The Earl laughed.
“I sincerely hope it will not do so, especially as it has survived for so many centuries already.”
He was, however, touched by the way she spoke and thought that few women would express their gratitude so prettily or indeed be so grateful.
He had given so many presents in his life, but had always been expected to give more.
He had sometimes imagined that when a woman saw him she not only lifted her lips to his before he invited them, but at the same time she had her greedy little hands in his pocket.
Now he thought that it was Cledra’s youth that not only made her so grateful but made everything that was happening to her seem to be part of a Fairytale.
‘Soon, because she is very lovely,’ he thought, ‘she will become spoilt, blasé and inevitably a bore like every oth
