CHAPTER TWOIlina was mending one of the curtains in the Duke’s study.
The lining had split near the ground so she was sitting on the floor stitching it back into place afraid that even her delicate sewing would make the material, which was old and fragile, split again.
Because the curtains were becoming dusty she was wearing a housemaid’s overall over her gown and a piece of white muslin tied over her hair.
She was thinking as she worked that this room at any rate, which was the only that one she kept open, looked attractive.
There were two huge vases of daffodils, which she had picked the day before, and which had just come into full golden bloom, and the sunshine illuminated the pictures on the wall, the china and the fine old furniture that she polished whenever she had the time.
I
