Because Honora could not bear to listen to any more, knowing that her intuition was now concerned with herself and not liking what she was hearing, she rose.

Without being asked she went into the next room leaving the door open.

If she just disappeared, she thought, her uncle and aunt might think it rude, so she just did what she wished to do, like everybody else in the party, and sat down at the piano.

Only by listening to music did she feel she could escape from the questions that kept asking themselves in her brain and from the feeling that she was being carried down a torrent in a vessel over which she had no control.

She had been playing for some minutes when she heard footsteps and knew before he came to the piano that it was the Duke who had come to her from the drawing room.

She was also aware that he had closed the door behind him.

He came to the piano and, although she did not stop playing, she made the sound a little softer.

“I wanted to see you, Honora,” he said, “for I am sure you must think me very remiss for not having given you an engagement ring before now.”

Because that had never crossed Honora’s mind, she stopped playing and looked at him in surprise.

“An engagement ring?”

“It is usual,” the Duke replied dryly. “I have one for you that has been in my family for many years. Your aunt told me your size and I have had it altered.”

Honora did not speak, but she saw that he held in his hand a small velvet box.

Putting it down on the piano in front of her, he opened it and as he did so Honora saw that the box contained a diamond ring, which was certainly very beautiful.

One very large diamond in the centre was surrounded by a circle of smaller diamonds, which made it very impressive. But she thought after a swift look at it that it was so large that she wondered if she could really wear it.

“This ring,” the Duke said looking down at it, “has a history that I am sure my Curator would enjoy telling you. In fact it figures in several of the books about the family.”

“Thank you very much,” Honora said automatically.

“I suppose conventionally,” the Duke added, “I should put it on your finger.”

Honora held out her hand.

As she did so, she remembered her mother saying,

“When your father gave me my engagement ring, it was not a very large one because he was very hard-up at the time, but to me it was the most marvellous jewel in the whole world and had a magic about it that it has never lost.”

She smiled ,as if she was looking back at the past, saying,

“I think what thrilled me even more than the ring was that your father kissed my finger a dozen times and then the ring, before he put it on and said,