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,

“It is not a chip off the old block – itis 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,

“The Duke of Sparkbrook is here to see you, Prime Minister.”

“Please bring him in.”

The Duke entered and then William Pitt jumped up from the writing table holding out his hand.

“It is delightful to see you, Varin,” he said.

“I 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.

“I 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.

“If 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.”

“I heard she is beautiful,” smiled William, “but are your women ever anything else?”

Anyone who knew the Duke was aware that hisaffaires-de-coeurs ended, as someone said, ‘almost before they began’.

It was not surprising that the most beautiful women in Society were attracted