The Dollar Prince's Wife by Paula Marshall Read Free Book Online

most…exercised by it.’
    Yes, Lady Dinah would like tea. And why were Chesterman and Greaves being so mysterious about the American? It was bad enough working out what to say to a house full of Violet’s cronies without wondering how she ought to address an odd, old American, who had arrived early. Why?
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    Later, after she had drunk her tea, she allowed Pearson to dress her in a little girl’s frock of white-dotted Swiss with a blue sash, her long dark hair tied back by a blue velvet ribbon. It was an outfit which Dinah glumly decided made her look about fifteen, but which would certainly protect her from unwanted masculine attentions!
    What to do now in this great empty barracks? She decided to visit the library and spend a happy hour there, forgetting Violet and at the same time avoiding elderly American gentlemen who would not be likely to find the library at all attractive.
    Her notebook and her pencil-case in her hand, she made her way towards it down the main staircase. On the way she walked past the portraits of Lord Kenilworth’s predatory-looking ancestors—he must be a great disappointment to them, she decided. Her mother always spoke of him as a pussy cat who allowed Violet far too much of her own way.
    Finally she reached the library’s double doors—to discover that she was mistaken. Someone was already there. A someone who, improbably, was playing the guitar. Equally improbably what was being played superbly was a piece written for it by Vivaldi, which she had once heard at a concert in Oxford she had attended with Faa.
    For a moment Dinah hesitated, thought of retreating, and then, clutching her notebook and pencil-case to her, she made a decision which was to alter her life forever. She opened the door and walked into the library in order to discover who the unknown musician was…
    He was seated on a long, low bench in a huge bay window facing the door, his head bent over his guitar. He lifted it to look at her whilst continuing to play…and Dinah stopped dead at the sight of him.
    He was, quite simply, the most beautiful man she had ever seen. So beautiful that she swallowed unbelievingly. He was like the statue of the Apollo Belvedere, a copy of which she had seen at Oxford. He possessed the same classic perfection of both face and figure. His eyes were blue and the hyacinthine curls of his hair were of the palest gold.
    His clothes were perfect, too. He made Dinah feel untidy. It wasn’t fair that he should look like that—and to be able to play so well—she thought in anguish. No one person should possess so much when so many possessed so little.
    His amazing eyes were steady on her while the music began to wind in on itself to reach its ending, which it did in a cluster of phrases of the utmost purity. What was more amazing was, that although the complex series of notes flowed from Apollo’s fingers with such divine accuracy, there was no music before him.
    It was over. He rose, placed the guitar on the bench, andwalked across to where she stood, mesmerised, registering his height and his compelling presence.
    He said, bowing, ‘You must be Lady Dinah Freville, Violet’s sister. You will forgive me for remaining seated and continuing to play when you entered, but the music demanded my homage, and yours, too, I hope.’
    He took her unresisting hand, kissed the back of it, and relinquished it gently. He retreated a little but still continued to speak, since he appeared to realise that she had been struck dumb by shock.
    The moment that he had taken her hand in his, Dinah had suddenly been transported out of the library and into a vast open space, with a multicoloured sky above it, banners of light weaving in the warm air. He was there beside her—how?
    Then, when her hand became her own again, they were back in the library, and she was listening to his beautiful voice.
    â€˜Allow me to introduce myself. I am