"If once again, Drogo, you have beaten me to the post," the Prince Regent said, "I shall be extremely annoyed!"

As if she thought he was being serious, Ula said quickly, "I am sure, Sire, no one could do that, when Your Royal Highness's original ideas in the world of art are known all over the country."

As the Prince was having difficulty in making even his friends appreciate his purchase of the Dutch pictures and some sculpture that had not yet become fashionable, he was delighted.

"I can see, Miss Forde," he said, "that I shall have to invite you to Carlton House to see my new acquisitions and I can only hope that you will find them, if not superior to, at least different from what Raventhorpe has already packed into his 'Palace of Treasures'."

Ula laughed, knowing that the Prince Regent, while he was genuinely fond of the Marquis, was also a little jealous of him.

"I hope, Sire," she said, "that is a promise you will not forget."

"I a.s.sure you I shall not do so," the Prince Regent said gallantly.

As he moved away to speak to somebody else, Ula glanced at the Marquis and knew from the expression on his face that he was pleased with her.

She felt a little thrill of delight that she had not failed in what she realised had been a demanding test.

Then she saw again the fury in her uncle's eyes as he looked at her from the other side of the room and it was like a shower of cold water drowning her feeling of pleasure.

She hurried back to the side of the d.u.c.h.ess.

"Here you are, child," she said as Ula moved close to her, as if she felt in need of protection. "I was wondering where you were because His Highness Prince Hasin of Kubaric is eager to meet you."

Ula knew at once who the d.u.c.h.ess was speaking about, because the Marquis had in fact expressed extreme annoyance when the Turkish Amba.s.sador had asked whether he could bring His Highness to the ball.

"There are more than enough people as it is," the Marquis had fumed when he received the Amba.s.sador's letter, "but I suppose it's impossible for me to refuse him."

"I think it would make things very uncomfortable if you did," the d.u.c.h.ess replied. "I expect the Prince is staying at the Turkish Emba.s.sy and there is nothing the Amba.s.sador, who is really a very nice man, can do but get him invited to every entertainment that London provides."

With a somewhat bad grace the Marquis therefore sent a note to the Turkish Amba.s.sador to say most untruthfully that he would welcome Prince Hasin to the ball.

Since her father had been very interested in the different States in the East, Ula actually knew without being told where Kubaric was.

It was a small, so-called independent state, where the Eastern Ottoman Empire bordered Afghanistan. It had, she recalled, a great potentiality for the production of jewels, which lay mostly unmined in its mountains.

The reigning Prince, her father had told her, lived in great style while the ma.s.s of his subjects were miserably poor.

She therefore looked with interest at Prince Hasin as the d.u.c.h.ess presented her.

She saw that he was a man rising forty, slightly stout from what she was sure was soft living and his face, which when he was younger could have been good-looking, showed signs of debauchery.

She suspected, amongst other things, that he indulged in the use of drugs, which were so prevalent, her father had told her, in that part of the world.

When the Prince's eyes met hers, she knew that he was not just unpleasant, but in some way she could not define, dangerous.

She was sure of this when, as he took her hand and she sank in a low curtsey, she felt his vibrations were if not evil, certainly extremely unpleasant.

She wanted to walk away from him immediately, but without being rude it was impossible for her to do so when he put his arm around her waist and drew her onto the dance floor.

The band was playing a waltz, which had just been introduced into England by the Russian Amba.s.sador's wife, the witty Princess de Lieven. It was, however, frowned upon, being thought too intimate by a number of the older and more severe hostesses.

There was nothing Ula could do but let the Prince move her around the dance floor to the strain of the romantic music.

She was uncomfortably aware that he was holding her closer than any of her other partners had done and that his voice, as he talked to her, was deep with an emotion she did not like to define, even to herself.

"You are very beautiful, Miss Forde!"

Ula did not answer and he went on, "Are you cold and reserved, as so many English women profess to be or is there fire behind those sparkling eyes, a fire which I wish to burn for me?"

With an effort Ula managed to say, "I find it a difficult to follow what Your Highness is a saying when I am afraid of a missing a step. I have not often a danced the waltz before."

"If I am the first to dance a waltz with you," the Prince said again in that deep, rather frightening voice, "then I would wish to be the first to kiss you, the first man to awaken you to the joys of love."

Ula held herself as stiffly as she could and made no attempt to answer what the Prince had just said.

After a moment he remarked, "I am told that your uncle is the Earl of Chessington-Crewe, whom I have met on the Racecourse."

This, Ula thought, was safer ground and she quickly asked, "Does Your Highness own racehorses?"

"Not in this country, but I am building up a stable in Kubaric."

"How interesting!" Ula said.

"I would like to show you my horses," the Prince replied, "and many other things as well."

Again there was something alarming in the way he spoke, but to Ula's relief the music came to an end and he was forced to follow her as she moved quickly towards the d.u.c.h.ess.

When she reached the Dowager, who was talking to several elderly gentlemen, Ula curtseyed and said, "I thank Your Highness."

"You will dance with me again."

It was a statement rather than a question.

"I am afraid that will be impossible," Ula said quickly. "Your Highness will realise that, as the ball is given in my honour, my programme is already full."

There was an expression in his half-closed eyes which made her feel embarra.s.sed and increased her dislike of him even more.

"I shall not forget you, Miss Forde," he said and, taking the hand she held out to him, raised it to his lips.

Because Ula was wearing attractive mittens of fine lace rather than gloves, she could feel his lips, thick, warm and sensuous on her skin. She felt herself, as if touched by a reptile, shiver with revulsion.

Then, after what seemed a long time, he released her and to her relief she found the Marquis was at her side.

"Why were you dancing with the Prince?" he asked sharply in a voice that only she could hear.

"I-I could not a help it," she answered, "but a please don't let him come a near me a again. There is something horrible about him that a frightens me!"

She looked up at the Marquis as she spoke and saw an expression of anger in his eyes.

"That creature should not have come here in the first place," he said. "He is certainly not the sort of man you should a.s.sociate with."

Then, before he could say anything more, her partner for the next dance, a young man in the Household Cavalry, came to her side.

As they danced the quadrille it was a relief to know that she need not be held close in the arms of a man she had disliked on sight.

At the same time, for the rest of the evening, she was aware that the Prince was watching her. It made her feel self-conscious and as if she could not escape from his scrutiny any more than she could from her uncle's, her aunt's and Sarah's.

The ball did not end until three o'clock in the morning when, despite protests from the guests who wished to go on dancing, the Marquis ordered the band to play the National Anthem.

"It was such a wonderful party, how can we bear it to come to an end?" a very lovely lady glittering with a profusion of rubies in her dark hair said to the Marquis.

"You may not need your beauty sleep, Georgina," the Marquis replied, "but my grandmother is growing old and late nights are not good for her."

The lady called Georgina pouted her lips provocatively.

The way she looked at the Marquis told Ula that she was enamoured of him. In fact, she was only one of the many beautiful women she had noticed who all the evening had been fawning on him, putting their hands on his arm and lifting their lovely faces to his with what appeared to be an invitation in their eyes.

'And is it surprising that they find him irresistible, when he is so handsome and also so very kind?' Ula mused.

"A wonderful party, Drogo!" the d.u.c.h.ess said when the last guest had gone and she moved slowly across the hall towards the staircase.

"You are not too tired?" the Marquis asked.

"I am very tired," the d.u.c.h.ess replied, "but elated by the huge success that Ula enjoyed. Everybody, with the exception of three of our guests, told me how beautiful she was and your men-friends all averred that she eclipsed any beauty they had ever seen."

"I really cannot believe that," Ula protested. "But I am so glad that, after all the trouble you have taken, I did not let you down."

She was looking at the Marquis as she spoke, then added almost as if she wished to make sure, "You a you were not a disappointed?"

"No, of course not," he said quite sincerely. "You were exactly what I wanted."

She knew that he was thinking of the frustrated expression on her cousin Sarah's face when she had said goodnight to him.

Ula was standing near enough for her to hear Sarah say, "I am very hurt that you left The Hall after you had called the other day without seeing me."

"It was what I heard, rather than saw, which made me leave," the Marquis replied.

For a moment Lady Sarah did not understand. Until, as if she guessed the meaning of the words, she stiffened and there was a puzzled expression of concern on her beautiful face.

Then she turned away and went quickly to join her father and mother who were just leaving the ballroom.

Ula went to bed feeling as if the dance music was still playing in her heart and the beauty of the scene was still floating in front of her eyes.

Because she wanted to think only of happy things, she deliberately forced herself not to remember the hostility of her aunt and uncle and Sarah.

She thought instead of the flattering words that her partners had said to her and most of all the approval in the Marquis's eyes.

Then just before she fell asleep she remembered how much she disliked Prince Hasin, and felt herself shiver.

Although the d.u.c.h.ess and Ula slept late, the Marquis was up early and as usual went riding in the Park.

He met a number of his friends and they all combined to tell him that the ball he had given last night was the best they could ever remember and it would be impossible for anyone to rival, let alone eclipse it.

"You are very flattering," the Marquis said.

"I cannot think how you do it, Raventhorpe," one of the gentlemen on horseback remarked, "and it's no use our trying to beat you when you produce for our delectation an angel who only for you would have dropped out of the sky!"

There was a roar of laughter at this.

Then somebody else said, "The Prince Regent always. .h.i.ts the nail on the head. Miss Forde does look exactly like an angel and the proper place for her would be a shrine in your hall at Raven, where we can all light pink candles in front of her!"

There was more laughter, but as the gentlemen rode off, the Marquis was thinking with satisfaction that it was he who had first thought that Ula looked like an angel when he had given her a lift in his phaeton to help her escape from Chessington Hall.

He, like Ula, had been well aware last night that the Earl and Countess had been furious at Ula's success.

They had found it difficult to realise that the radiantly beautiful girl who attracted everybody's attention was the wretched child they had ill-treated to the point where she could bear their cruelty no longer.

He was sure that they were wondering how he had met her and by what supernatural means she had been transformed overnight into being the most talked-of and admired young woman in the whole of the Beau Monde.

The Marquis congratulated himself, feeling he had pulled off a coup that was even more satisfactory than winning a cla.s.sic race.

He had known it was with the greatest difficulty that the Earl had refrained from asking him searching questions as to how he had met Ula.

Sarah's obvious frustration because he did not go near her during the whole evening had pleased him as much as if he had won a large sum of money at the card tables.

One look at her petulant face, when she was not deliberately smiling with what he was sure was an effort, told him he had had a very lucky escape. Never would he endanger his freedom and risk his comfortable way of living by marrying anybody.

There were cousins who could succeed to the Marquisate and, if he did not have a son, why should that worry him, after he was dead?

'I will never marry,' he vowed, 'and never again will I be fool enough to be deceived by a woman!'

The cynical lines on his face were even more deeply p.r.o.nounced than usual as he rode back to Berkeley Square. He found, as he expected, that he was to breakfast alone, there being no sign of either of the ladies.

He was quite content, but he would have been even more pleased with himself if he had known of the scene that was taking place two streets away.

It was in the imposing residence the Earl had bought, gambling on his daughter being the outstanding success she had undoubtedly been up until last night.

The Earl had come down to breakfast first in a bad mood.

He had drunk too much of the Marquis's excellent champagne and even more of his superb claret with the result that his right foot in which he suffered from gout was paining him.

He was helping himself to a dish of sweetbreads and fresh mushrooms, when to his surprise his daughter Sarah joined him.

"You are very early, my dear!" he remarked.