Kate walked jauntily ahead of him across the hall to open the door of the room where Honora was waiting.

“Here she be, safe and sound!” Kate exclaimed, as she opened the door.

The Duke walked into the room and Honora rose shakily to her feet.

“You – have come!”

She was not certain whether she said the words aloud or whether they were merely a cry from her heart.

The Duke did not reply, he only offered her his arm.

Because she was trembling, she put her hand on it, then tightened her fingers as if to make certain that he was there by holding on to him.

He drew her from the room, passed Kate in the hall without speaking and descended the steps outside to where the carriage was waiting.

Only as the Duke had helped Honora into it and was just about to follow her did Kate, standing in the lighted doorway, shout after him,

“Don’t forget, Dook, always glad to see you, if you’ve got nothin’ better to do!”

As she finished speaking, she gave a loud laugh and the sound of it seemed to flare out into the darkness of the night like the light over the doorway.

Then, as the carriage drove off, she slammed the front door.

As the Duke sat down beside her, Honora was vividly conscious of his anger and knew that it was what she had expected.

“I-I am – sorry.”

“How can you have done anything so crazy, so insane, as to go out at night by yourself?” the Duke asked harshly.

Because of the uncompromising way he spoke and the agonies she had suffered while waiting, tears filled her eyes and feeling her voice was choking in her throat she could not answer him.

She knew too that, if she did manage to speak, she would burst into tears and, feeling sure that he would hate a scene, she merely clenched her fingers together in an effort not to cry.

As if for the first time he was thinking of her rather than of himself and his own feelings, the Duke asked in a different tone,

“They did not hurt you?”

As he spoke, he remembered the impression he had of her when he entered the gaudy pink bedroom was not only that was she very pale, her eyes seeming to fill her whole face, but there also had been a red mark on her cheek.

Before Honora could reply he asked,

“What happened to your face?”

“That – woman – struck me,” she managed to answer. “She – asked me my – name and when I – told her – she hit me because she did not believe – I was a – Duchess.”

The Duke stiffened, thinking of the indignity of his wife being struck by a woman like Kate.

Then somewhat dryly he said,

“But you managed to convince them.”

“One of the – men had a – newspaper, which – described our – wedding.”