‘Perhaps once we are alone it will be easier to get to know him,’ Honora thought.

At the same time she was aware of the feeling in her breast that was heavy and depressing and her lips felt dry.

It was then, as she was just finishing tying the ribbons under her chin, that her aunt came back into the room.

“Are you ready?” she enquired. “You are taking long enough about it!”

“I have been as quick as I could, Aunt Aline.”

“You go now, Emily,” the Countess said. “You will find the brake waiting for you and I shall be extremely annoyed if any of the luggage is left behind.”

“I’m sure I’ve remembered everythin’, my Lady,” Emily replied.

“Then what are you waiting for?”

Emily hurried from the room and the Countess walked to where Honora was sitting at the dressing table.

She stood without speaking and Honora looked at her apprehensively, wondering what she would find wrong with her appearance.

“You are married!” the Countess said at last. “Now, for Heaven’s sake do not bore the Duke with protestations of affection or plead with him, which is something he most dislikes.”

Honora was surprised and, as her aunt apparently wished her to say something, she murmured,

“N-no – of course not.”

“The sooner you give him a child, the better!” the Countess went on. “He has to have an heir, but there will be no need for you to be overdramatic about it.”

As she had nothing more to say, she swept to the door and therefore did not see the look of consternation on Honora’s face or the apprehension in her eyes.

*

Only when they had left Langstone House and were travelling at an incredible pace behind a team of four perfectly matched horses did she remember what her aunt had said and found it almost incredible.

Because of the haste in which they had been married and because she had never been alone with the Duke, it had never struck her for one moment that she would be expected to give him children at once.

‘How can we be intimate until we know each other very much better than we do at the moment?’ she asked herself.

She had no idea how a woman had a baby.

It was something that had never been discussed at the Convent and, when her mother had died, she was still too young to ask her such questions, which had not then concerned her in any way.

As they drove on, the Duke concentrated on his horses and, as the countryside flashed past them, Honora thought that her aunt was speaking about something that would happen only perhaps months or years later.

‘After all, he has never even kissed me,’ she thought, ‘and surely he will not – touch me until he has ceased to hate – me and we have become – friends!’

This seemed so reasonable that when, after they had driven for nearly an hour, the Duke asked, “you are all right?” Honora was able to reply quite naturally,