! The mists are clearing away and, if you go on, you will find your way to a Paradise that is waiting for all real musicians. It is there they link their compositions with God.”

She was thinking of what he had said now as she played first some classical music and then because she was sure that nobody was listening she played the last piece she had composed herself.

Without realising it, she was expressing her fear for the future and her longing for the love she felt she was now losing – the love she had thought one day she would find with the man she married.

She was concentrating so intently on what she was doing that for the moment, as her fingers rested at the end of a melody that came from the very depths of her being, she was not aware that somebody was standing near the piano.

Then she raised her eyes and gave a little start as she saw that the Duke was beside her.

For a moment he did not speak.

Then he asked,

“Where did you learn to play like that?”

“I-in – Florence.”

“Of course, I forgot, you were at school there. And is that your composition or somebody else’s?”

She was surprised that he should ask the question or have the slightest idea that she was capable of composing anything.

“It is – mine,” she replied without really thinking, “but I was not aware that – anybody was – listening.”

He smiled at her before he said,

“I will keep your secret.”

When he walked away, she looked after him in surprise and as she did so she saw her aunt come back from the door where she had been speaking to somebody who was leaving.

She put out her hand to touch the Duke on the arm.

She looked up at him as she spoke and with the candlelight from the chandelier glistening on the huge tiara she wore on her dark hair, she looked exceedingly beautiful.

Then to her surprise, as she watched them, Honora saw the Duke seem deliberately to turn away from her aunt, while she was still speaking to him.

He walked to the far end of the room and, when he sat down at one of the card tables, Honora saw by the expression on her aunt’s face that she was angry.

She wondered what had gone wrong.

At the same time she hoped apprehensively that it was nothing to do with her, which might make her aunt even more disagreeable than she was already.

*

The following days at The Castle she never had a chance to speak to the Duke alone. Not that she really wanted to be with him, but she thought it rather strange that he never attempted to talk to her.

The first morning that she went out riding, her uncle was with her before the Duke joined them. They had, however, only gone a little way down the drive before two other male cousins came riding after them.