From what little he'd learned of his late mother's husband, that sounded like Seamus McEnery. The man had been a hothead, brash and vigorous, a hard, determined, wily despot. Which was almost certainly why he'd been born. His mother had not enjoyed being married to such a man; his father, Sebastian Cynster, 5th Duke of St. Ives, sent to McEnery House to douse Seamus's political fire, had taken pity on her and given her what joy he could.

Which had resulted in Richard. The story was so old-thirty years old, to be precise-he no longer felt anything over it, bar a distant regret. For the mother he'd never known. She'd died of fever bare months after his birth; Seamus had sent him post-haste to the Cynsters, the most merciful thing he could have done. They'd claimed him and reared him as one of their own, which, in all ways that mattered, he was. Cynsters bred true, especially the males. He was a Cynster through and through.

And that was the other reason he'd left London. The only important social event he was missing was his cousin Vane's belated wedding breakfast, an occasion he'd viewed with misgiving. He wasn't blind-he'd seen the gleam steadily glowing in the eyes of the older Cynster ladies. Like Helena, the Dowager, his much-loved step-mother, not to mention his fleet of aunts. If he'd attended Vane and Patience's celebration, they'd have set their sights on him. He wasn't yet bored enough, restless enough, to offer himself up, fodder for their matrimonial machinations. Not yet.

He knew himself well, perhaps too well. He wasn't an impulsive man. He liked his life well ordered, predictable-he liked to be in control. He'd seen war in his time but he was a man of peace. Of passion. Of home and hearth.