‘What would be the point when I have no choice except to do as I am told?’ she asked herself ruefully.

Now, at the very last moment, she wondered if she dare disappear and deprive the wedding of the bride.

Then she knew that she had nowhere to go and, what was more, she was quite certain that her aunt would have her brought back.

She would also doubtless explain her absence by pretending that she had been taken ill and the arrangements would be made all over again for her marriage.

‘There is nothing I can do,’ she thought despairingly and could only send out a desperate prayer to her mother and father to help her.

She was praying all the way as she drove with her uncle to the Church. She knew from the number of invitations her aunt had sent out that it would be packed to bursting, but what she had not expected was the huge crowd of sightseers from the village and the estate who were waiting outside.

Her uncle’s closed carriage was drawn by horses wearing flowers on their heads, their manes plaited with white ribbons and, as she stepped from it, loud cheers broke out.

Women touched her for luck and cried, “God bless you, dearie!” or “you’ll be happy with the handsomest man who ever walked this earth!”

The village women were clearly not the only ones who admired the Duke.

Honora had been aware of the fulsome compliments her relatives had paid him and, as they kept telling her how lucky she was, she could hear the genuine admiration in their voices and see a look almost of adulation in their eyes.

‘He should be marrying somebody who feels like that about him,’ she told herself a hundred times.

While she had to admit that he was exceedingly handsome, that he rode magnificently and that from what she had heard he was also intelligent, she had had no chance of learning of any other qualities he might have.

Because her aunt was always telling her how stupid she was and found fault with everything she did, she wondered if she spoke about her in the same way to the Duke.

‘If we are to be even remotely happy,’ Honora reasoned, ‘we shall have to talk to each other about other things besides our wedding and I wish I knew what interests him besides horses.’

Because she felt it was important, she had taken the trouble to read the sporting pages of the newspapers every day and to learn the names of other racehorse owners.

She had tried to ask a few questions of her uncle, but she realised immediately that not only had the Earl no wish to talk about the Duke, but, as she had thought before, he disliked him.

It seemed strange considering what a close friend he appeared to be with both her uncle and her aunt, but she was too shy to ask the Earl point-blank what he thought.