Read Online 104. A Heart Finds Love by Barbara Cartland - Free Book Online Page A

before, you complained that, unless we were conversing with the High and Mighty, you never understood a word that was said to you.”
    ”That is exactly what I am saying to you now.”
    They were walking along the passage and came to the study where Brooks was holding the door open.
    “Tea is ready, Your Grace,” he said to the Duke, “and I do hope you enjoys the cake my Missus has made especially for you.”
    “That is very kind of her. Please thank her. I am sure it will be delicious.”
    “I hope that you’ll say the same when your Grace’s eaten it,” Brooks replied.
    The two men went into the study where Alnina was sitting on the sofa.
    She was looking, the Duke thought, exceedingly attractive in a cotton dress, which might not have been the height of fashion, but it matched the blue of her eyes.
    “Come and have tea,” she said. “You deserve it. I heard Brooks telling you that his wife has made one of her special cakes and she will be hurt and upset if you don’t enjoy it.”
    “I am sure that it’s like everything else you have given us,” the Duke said, “unique and different in every way from anything we have had before.”
    Alnina laughed.
    “I am so glad that is my reputation, because like you I get very bored when things are humdrum and always exactly the same. That is why I like travelling.”
    “I have just been telling the Duke,” William said, “that it will be no use his impressing Prince Vladimir with our photographs if we cannot find an honest overseer for the mountain.”
    Even as he finished speaking, he realised that he had been indiscreet and the Duke had not told Alnina what he was trying to buy from the Prince.
    He put his fingers up to his lips and, looking at the Duke, sighed,
    “I am sorry, John.”
    “I thought that it was women who could not keep a secret,” the Duke said. “But I feel that we can trust Miss Lester, so we will let her into the plan.”
    “Oh, please do!” Alnina begged. “You told me that there was a special reason for your going to Georgia, but not what it was.”
    “The trouble with William has always been that he talks too much, but our secret, now that you know at least a quarter of it, shall be yours and I will tell you that, ever since I last visited Georgia and saw the fantastic Caucasus mountains, I wanted to own one.”
    Alnina stared at him.
    “To own a mountain! But how exciting! And how thrilling! Of course it would be something really precious to have, all of one’s own.”
    “That is exactly what I feel, but I never thought that I could possibly afford one until by the curious hand of Fate I became the Duke.”
    “Now you are really going to buy a mountain? It’s the most intriguing idea I have ever heard.”
    “Everyone else will think I am a fool, but this is the one thing I want, because, when William and I were there some years ago, we explored one that belongs to Prince Vladimir and we are quite certain that it contains gold.”
    “So then you will have a gold mountain all of your own. It’s not surprising that you are so excited.”
    “William has just presented a difficulty however.”
    “What is that?” Alnina asked.
    “Well, neither of us speak Russian and, as he has pointed out, we will need to hire a trustworthy overseer we can give orders to. We must hope that he speaks French.”
    Alnina looked from one to the other.
    “Are you really telling me that you are thinking of buying a mountain which will cost you a lot of money and neither of you speaks Russian?”
    “Because we both spoke French all the time with the people we were staying with and with the Prince when we met him, it never occurred to me that the ordinary people of Georgia speak a different language altogether.”
    “But of course they do,” Alnina said.
    “What I have suggested,” William broke in, “is that we both learn Russian before we go out and spend a great deal of money buying this mountain over which, however much gold it contains,