Although, if one wanted to put a fine point on it, which did seem rather precise for such an abstract sort of concept, his dreams didn’t exactly include a woman. Well, not one with any specific and identifiable attributes. He didn’t know anything about this woman of his, the one who was supposed to transform his life completely, turning him into a happy pillar of boredom and respectability. He didn’t know if she would be short or tall, dark or fair. He’d like to think she would be intelligent and in possession of a fine sense of humor, but beyond that, how was he to know? She could be shy or out-spoken. She might like to sing. Or maybe not. Maybe she was a horsewoman, with a ruddy complexion born of too much time out of doors.

He didn’t know. When it came to this woman, this impossible, wonderful, and currently nonexistent woman, all he really knew was that when he found her…

He’d know.

He didn’t know how he’d know; he just knew that he would. Something this momentous, this earth-shattering and life-altering…well, really, it wasn’t going to whisper its way into existence. It would come full and forceful, like the proverbial ton of bricks. The only question was when.

And in the meantime, he saw no reason not to have a fine time while he anticipated her arrival. One didn’t need to behave like a monk while waiting for one’s true love, after all.

Gregory was, by all accounts, a fairly typical man about London, with a comfortable-although by no means extravagant-allowance, plenty of friends, and a level enough head to know when to quit a gaming table. He was considered a decent enough catch on the Marriage Mart, if not precisely the top selection (fourth sons never did command a great deal of attention), and he was always in demand when the society matrons needed an eligible man to even up the numbers at dinner parties.