CHAPTER ONE
- ENGLAND 1867“I think you are the most beautiful woman in the world, the most enchanting, the most bewitching – ”
“Please!” Celina Storton tried to silence her admirer, although she found it hard not to laugh.
The Marquis of Delaine was a well meaning young man, and there was no doubting his sincerity, but nature had created him the wrong shape for passionate declarations.
He was large, wide and heavy. The most expensive clothes would never make him elegant, any more than the best tutors could made him clever.
“Don’t say any more,” Celina begged. “We should return to the ballroom, lest people notice our absence and talk.”
“But I haven’t finished,” he said determinedly. “And I want them to talk, let them all speak of our engagement.”
“There is no engagement – ”
“But the
