Chapter Seven“What did Niobe say then?” Freddy insisted for the hundredth time.
“She told me that her father had forced her to marry the Marquis,” the Viscount replied. “She had pleaded with him and begged him, claiming that she loved me, but he would not listen to her.”
Freddy made a derisive sound, but he did not speak and the Viscount went on,
“She then said that she was frightened to disobey Sir Aylmer, but she had loved me for a long time and how could I imagine that she wanted to marry the Marquis when he was so old and often ill.”
There was a poignant silence.
Then Freddy, although he had heard it all before, asked,
“What did you answer?”
“I did not answer for a long time,” the Viscount replied, “because I was thinking, strange though it seemed, that Niobe no longer attracted
