“However I have had dozens of proposals,” Denise told her, “and finally, Alina, I lost my heart.”
“How exciting!” Alina exclaimed. “Who is he? And are you very happy?”
Denise gave a deep sigh.
“He is very handsome and he is the Earl of Wescott so Papa was only too delighted at the idea of my marrying him.”
“You are going to be married?”
“That is what has gone wrong,” Denise answered.
“But what has happened?”
“I cannot understand how I can have been such a fool! Henry was in love with me, very much in love with me, and asked me to marry him.”
Alina was listening wide-eyed.
She could not understand the story that she was hearing.
“I don’t know what came over me,” Denise continued, “but I think it was because Henry rather took it for granted that I would accept him. Although there could be no question of my doing anything else, I prevaricated.”
“You mean,” Alina asked, “that you did not accept him.”
“I did in a way, but told him that he would have to wait a little for us to be quite certain that we really loved each other.”
“And he disagreed?”
“No. But, Alina, I was so stupid! Just to make him more in love with me and a little jealous, I flirted with a lot of other men, until finally I went too far.”
“What happened then?” Alina asked.
“Henry wrote me a letter saying that it was quite obvious that I did not really care for him and then he left England!”
There was a note of despair in Denise’s voice that Alina did not miss.
“He left England?” she questioned. “But where has he gone?”
“He has gone to Rome to stay with his grandmother,” Denise replied, “and I am terrified, yes terrified, that I shall never see him again.”
“But, surely, if you write to him – ” Alina began.
“I am not going to do that. I have decided to go to Rome and see him. I know when he sees me again everything will be all right. I can tell him that I love him more than anything on earth and we will be married.”
Alina thought for a moment before she said,
“I am sure that is a sensible solution.”
“But it will be difficult and that is why I have come to see you, my dearest friend.”
“What can I do to help?” Alina enquired.
“Well, Papa has agreed that I can go to Rome, and, as it so happens, my cousin, Lord Teverton, whom you have never met, is going there on a special mission on behalf of the Prime Minister. I can travel with him, but, of course, I need to have a chaperone with me.”
Alina nodded.
She could understand that it would be impossible for a young girl to go abroad without one to look after her and make sure that she does not get into trouble.
“That is why I came to see you,” Denise said, “because I have been trying to remember the name of that Governess we had for a short while when Miss Smithson was ill. She was a married woman and a very pleasant lady.”
“A Governess?” Alina repeated, “but surely – ?”
“I know what you are thinking, exactly the same as Papa did, that I should take one of my relatives with me. An aunt or an older cousin.”
She threw out her hands in a very expressive gesture and added,
“Can you imagine what they would be like? They would be coy and then say, ‘now you young people want to be alone together,’ which would make me feel hot with embarrassment. Or else they will play the strict chaperone and never allow me to be alone with Henry for an instant.”
Alina laughed.
She had met some of Denise’s relatives and knew that was exactly the way they would behave.
“I went over a whole list of them,” Denise was saying, “and each one seemed worse than the last. I know that I have to be very clever with Henry as I have really upset him.”
She made a sound that was almost a sob as she carried on,
“His letter was such a shock to me. I know he has taken severe umbrage at the way I had behaved and I have somehow to make him forgive me.”
She sighed again and then with a little flash in her eyes, she continued,
“But I am not going to crawl at his feet, which would be very bad for his ego. He is quite authoritative enough as it is.”
Alina laughed again.
“I can see your problem, but Mrs. Wilson, which is the name of the lady who you were asking about, is working for the French Ambassador teaching his children to speak English. At the moment she is with them in France.”
“Oh, bother!” Denise exclaimed. “She was the only person I could think of who could be tactful and at the same time satisfy Papa that she was the right sort of chaperone for me.”
“I am sure you can think of someone else,” Alina suggested hopefully.
“I simply cannot think wh – ” Denise began.
Then she gave a sudden scream.
It was so loud that it made Alina start and she looked at her friend in some surprise.
“But, of course, I have solved the problem!” Denise trumpeted. “It is quite easy. You will come with me!”
“Me?” Alina asked. “But, my dearest, I am not a married woman and two girls together could not chaperone each other.”
“Of course I understand that,” Denise replied sharply. “What I am thinking of, and it is really clever of me, is that you should come as your mother.”
“M-my – mother?”
“You know how lovely your mother was and how young she looked,” Denise said as if she was thinking it all out in her mind. “After all, we do know the story of how she married when she was seventeen so she cannot have been quite thirty-seven when she died.”
“That is true,” Alina agreed, “but – ”
“There are no ‘buts’,” Denise interrupted. “I shall tell Papa, who is leaving this afternoon for a week’s racing at Doncaster, that Lady Langley is chaperoning me to Rome. In fact when I left the house he said, ‘remember me to Lady Langley. She was always
