AUTHOR'S NOTE

      ‘Elf’ once meant all the spirits or demons associated with nature, who were supposed to inhabit the waters, the woods and the mountains.

      To say the word ‘elf’ in all the Germanic languages and in other languages as well that have borrowed the word, has a more restricted meaning.

      The elves were thought of as being handsomer and better made than men only smaller.

      The young female elves would enchant and bewitch a man by their beauty. If he took part in their dancing, he was lost and never seen again.

      Usually their dancing was without witnesses but in the morning traces of their feet could be seen in the moist grass.

      Silvanus, a Latin Deity popular in Rome from the very early days lived in forests and in the mountains and protected agriculture.

      Several animals were sacred to him, the horse, the wolf and also the woodpecker. Among plants and trees dedicated to his name were the fig tree, the oak, the dogwort and the laurel.

      CHAPTER ONE ~ 1870

      As the door of the library opened, Lady Elfa Allerton immediately lay down on the floor of the balcony.

      The library in the Duke of Northallerton’s house was one of its outstanding features and every visitor exclaimed over its imposing proportions and the intricate brass balcony that ran round two walls and was reached by a spiral brass steps.

      The bottom part of the balcony rail was of such a close design of flowers and leaves that when Lady Elf lay down it was impossible for her to be seen by anybody in the room below.

      Silently pushing her book in front of her she went on reading, hoping that whoever was below would soon go away.

      She suspected that it was her mother and she knew only too well that if she was seen she would immediately be sent into the garden on some errand or to work amongst the flowers.

      The Duchess of Northallerton was obsessed by her garden and she could not understand why her children found it boring to cut off dead heads, to plant new acquisitions from various parts of the country or worse still to weed the flower beds.

      She had long been convinced that her second daughter, Elfa; spent far too much time reading, which resulted in her head being in the clouds and her living as the Duchess often said to whoever would listen in ‘a dream world of her own’.

      Elfa very gently turned over a page and concentrating on what she was reading, which she found of absorbing interest.

      She started when she heard her father’s voice saying sharply,

      “So here you are, Elizabeth. I have been looking for you everywhere. I expected you to be in the garden.”

      “I was looking up how to spell the Latin name for the new azalea that has just arrived,” the Duchess replied. “You must come and see it, Arthur. It is a very rare species and I am so excited that it has travelled so well.”

      “I have something to tell you, Elizabeth,” the Duke said, “that is far more exciting than a new azalea or any of the rest of your plants.”

      “What has happened?” the Duchess asked a little apprehensively.

      She was aware that her stolid rather prosaic husband was rarely excited about anything and it was certainly unusual for it to sound in his voice.

      “I have settled the question of Magnus Croft once and for all,” the Duke declared.

      “Magnus Croft?” the Duchess repeated.

      “Don’t be so stupid, Elizabeth! You know just as well as I do that I am referring to the ten thousand acres of land that has been a bone of contention between us and Lynchester for the last twenty years.”

      “Oh – that!” the Duchess exclaimed.

      “Yes, that!” the Duke said positively, “and I think that nobody except myself could have thought of such an excellent and amicable compromise.”

      Elfa was listening now because she knew even better than her mother how this dispute over the ownership of Magnus Croft had engendered such a feud between two Ducal houses.

      While it had amused the County, it had resulted in a bitterness that had prevented the two Dukes from enjoying each other’s company.

      That the two largest and most important landlords in the whole neighbourhood should be engaged in a violent squabble had not only been the subject of endless gossip but it had even resulted in references being made to it in the newspapers.

      The latest had just infuriated the Duke of Northallerton who had a contempt for what he termed ‘the gutter press’ and thought that the only justification for any decent Nobleman to appear in print was on the occasions of his birth and his death.

      Because of the enmity in the district known as ‘the Dukery’, Elfa and her sister Caroline had suffered in that they were never invited to any of the parties that took place in Chester Hall, the residence of the Duke of Lynchester.

      This had not worried them when they were children for there were a great many other neighbours who were glad to entertain them.

      But now that Caroline was grown up and Elfa was to make her debut this year, it was infuriating to know that the new Duke, who had inherited two years ago, gave large parties of every sort and description from which they were always excluded.

      “You would not enjoy the parties anyway,” the Duchess had said positively when they complained to their mother. “The Duke’s friends are very much older and more sophisticated than you are and you would feel out of place amongst them.”

      The way she spoke in a somewhat repressed manner told Elfa at once that her mother disapproved of the Duke’s friends.

      Yet she could not help thinking that they would be more amusing and more interesting than the elderly hunting Squires and County dignitaries who were often at Allerton Towers.

      Although Caroline had now ceased to be interested in the Duke, Elfa used to see him occasionally in the distance when she was out hunting and thought that he looked exactly as a Duke should.

      She was therefore listening intently as her mother asked,

      “What have you done about the land, Arthur? I am tired of hearing about it and I should have thought the most sensible thing would be for you and the Duke of Lynchester to divide it between you.”

      “You never listen to anything I say, Elizabeth!” her husband roared. “If I have told you once, I have told you over and over again that, when the late Duke suggested it to my father, he categorically refused to even consider such an idea. He said that the land was his and he was damned if he would give it up even if he was down to his last penny piece!”

      The Duchess sighed.

      “I had forgotten that, Arthur.”

      “Well, you must remember arguments about it. Lynchester always insinuated that my father won it off him at cards when he was too drunk to know what he was doing. All I can say is that, if a man gambles when he is in that condition, he deserves all he gets!”

      The Duchess sighed again.

      She had heard all this dozens of times before. In fact she could not remember any time during her marriage when the subject of the land that lay between the two Ducal estates had not somehow crept into the conversation.

      The whole problem was that the ten thousand acres of Magnus Croft had been some of the best shooting land on the Lynchester Estate and its woods held more pheasants than any of the Allerton coverts.

      She knew now she thought of it that the present Duke had started as soon as he inherited to try to persuade her husband to allow him to buy back the land that had belonged to the Lynchesters for centuries.

      The Duke of Northallerton was not particularly short of money and also Magnus Croft was on the extreme edge of his estate and therefore difficult