“Drink a little more,” the Duke said firmly and knew that she was feeling too weak to refuse to do as she was told.

He forced her to take several more sips until, as the colour came back into her cheeks, he took the glass away and laid her back against the pillow.

She looked up at him and, as if she had forgotten what happened and was repeating what she had said before, he heard her murmur,

“I am – sorry, very sorry – ”

The Duke put the glass down on a table beside the bed and said to Honora,

“I am going to undress and then I am coming back to talk to you for a little while before you must go to sleep.”

He did not wait for Honora to reply, but said to Emily,

“Finish looking after your Mistress, but leave the lights. I will put them out later.”

Emily bobbed him a curtsey and the Duke went through the communicating door into his own room.

The brandy had made Honora feel that now the darkness was gone and she was able to ask,

“What, happened? How did I – get here?”

“You fainted, Your Grace,” Emily replied, “and His Grace carried you up the stairs.”

“He must think I am a – nuisance.”

“No, Your Grace. I thinks he were very perturbed. He tells me to undress you and went down to fetch you some brandy.”

Honora gave a little sigh.

She was thinking how angry it must have made the Duke when she had not only behaved in such a foolish manner but had also fainted when she returned.

She was sure that he must have found it a terrible bore to carry her upstairs and she remembered how her father had always said that men disliked scenes of any sort.

‘I must tell him how sorry I am,’ she thought and felt miserably that already she had been a failure as a Duchess.

‘I should never – never have married him!’ she whispered.

Emily released her hair from the pins that held it in place and it fell over her shoulders in curls on each side of her face.

She was wearing one of the fine lawn and lace nightgowns which her aunt had bought for her trousseau and which, because they were a little revealing, made her blush when she first saw them.

Then she told herself comfortingly that nobody was likely to see them and it was only now that she was glad she could pull the lace-edged sheet high up over her chest.

Emily finished tidying the room and then, carrying Honora’s gown, went to the door.

“Goodnight, Your Grace, I hopes you sleep well,” she said. “I won’t call you early until I finds out what time his Lordship wishes to leave.”

“Thank you – Emily,” Honora managed to say.

She felt as she spoke a sudden limpness come over her and she wished that she could be alone in darkness and try to sleep.