Rivals for Love Read Online Free Page A

suppose that you are really pleased with yourself for having got your own way and escaped for the moment! But now you will have to think very seriously about what you will do when Edward and I depart for Madrid. I know your father will not be at all pleased if he knows you have gone home again and are staying there alone.”
    Elva shrugged her shoulders as if it did not worry her.
    â€œPerhaps a miracle will happen, Aunt Violet, and in some extraordinary way I shall find myself in a part of the world I have never visited before. Of course strictly chaperoned even if it is by an elephant or a peacock!”
    â€œNow you are making it all into one big fairy tale,” protested her aunt. “Yet perhaps, as you say, something unexpected will happen.”
    â€œYou never know. The man in the moon might ask me to visit him. If he does, I promise you I will accept immediately!”
    As the carriage sped on Lady Violet was laughing.

CHAPTER TWO
    The Prime Minister walked towards his writing table.
    He never entered this particular room without glancing towards his father’s portrait hanging over the mantelpiece.
    Even though he had been Prime Minister for seven years, William Pitt still thought how inexpressibly lucky he was.
    His father had been, without exception, the most famous British Statesman of the eighteenth century and his son, William, was the youngest man ever to become Prime Minister at the age of twenty-four.
    Of course there were those prepared to say that his unprecedented success was only because he was the Earl of Chatham’s son. Yet after listening to William’s maiden speech in the House of Commons, Edmund Burke, the distinguished Statesman, exclaimed,
    â€œIt is not a chip off the old block – it is the old block!”
    William Pitt was now thirty-one and the years he had been in office had proved to be exceptional in every way.
    As he sat down at his desk and picked up his pen, the door opened and one of his secretaries announced,
    â€œThe Duke of Sparkbrook is here to see you, Prime Minister.”
    â€œPlease bring him in.”
    The Duke entered and then William Pitt jumped up from the writing table holding out his hand.
    â€œIt is delightful to see you, Varin,” he said.
    â€œI can only say the same, William.”
    They were practically the same age and had been at Cambridge University together.
    After their education was over William joined the Bar as a member of Lincoln’s Inn, whilst the Duke, who at that time had no idea he would inherit the Dukedom, had begun his travels abroad.
    Yet whenever they could the two young men met as their friendship was important in both their lives.
    â€œI am not only delighted to see you again, Varin,” continued the Prime Minister they both sat down, “but I desperately need your help.”
    The Duke held up his hands.
    â€œIf it means that I must walk barefoot in the desert or climb the Himalayas, I am just going to refuse. I have something rather more attractive to keep me in London at the moment.”
    â€œI heard she is beautiful,” smiled William, “but are your women ever anything else?”
    Anyone who knew the Duke was aware that his affaires-de-coeurs ended, as someone said, ‘almost before they began’.
    It was not surprising that the most beautiful women in Society were attracted to him. He was tall, dark, slim and extremely handsome. In fact it was difficult to think of any other man who could be so good-looking.
    â€œWell, I can only hope,” the Prime Minister was saying, “that this affair will last no longer than any of your others, because I need you to do something which I cannot entrust to anyone else.”
    The Duke’s lips twisted a little.
    He had heard this line of attack before and realised that the Prime Minister knew only too well that he found it difficult to resist one of his challenges.
    â€œWhat I want you to do, Varin, is to go to