104. A Heart Finds Love Read Online Free PDF

walked up the stairs, that there were gaps where furniture had once stood and a great number of empty spaces on the walls. It was easy to see where the pictures had hung as the wallpaper was fresh, whilst the walls themselves were obviously in need of decorating.
    Alnina, without speaking, led the Duke along the passage where the best bedrooms were situated.
    She opened the door into her mother’s room and the sunshine streaming in through the windows made it seem, with its elegant gilt bed and cupid-decorated mirror, very charming.
    The wedding dress was hanging on the outside of the wardrobe where Alnina had left it and the rays of the sun were shimmering brightly on the diamante and making the whole gown sparkle.
    The Duke stared at it and then he said,
    “It is magnificent, the finest wedding dress I have ever seen.”
    “I thought you would think so,” Alnina answered. “My father bought it in China and my mother wore it at their wedding. Otherwise it has never been used.”
    “I suppose really you were keeping it for yourself,” the Duke enquired.
    Alnina laughed and shook her head.
    “I think it would now appear very peculiar in any English Church and, if indeed I did marry, I would want something less spectacular.”
    “Well, it’s exactly what I want,” the Duke said.
    “I suppose you have asked your wife if she will wear anything so unusual, Your Grace?” Alnina asked.
    The Duke smiled.
    “Now I must explain that there is no wife, but I want, if you would like the truth, to pretend that there is one.”
    Alnina looked puzzled.
    “I don’t understand,” she murmured.
    “Are you really interested in selling it?”
    “Of course I am. You said you liked the wedding dress and I admit that it is very beautiful. Yet, although I should not say so, since I am anxious to sell it, I think that most young women would feel rather embarrassed to wear anything so fancy at an ordinary wedding.”
    Then she suddenly put up both her hands as if to apologise and added quickly,
    “I should not have said that! Because you are a Duke, your wedding will not be ordinary.”
    “As I have already told you, although you have not understood, there is no bride.”
    He saw the baffled expression on Alnina’s pretty face and went on,
    “I am pretending to be a married man because I fervently wish to buy something very special from a certain foreigner and he is determined, because he is a Prince, that his daughter will marry an English aristocrat.”
    Alnina laughed.
    “I have heard of that happening in a number of families abroad and naturally an English Duke would make a very special and distinguished bridegroom.”
    “Which I have no intention of being – ”
    “Then why do you want a wedding dress?”
    “Because I am going to pretend, as I said, that I am married, so that there will be no question of being hurried up the aisle in some obscure Church – perhaps at pistol-point – to marry a girl who cannot even speak English.”
    Alnina laughed again.
    “That certainly would be an unpleasant situation,” she said, “to say the least of it.”
    “I will buy your wedding dress, Miss Lester, but I think I must make it a condition that you find me someone who will be photographed in it as my wife.”
    “Are you really serious?” Alnina questioned him. “It does seem such an extraordinary thing to do, but I can understand you not wishing to have a Prince, whoever he may be, pushing his daughter into your arms.”
    “I can see you are as quick-witted as your brother used to be at school,” the Duke replied. “I remember he found a special way of getting someone else to do his out-of-school work when he wanted to be on the cricket field!”
    “That sounds very like Charles,” Alnina said. But go on telling me about this Prince you have to deceive.”
    “It’s quite simple, I want to buy something from him that he will not part with very easily. And he has a daughter and he is completely determined that she