A Duke in Danger by Barbara Cartland

almost as if he held a small bird in his grasp.
    “I hated you,” Alvina said in a low voice, “first because you had taken Richard’s place and then because you did not answer my letter.”
    “I can understand that,” the Duke said quietly.
    “And then you were angry with me when you came here and I thought you were heartless and indifferent.” Her fingers tightened beneath his and she said:
    “Now I am sorry I thought that.”
    The Duke smiled.
    “I think our Celtic instincts have broken down or gone on strike. They were certainly not working efficiently when we first met each other! That is why, Alvina, we have to start again.”
    “We have started already,” Alvina said. “Mrs. Johnson has three girls in the kitchen, and Walton told me before dinner that he had another footman coming tomorrow from the village and other people who used to be in service here with the Harlings for years.”
    Her fingers tightened again. Her eyes seemed to glow, partly because there were tears in them, and she said in a voice that was very low:
    “Thank you, thank you, for being exactly the head of the family we want.”

    Chapter Four
     
    Dr iving back to London, the Duke knew that, if he was honest, he had never enjoyed two days more.
    Alvina had taken him round the Estate, both of them riding horses from the team that Gerald had bought him, which were not only perfectly broken as carriage-horses but excellent to ride.
    After the old and somewhat indifferent horses which were all that Alvina had after her father had disposed of the stable, it was, the Duke realised, a thrill for her to be mounted on such perfect horse-flesh.
    He also realised that she rode extremely well, and because she was so happy she looked, he thought, exceedingly attractive.
    Her habit was old and worn but had once been well cut, and because she had really grown out of it, it revealed her very slim and very elegant figure.
    The Duke had ridden with many beautiful women in Paris when it had been fashionable to appear every morning in the Bois, and also in Vienna with the alluring, auburn-haired Beauties who prided themselves on their horsemanship.
    Nevertheless, he thought that his cousin could hold her own from an equestrian point of view.
    The fact that she was excited by what he was planning to do made her face glow with a radiance which he seldom saw in a woman’s face unless he was making love to her.
    They had sat up quite late last night, poring over the book in which Alvina had set down all of her expenditures since 1814 when her father first began cheese-paring.
    At first, she had merely supplemented what she was given to pay for the food from what had been her dress allowance and from two hundred pounds which her mother had left her on her death.
    Then, when her father became more determined that they were going bankrupt, she had started to pay the wages of the older servants whom he insisted must be dismissed.
    However, he was by then confined to his bedroom and had no idea that they were still in the house.
    “The Waltons, Mrs. Johnson, and Emma were all too old to leave,” Alvina said in her soft voice, “but some of the younger ones found other jobs. The footmen had to go onto the land or into the Services and they were very bitter at being turned away.”
    She sighed as she explained:
    “They had lived on the Estate all their lives, and their families had always served the Harlings.”
    “We can only hope,” the Duke replied, “that some of them will be able to come back now.”
    “It was kind of you to arrange for Mark to take the Waltons and Mrs. Johnson in a carriage to the village.”
    “They could hardly walk.”
    Knowing the drive was over a mile long, Alvina gave a little laugh.
    “It would certainly have taken them a very long time, and that of course was another reason why it was impossible for them to leave us even if they had wanted to, because Papa thought he had sold all the horses.”
    “But you managed to keep